Ikea's Famous Meatballs Just Got A Bug-Friendly Twist

Ikea Denmark has announced a collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Denmark to raise awareness about endangered insects and their lack of available wild habitats, according to a recent press release, and is using a twist on their famous meatballs to help get the message across.

For the purposes of this campaign, however, they're no longer Swedish Meatballs, but rather Swedish Seedballs. The new version is not meant for human consumption. Instead, its eclectic list of ingredients — which includes soil, wildflower seeds, and clay — is meant to be deployed in gardens to help feed hungry insects, both endangered and thriving alike. But first, as Apartment Therapy notes, the seedballs need to be watered, so they can grow into the kind of wild plants like chamomiles, poppies, and corncockles that Danish insects favor.

The new Swedish Seedballs are the centerpiece of a campaign called "Denmark's Wild Gardens." Ikea Denmark and WWF Denmark are hoping to inspire the owners of the country's approximately 1.43 million gardens to make them a little more wild, and a little more bug-friendly, courtesy of the limited edition meatball-sized seedballs, which are available only to IKEA Family Members in Denmark. 

"It was important for us to create a campaign that could start a conversation about biodiversity, but also let people take part in the fight for more wild nature," IKEA Denmark's country communication manager, Christian Mouroux, commented in the press release. "The Seedballs are a great way to do that, especially because they allow all ages to join in and get an understanding of an otherwise very complex issue."

IKEA is not just encouraging others to embrace sustainability and biodiversity, however. They're actively participating. As the press release observes, IKEA Denmark has turned 32,000 square meters of land around its stores into wild nature areas filled with insect hotels, dead garden material, and wildflowers. This promotion of wild habitats has particular relevance in Denmark, where only 1 to 2% of the country is wild nature.

This is not the first time IKEA has used its famed meatballs as a promotional tool. During its "Taste the Future" campaign, for example, the company served 3D-printed Swedish meatballs during job interviews.