All presentations from the 2011 WBFI Annual Meeting are available for WBFI members to download on the Members Only homepage.

This year's annual meeting featured speakers from FDA, Washington State University, the Office of the Texas State Chemist, On My Mountain Inc. and Entwine Digital. An audience of 130 representatives of companies from businesses that support the hobby of wild bird feeding was in attendance.

The WBFI hosts an annual industry event each year in November. The schedule for the 2012 event is a change in response to input from WBFI members. Here are the dates to mark in your calendar:
Tuesday, November 6: Arrive at the Hilton Palm Springs
Wednesday, November 7: Golf and activities, Opening Reception in the evening
Thursday, November 8: General Sessions and INOC dinner event
Friday: Return home

All WBFI members in good standing may attend the annual meeting. Companies may send any number of staff to the event. Registration will be available beginning after US Labor Day in 2012 and more information will be available from the Members Only homepage.

The registration list as of October 21, 2011 is available in Members Only.

Registration numbers this year remain in line with multi-year averages for attendance and number of WBFI member companies represented.

People attending: 120
Companies represented: 54

All Friday activities and golf will be offered as scheduled.

The WBFI Annual Meeting is the only gathering of its type for the businesses engaged in supporting the hobby of backyard wild bird feeding. Attendance is open to all WBFI members.

Do you really know what's required on your package labels?

Many businesses in our industry are not clear on what is required on package labels. If you don't get it right, consequences could be expensive.

Wild bird feed is labeled as commercial feed. The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) is the non-profit organization that develops labeling formats for businesses to follow in the US. The goal is uniformity for basic labeling requirements among the states.

WBFI has questions from the industry as to what is required on labels for wild bird feed, so WBFI developed and submitted a label format to AAFCO. This proposed format has been accepted by the AAFCO Feed Labeling Committee for inclusion in the Non-Pet Food Labeling Guide available on the AAFCO website.

You can see the AAFCO accepted label format here.

This label format is not new for the industry and does not require correctly labeled packaging to be changed. WBFI hopes that companies engaged in the packaging of wild bird feed will find this information helpful to them in their business. For questions on specific labels in specific states, the state control officials in that state may be contacted.

June 30, 2011 the US Department of Agriculture released their estimate of the planted acres in the US for several crops.

Our industry waits for this report each year. It is important to us because it gives us the official basis for understanding what the anticipated production might be of several crops that are important to the industry. Crops you will find mentioned in the report include:

• Sunflower, both oil and non-oil
• Proso millet
• Sorghum or milo

Acreage for corn and soybeans are also included. Because the plantings of these two crops will influence the acres available for the sunflower, millet and milo used in our industry, it is important to monitor the corn and soybean acres in order to get a complete picture of the situation.

You may review the pdf of the USDA report by following this link.

The WBFI Quality Standards Program welcomes American Distribution & Manufacturing Co. as a participant in the industry standards program.

As a program participant, American Distribution & Manufacturing Co. agrees to follow standards for their bird feeding products as detailed in the WBFI Quality Standards Program. More information and the industry standards may be found on the WBFI website www.wbfi.org.

Consumers should watch for the unique program logos on the packages of bird feed from American Distribution & Manufacturing Co. to be assured that the produce meets the industry standards.