NESTLE UK & IRELAND is launching an initiative to help halt the decline of Britain’s butterfly population.
As part of a new national programme, Nestlé will co-ordinate the planting of 75 acres if butterfly meadow – the equivalent of nearly 250 football pitches – with the aim of attracting more than 10 varieties of butterflies to the sites.
By 2015 all of Nestlé’s UK sites will have a wildflower meadow within factory grounds.
In addition, seven dairy farmers, part of the Nestlé First Milk Sustainability Partnership have joined the programme to boost the total to 75 acres. The farmers are from the group who supply the Girvan factory in Scotland with around 70 million litres of milk each year to be used in Nestlé’s milk chocolate and will plant wildflower meadows on their land. Nestlé will look to further expand the programme across the entire supply chain.
Mike Dilger, Vice President of Butterfly Conservation, naturalist, TV presenter and broadcaster: “This is very positive news from Nestlé. I am fully supportive of any programme which sees the planting of new habitats for butterflies and other pollinators and I welcome their lead on this issue.
Whether it is unused space within a factory site, a farm, a school, a back garden or even a window box, nature in the UK needs help and I hope Nestlé’s commitment to wildflower meadows inspires other businesses, organisations and individuals to follow suit.”
Working with local representatives from Natural England, the Northumberland and Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and the Butterfly Conservation, Nestlé employees, families and local schools have already started planting the meadows hoping to attract varieties such as the Large White (Pieris brassicae) Red Admiral (Vanessa Atalanta), the Small Copper, Wall Brown and the Meadow Brown. Employees and local communities will record new butterfly sightings with the imminent launch of a new app to assist them. The specially designed mobile app which will automatically log findings on the local Wildlife Trust database as part of a campaign to monitor butterfly numbers across the UK.
