Free Scoops at Haagen-Dazs Shops for New Flavor Day

13/05/08 Ice cream aficionados can get a free ice cream fix – and find out how to help the honey bees – at Häagen-Dazs ice cream’s annual New Flavor Day. Ice cream lovers can sample the new Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream flavor, created in honor of honey bees that are mysteriously disappearing in large numbers. This year, Häagen-Dazs is helping to fund honey bee research at Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Davis.

Because the Häagen-Dazs brand uses only all-natural ingredients to create its super premium ice cream, bees are essential in the creation of more than 40 percent of its ice cream flavors. Honey bees pollinate more than 100 different crops, $15 billion worth annually in the U.S. Over the last several winters, more than 25 percent of the honey bee population in the United States has vanished and a recent report from the Apiary Inspectors of America shows the decline is continuing. Everything from poor nutrition to invasive mites to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) – a phenomenon where bees from a colony abruptly desert the hive – is affecting the bees.

“The disappearance of the honey bees has the potential to pose a major threat to our entire food supply as well as many of our favorite Häagen-Dazs all-natural flavors, from Vanilla Swiss Almond to Strawberry,” said Häagen-Dazs Shops Brand Manager Julie Michelutti. “New Flavor Day allows us an opportunity to raise awareness about the issue and educate consumers about what they can do to help, while giving them a chance to taste the flavor created in honor of these petite pollinators, Vanilla Honey Bee.”