Astral Foods, a South African poultry producer, has offered to donate food to the value of R100 000 a month to World of Birds in Hout Bay!
Hout Bay, South Africa – Less than a year ago the teams from Hout Bay’s World of Birds and leading poultry producer Astral Foods had never met, let alone worked together. Yet on Friday 8 March, they celebrated their new relationship like old friends.
World of Birds is the largest bird park in Africa and one of the few large bird parks in the World. Over 3 000 birds (and small animals) of 400 different species are uniquely presented in more than 100 spacious landscaped walk-through aviaries, allowing you the most intimate closeness with nature.
A tropical garden setting in the Hout Bay Valley is the environment in which the aviaries are spaced over 4 ha of land, framed by the back of Table Mountain, the Twelve Apostles, Constantiaberg, Chapman’s Peak and Little Lion’s Head. A paradise for nature lovers and photographers, the World of Birds is one of Cape Town’s premier tourist attractions which no visitor should miss.
One hundred thousand visitors annually enjoy the outing to the World of Birds. The Hout Bay Fishing Village and Fishing Harbour just 10 km outside Cape Town can be reached either along the scenic routes of the Coastal Drive via Camps Bay and Llandudno or via Kirstenbosch and Constantia, or on the way to and from Cape Point Nature Reserve via the spectacular Chapman’s Peak Drive.
Hendrik Louw, assistant director at World of Birds, says he’ll never forget the day he received a call from Astral Foods’ Maryna Eloff: ‘It was a Tuesday morning and I was very discouraged at that point. I received a call from someone at Astral. I did not know who Astral was, but she asked how soon I could be in Johannesburg to meet with them. I asked what, how? She said, “We want to see how we can help you.”’
Louw flew up the Thursday morning, and at the end of the meeting, he had an agreement: Astral Foods would donate food to the value of R100 000 a month to help World of Birds with its bills.
‘It is impossible to explain how much this is helping us to keep World of Birds open and to continue doing the work we love, which is to help birds and animals in need, and to provide a home to those who are unable to fend for themselves in the wild.’
Astral Foods CEO Chris Schutte explains, ‘The bird feed is provided by Meadow Feeds, one of Astral’s divisions, and County Fair is providing chicks for World of Birds’ meat-eating birds. Many people don’t know it, and we didn’t either, but World of Birds uses up to a tonne of chicken every week.’
At the event, Schutte, Meadow Feeds MD Michael Schmitz and County Fair CEO James Berry as well as Maryna Eloff, Astral Foods Group Company Secretary – who had made the call on that Tuesday morning in May last year that set the ball rolling for this initiative – celebrated with Louw and his World of Birds team before going on a tour of the sanctuary to meet its colourful, raucous inhabitants.
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