Bees campaign builds buzz for P.E.I.'s Veseys Seeds

The buzz over the "Bring Back the Bees" contest has turned Veseys Seeds in York, P.E.I. into a beehive of activity. The Island company and General Mills Canada are handing out free packages of wildflower seeds and the response has been 'overwhelming'.

'They were quite overwhelmed, as were we'

Nancy Russell CBC News Posted: Apr 07, 2016 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: April 7, 2016

A million boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios will be sold in Canada promoting the Bring Back the Bees campaign. (Submitted)

The buzz over the Bring Back the Beescontest has turned Veseys Seeds in York, P.E.I. into a beehive of activity.

Honey Nut Cheerios teams with P.E.I company to bring back Buzz

The Island company has partnered with General Mills Canada for a national campaign to plant wildflowersand bring awareness to the importance of bees as pollinators.

Veseysis giving awaypackages of free wildflower seeds to anyone who enters the contest, and the original offering of 100,000 packagesdidn't last long.

"Actually it was just a matter of days," recallsJohn Barrett, director of sales, marketing and development at Veseys.

It was 'all hands on deck' in the warehouse at Veseys as they moved quickly to provide another 100,000 packages of seeds. (Submitted)

"They were quite overwhelmed, as were we."

General Millsasked Veseys for another 100,000seed packages, so they had to scramble.

"We called in a lot of favours with a lot of people," said Barrett.

"It was sort of a all hands on decksituation in order to get them filled quickly."

The number of entries has now climbed to more than 255,000.

Catalogue shortage

Veseys was also flooded with requests for seed catalogues, with one out of every two contest entrants asking for one.

John Barrett is hoping that the investment in printing and sending out more catalogues will pay off. (Submitted by Veseys Seeds)

"We may have made it a little too easy for people to request a Veseys catalogue," joked Barrett.

"As of this morning, we've already had, just as a result of this campaign, 60,000catalogue requests."

Shortly after the contest started, the company had to rushback to itsprinter for an additional 100,000 catalogues.

"There was a lot of sweet-talking there, just to have press time available," explained Barrett.

Veseys also came up with a creative way to keepreprint costs down by using the U.S. version of its seed catalogue 76 pages versus the 180-pageCanadian edition.

"We were able to print quicker and at a more economical rate," said Barrett, adding that it also helped save on postage.

There is a substantial cost to fulfilling the requests for the catalogues, Barrettadmits,but he'shopeful the company willat least recoup the costs of printing and mailing.

"If the prize was a trip for two to Cancun, or simply a cash prize, well then everybody and their neighbour would want to enter this contest," said Barrett.

Veseys had to order more of the specialized seed packages after the first 100,000 were snapped up within the first few days of the contest. (Submitted)

The one redeeming featurefrom Veseysstandpointis that the grand prize is one of five $5,000 garden makeovers.

"If you're interested in receiving that prize, you obviously have an interest in gardening and your own particular gardens," added Barrett, saying their fingers are crossed that customers will end up ordering from those catalogues.

Encore possible

Barrett is also hoping that the overwhelming success of the Bring Back the Bees contest will convince General Mills to take the campaign south of the border, something he thinks could growVeseys' U.S. business.

"I was told 'Well, we'll do a wait and see, and see how it goes in Canada,'" said Barrett.

"But General Mills has been amazed by the response to the contest and overwhelmed in fact, and their U.S. counterparts have been watching this closely."

Barrett is hopeful the companies will be able to team up for asimilar contest to launch in spring 2017.

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