Page 21 - Spring 22

What are we?
We have always been very reluctant to call ourselves ethical, partly because we feel the term has been appropriated by some less than ethical companies as a marketing ploy, and partly because it is such an imprecise term. For the same reason we shy away from calling ourselves ‘green’ or ‘environmentally friendly’.
So, what are we? We consider ourselves a not-only-for- profit business that is deeply concerned about all sorts of issues from canine health to farm animal welfare and from over-farming to climate change. As such we aim to do as much good and as little harm as we can. To achieve our goal, we depend on our customers and this is probably a very good opportunity to thank you for any introductions you may have made. We could not manage without your support. By the same token, we could not manage without the support of our customers, farmers, producers, other veterinary professionals, canine professionals, suppliers and team members – so, if you fall into one of these other categories – thank you, too.
Can we make a difference?
Businesses wield power – the power, amongst other things, to control and exploit resources, create employment, transfer wealth and influence human behaviour. In most respects, a company’s power is linked to its size, but there are exceptions. Small businesses, individually and collectively, can, for example, have a major effect on what people think and do. As proof of this one only has to study the green movement, which started at the grass-roots level and has always been closely linked with alternative, artisanal businesses.
We know that we can’t make a massive difference, but we believe we can make some difference. There is a version of Loren Eiseley’s essay The Star Thrower in which two men
are walking along a beach covered by thousands of washed-up, dying starfish. One of the men starts throwing individual starfish back into the water. The other man points out that there are so many starfish in trouble nothing his companion can do will make any difference. The first man replies that it will make a difference to each starfish he saves. It is an oft-repeated story but that doesn’t make it any the less true.
By any measure you care to choose – economic, financial, environmental, agricultural, political or social – the world is in crisis. However, no matter how dreadful the situation appears, we are, none of us, powerless. We can educate ourselves. We can support the causes we believe in. We can lobby. We can protest. We can vote. We can choose how we spend our money. We can choose how we earn our money. Sydney Smith, the nineteenth-century parson, put it in a nutshell when he said: ‘It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little – do what you can.’
What is important to us
Here, however, is a sort of Reader’s Digest concise version (in no particular order) of our key concerns:
• Canine and feline health and nutrition.
• Farm animal welfare.
• Minimising our carbon footprint.
• Minimising our use of resources and the damage we do
to the environment.
• Educating ourselves on relevant subjects and sharing
our knowledge.
• Providing a genuinely personal customer service.
• Admitting when we make a mistake and putting it right. • Making sure that the role played by all our stakeholders
(customers, suppliers, friends and team members) is
properly acknowledged.
• Giving the Honey’s team a share of the business and a
say in how it is run.
• Never turning away a good cause.
• Providing hard, independent evidence of any claims we
make in relation to our activities.
• Supporting small, local businesses.
Hard evidence
There are a hundred ways in which a company can mislead
To list of all the things which are important to us would be impossible because it changes (and grows!) all the time.
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