(Published in July 2004)

Soaking Up Variety, Serving Up Nutrition
Soak and serve meals offer a convenient way to give birds the variety they need and the sales you want
By Scott and Ann Springer

We live in a fast-paced world. A 5-minute wait in a line is often considered too long. A gas station without a pay-at-the-pump option loses significant business. And banks have learned that drive-up ATMs attract new customers.

So it is in the bird-owning world, too. Most bird owners understand that their pets need a varied diet that may include fruits, vegetables, nuts, and berries, but they aren't willing or aren't able to take the time to specially prepare their birds' diets. As a result, the birds may get stuck with the same standard diet day after day.

"I tell people all the time that just eating one thing gets boring for birds, and they need to eat a variety of foods," says Denis Sloan, owner of Bird Fever in Indianapolis, Ind.. "A lot of pet stores just don't understand that a varied diet will change a bird's energy level."

Dick Schroeder, owner of Cuttlebone Plus in San Marcos, Calif., agrees. "We don't know exactly what birds require in their diets, so the more variety they have the greater chance we have of covering their needs," he says.

A 'High-Powered Breakfast' for Birds
Enter soak and serve bird meals. These handy meals are the answer to a bird-owning population looking for both convenience and nutrition. They are designed as a supplement to the bird's regular diet and contain human-quality ingredients such as grains, fruits, beans, vegetables, and other organic products. The meals are freeze dried, bagged, and ready to store.

Before meal time, a bird owner soaks and boils the meal to hydrate it. Additionally, some bird owners cook several meals in advance and freeze them in baggies or ice-cube trays and then microwave them at feeding time.

"It can take a lot of work to prepare food for birds, but these meals make it easy and convenient," says Jeff Clark, vice president of marketing and sales for Sun Seed Co. Inc. in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Kreig Peterson, president and CEO of Beak Appetit Inc. in Albuquerque, N.M., compares a soak and serve meal to a "high-powered breakfast for birds, so to speak. By early afternoon they are done and they move onto their seed or pellets," he says.

Just like children would choose French fries over peas, birds naturally will pick treats over nutritious food. "Soak and serve diets offer things that are naturally occurring in a way that birds are more inclined to eat them," Peterson adds. "It gives them proteins, minerals, and vitamins they won't get out of just seed."

Peterson suggests bird owners that are feeding seeds or pellets to their pets to start simply when introducing the soak and serve meals. "They should start by putting it on top of the normal diet and then move it to a separate dish until they get used to it," he says.

One danger in serving human-quality food to birds is that food spoils quickly, says Veta Hollaway, owner of Birds by Veta in Lexington, S.C. "If you leave in the morning, you need to leave the amount that they will eat in only 2 hours time," she says. "If you are in a hot place or one that is not air-conditioned, it should be less than that."

A Bonding Experience for Owner and Bird
Customers most likely to buy soak and serve meals are those "educated about the types of food that can be served" to birds, Hollaway says.

Hollaway also says the experience of cooking the food and feeding it to the bird can be a bonding experience between bird owner and pet. "First of all, the owners are taking the time to cook the meal," she says. "Then they feed it to the bird and the bird likes it. They will be able to bond because they're spending time together."

When a bird owner cooks the meal on the stove and bird catches a whiff of the food's flavor, it gets very excited, Sloan says. "If the owner makes something that smells good, the bird will love it," he says. The bonding is enhanced when the owner and bird eat together and the owner sees how much the bird enjoys the food.

Sloan says soak and serve meals appeal to people with a large amount of birds because it cuts down on the food preparation time. This is especially true in the summer months when people generally don't do much cooking. "In the summer months people don't even cook for themselves," he says.

Owners of specific bird breeds may be inclined to purchase soak and serve meals because their birds particularly enjoy the foods. "One of the main benefits of cooked diets for parrots is that parrots won't eat a dried piece of corn, but they will eat a cooked piece and can get nutrition out of it," Peterson says.

Test the food on your own birds to get to know which breeds like which recipes. Sloan has discovered that African greys like the rice meals, and cockatoos are notoriously picky about their food.

Some bird owners use the Internet to swap recipes for homemade meals for their pets, but Schroeder recommends bird owners be cautious about relying too heavily on this information. "Some of the recipes on the Internet aren't very balanced," he says. "That's why it's more convenient to buy them in the package than to put together yourself."

Upsell Your Way to Success
Soak and serve meals are a perfect product for tie-in sales. "Cooked diets are a wonderful upsell for stores to increase revenue," Peterson says. "People come in for a 5-pound bag of seed and we say to them, 'Do you feed your birds vegetables? Well, here is this product,' and then you've turned a $5-dollar sale into a $15-dollar sale."

Sloan believes that free samples can equal higher sales in the long term because customers will return for the product and pay for it the next time. "What I have lost in giving away 50-cent samples I can make back in a $5 sale," he says.

The best way to promote soak and serve meals is to put them in the food dishes of the cages in your store. Customers will notice the unique diets and inquire about them. As Clark points out, bird owners need to be introduced to soak and serve meals before they will buy them. This is why in-store displays prove so helpful. "They will have to have read something about them or have seen them somewhere," he says.

Hollaway says her store offers a flyer that shows what a particular type of bird can and should be eating. She also recommends aesthetically enhancing the way the products are sold. "Usually these meals are served in small packages, and you can spice them up with baskets and ribbons and such," she says.

Of course, don't overlook the need to provide one-on-one attention to your bird customers. People won't buy a product if they have unanswered doubts and questions about it. "Birds need more than seeds or pellets, and some people figure fresh fruits and vegetables are too expensive," Schroeder says. "These meals provide the nutrition without the high cost."

Scott and Ann Springer are freelance writers living in Southern California.