At The Co-operative, we’re a commercial business with a difference: we’re ethical in every single way. Whether it’s in the way we source goods and services, the way we treat our colleagues, or the way we give something back to the wider world. We do our best to make our planet better. But we don’t do it alone.

For years we’ve been getting a helping hand from the humble bee. But with their numbers declining, so to is the assistance they provide. Plan Bee is our strategy to save the bee population. Few people know that bees pollinate a third of the food we eat. Even less know that their work helps contribute £10 billion a year to the global economy. However, in the UK alone, around one third of honeybee hives were lost in a single winter during 2007 and 2008 – and this is a global trend.

As one of the UK’s largest farmers, we’re a company committed to protecting the environment. That’s why we’re committing over £150,000 towards researching the decline of the bee. We’ve also launched a ten-point plan to try and help reverse their demise. Discover more about our work to protect the bee population, and how you can play a part, by playing our online game: ‘Bee in it to win it’. You could win a luxurious hamper.

Find out more about being a graduate at The Co-operative