2023 - The Year for Change?
Hello, and a very happy new year from us all at Finches Friend. It is the ideal time to to reflect on 2022 and look forward to 2023.
2022 Review
During 2022, which was only our second year of business, we built four different feeders and our hanging cable. 2022 was also the year we launched on Amazon Prime, with products finally live in November! I want to say a big thank you to Andrew for building our relationship with Amazon and for learning the systems and processes necessary for trading through them.
2022 was also the year that we changed our marketing from a simple magazine advertising model to a more modern and wide-ranging approach, using social media and PR. Jude and Claire joined us and we are thankful for their help and input.
Martin Hughes-Games is no longer working with us, but he is very much still a friend. He is now pursuing a career in Politics, and we wish him well. Our wildlife needs all the help it can get and so thank you so much for all the help and guidance you provided to us Martin.
There was a real seminal moment for us in 2022. We held a meeting with the Garden Wildlife Health organisation. The GWH is an organisation set up by the RSPB and the BTO, it is a JV with the Zoological Society of London. The GWH is basically an analytical organisation, learning about the health and well-being of our garden wildlife and issuing advice.
We think that the GWH is fantastic, but they are only part of the solution. Sadly, if feeder manufacturers ignore their output, nothing will ever change, and disease will continue to ravage our wild birds. The meeting from our perspective was to see how the RSPB would take the output of the GWH and use it to influence change. The reality is that there is no mechanism for change, and no intention or plan within the RSPB to do so.
We believe that the output of the GWH organisation coupled with the output of the CWHC (Canadian equivalent) are clear. We have condensed their advice into a simple slogan, “Food, Feet and Faeces” by this we mean that food should be supplied clean and dry, that the birds’ feet should not enter any food or water given to them. They should also not be able to defecate in the food we provide.
The RSPB, the guardians of our wild birds, profit from selling products that actively encourage all three, and proliferate disease. We urge you to please look at their website and apply the FFF test yourself. If you feel as strongly as we do, then write to the RSPB and tell them. Our letters are ignored, and we need to make a fuss until they act. You can write to them at their headquarters, at the below address:
The Lodge
Potton Road
Sandy
Bedfordshire
SG19 2DL
2023 and beyond
We start 2023 with our first export to the USA, as 500 Cleaner Window feeders head across the Atlantic. By the end of February, we will add two more new products to go with our Cleaner Window Feeders - a fat ball spring, and a millet spring.
The biggest news for 2023, will be a whole range of new garden feeder products to complement our existing feeders. These will include hanging poles, Cleaner Ground feeding and Drinking stations, Pole mounts, a Cleaner Bird Table and my personal favourite, an interceptor. The interceptor will catch wasted food and husks from feeders. It will dramatically reduce disease transmission under feeders and discourage rodents.
We hope to have eleven new products in place by mid-year and also hope to progress our Cleaner Peanut Feeder, as funds allow.