Heinz’s Fortnite island shows tomato farming.
Heinz is using Fortnite to spread its sustainability message to gamers. In a new campaign targeting people ages 18 to 34, the ketchup brand has created a shrinking island inside the game where players can fight each other, while also learning about soil degradation.
The Heinz-branded Fortnite feature is called “S.O.S Tomatoes.” Players battle on a zone called “The Storm” that shrinks 33% faster than other playing fields inside Fortnite.
The island’s scenery includes Heinz-branded tomato farms that “demonstrates just some of the sustainable and regenerative practices that Heinz supports in the real world” such as cover cropping and crop rotation, said Cristina Kenz, Heinz chief growth and sustainability officer, via email.
The game “reflects the rapid rate at which soil health is declining” and is “designed to educate consumers on the fundamental role healthy soil plays as part of our food systems to establish the importance of soil health,” said Kenz.
As part of the campaign, Heinz will donate $100,000 to its soil health program in California.
The global campaign, from Gut São Paulo, taps Twitch influencers in the U.K., the U.S., Poland, Spain and Saudi Arabia to play the game and livestream it to their followers, said Kenz. Clips of them playing the game will be featured in a launch film that will run on Instagram and TikTok as paid media until March 24.
Players can access the island by going to Fortnite's discover page and typing in a code, which they can get from the brand's campaign website, social media and through the Twitch livestreams.
Heinz announced its aim to sustainably source all of its tomatoes by 2025, according to an ESG update in October 2022. The brand’s parent company Kraft Heinz joined the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, a nonprofit focused on corporate sustainable agriculture, in 2020, and launched its sustainable agricultural practices (SAP) manual in 2021, according to the ESG update.
More broadly, the food maker has committed to cutting its emissions in half by 2030.
