CHANGE OF HOME BECKONS FOR LONG-ESTABLISHED BIRDFOOD PURVEYOR

Europarc - Haith's is staying put but perhaps not for too much longer 

IT looks like destination Louth for one of Europe's largest birdfood distributors.

After  13 years at a purpose-built warehouse and retail showoom on Grimsby's Europarc business estate, Haiths has earmarked a site, 17 miles away, on Louth's Fairfield industrial estate for the next chapter in its life.

The plan is to 'green' up the area around the projected building and car park with trees and shrubs to make it a really attractive destination - for birds as well as staff and customers.

However, the relocation may not be for a year or so.

The initiative has been prompted  by Haith's sale of its existing premises to one of its Europarc neighbours, New England Seafood International, which is in expansionist mode.

For the time being, it is leasing back the property while both companies get all their ducks lined up for busy times ahead.

The illustrious history of Haith's stretches back to just before the outbreak of World War 2 when, as head keeper at the old Grimsby Zoo, John 'Ted' Haith was constantly frustrated that the birdseed was invariably both uncleaned and inconsistent in quality.

So succesful was the top-secret method that he devised to clean and grade the seed that he was soon so overwhelmed by requests both from other zoos and from bird fanciers.

                                                    

This demand prompted  a bold decision to set up his own business, its home for some 60 years being a war-damaged three-storey chapel in Cleethorpes that first had  to be repaired and adapted.

Haith's pioneering approach and business model has since been replicated by many other distribution companies plus conservation charities, supermarkets and hardware stores which invariably now have a wide range of  birdfood products ranging from seed to sunflower hearts to fatballs, plus feeders and other accessories.

Where Haith's reckons  to be one up on its competitors is, in keeping with the ethos of its founder,  its focus on high-quality control.

The company, which is family-run, has always been the leading supplier to the avicultural market (for instance, budgerigars, canaries and parrots) and, in a more recent development, it has begun selling bait products for the angling market.

Haith's first home - a converted chapel on Park Street