[Pollinator] This Is What Your Grocery Store Looks Like Without Bees (PHOTOS)

[Matthew Shepherd]

Unfortunately, the photos of shelves with and without pollinator-dependent
foods won’t copy. You’ll have to go to the Huffington Post page to see
those.



FROM: Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/store-without-bees_n_5500380.html

6/17/14
This Is What Your Grocery Store Looks Like Without Bees (PHOTOS)

The Huffington Post  | By Nick Visser
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-visser>

Posted: 06/17/2014 11:08 am EDT Updated: 06/17/2014 11:59 am EDT



Hoping to pick up some chocolate, apples, lemons or watermelon during your
next outing to the supermarket? What about an iced coffee with a splash of
cream? Bees, beetles, butterflies and their pollinating brethren are
essential in the production of nearly 75 percent of our crops
<http://www.fws.gov/pollinators/>, and without them, you could count out
all those foods -- and many, many others.

Pollinators are dying off in record numbers, and scientists are still
struggling to figure out
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/honeybees-usda_n_4852443.html?utm_hp_ref=bees>
what's causing the problem (pesticides
<http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/05/smoking-gun-bee-collapse>?
food
availability
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/04/red-honey_n_3868042.html?utm_hp_ref=bees>?
mites <http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=2744&page=14>?). Today, a
quarter of Europe's bumblebees
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/02/europe-bumblebees_n_5075547.html?utm_hp_ref=bees>
face extinction, and the beautiful and beloved migration of the Monarch
butterfly
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/monarch-butterfly-migration_n_4688709.html>
-- another pollinator -- is in danger of disappearing.

Last year, Whole Foods Market removed all of the fruits and vegetables
dependent on pollinators
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/supermarket-without-bees_n_3442938.html?utm_hp_ref=bees>
from its produce section to create a striking visual of what our
supermarkets would look like without these important creatures as part of
its Share The Buzz <http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/sharethebuzz> campaign.
The store ditched a shocking 237 items, or 52 percent of the normal product
mix. This year, the grocery chain has extended the pollinator's reach to
the dairy counter, where milk, yogurt, butter and cheese could disappear.

Take a look:

*Story continues below.*



The grocery chain wrote "with bees" and "without bees" on the photos
because they're the most well-known pollinator, but it removed any food
that would be impacted by a loss of pollinators more broadly. (Surprise:
chocolate is pollinated by flies
<http://www.pollinator.org/Resources/Chocolate%20and%20Pollinators.pdf>.)

"We wouldn't really have much of a business or a livelihood on one level
without pollinators," Errol Schweizer, Whole Foods
<http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/mission-values/core-values/sustainability-and-our-future>
executive global grocery coordinator, told The Huffington Post. "We'd see a
70 percent reduction of foods, and really, without pollinators we wouldn't
have a food system."

What can consumers do? Schweizer suggested buying organic.

"I don't think the solutions are too complex," he said. "Organic farms
provide natural forage [for pollinators]. Bees need to eat, pollinators
need to eat ... and the honest truth is a lot of solutions are on the
shelf."

Scott Black, executive director of the invertebrate conservation nonprofit
Xerces Society <http://www.xerces.org/>, has been working with Whole Foods
for years to educate consumers and address the root cause of pollinator
decline. He calls his work "advocating for the bottom of the food chain"
that often goes overlooked.

"One-third of every bite we eat is due to a pollinator," Black told
HuffPost. "These pollinators are vital for us as humans, but they're also
vital for the planet -- we require animal pollination for 85 percent of
flowering plants. These bees are producing the fruits and the seeds from
pollination that feed everything from songbirds to grizzly bears."

Want to learn more? On Saturday, June 21, Whole Foods is holding a "Human
Bee-In <http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/sharethebuzz>" in its stores to
teach customers about the issue.

*Take a look at the original produce section without bees below.*
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