December is a busy, yet absolutely wonderful time of year to reflect on the year that was. There’s no denying that it has been a great year here at Flora & Fauna.
2018 has marked some remarkable milestones for us, so first & foremost we’d like to thank you, our amazing customers, for your continued support throughout our journey. Your questions, recommendations and kind words inspire us to be better and continue working hard to help you make more informed decisions that have minimal impact on the environment.
This year we’ve seen growth across all areas including our product range, number of orders and our team. At the start of this year, we were working out of a small converted shed in Galston with a team of 12. Fast forward to December 2018 and we’re now a team of 38 working across the warehouse, operations, marketing & customer care. Over the last 12 months, we’ve brought on 32 wonderful new employees, all recruited through social media and word of mouth. Our amazing team, who pick your orders, have walked on average an astounding 600km around the warehouse & this year alone we’ve written over 100,000 personalised notes for you.
Another amazing achievement we’re very proud of is the amount of plastic we’ve kept out of landfill by using recycled packaging materials; an enormous 7 tonnes! We also can’t even begin to imagine the amount of plastic that our incredible customers have kept out of landfill (and the ocean) by being environmentally conscious and making the switch to eco-friendly alternatives.
In July, we celebrated Plastic Free July with a special edition Eco Box which sold out in under 24 hours. We also had some great eco-friendly infographics made for our customers to display in their home and workplace which you can see here. Our team also took the initiative to take some time out of their work day to clean up our local area.
If you’ve been following our journey on Instagram you would know that this year, Rosie, our lovely resident piggy, has made her debut in the Flora & Fauna range. You can now find her starring on her very own Biodegradable Dish Cloths and Reusable vegan wraps.
We also put together 4 seasonal editions of our Beauty Boxes where we worked with some of our wonderful brands to give our customers a box of products worth over $100 for under $35. The passionate Lyn and Lizzie from our warehouse team are the beauty box extraordinaires!
One of the biggest events of 2018 was our warehouse move. During September 2018 we made the decision to move out of our small warehouse in leafy Galston, NSW and move to a much larger warehouse (10x the size in fact!) in North Rocks, NSW. The move happened over one weekend and we had all hands on deck. Packing, labelling, driving, unpacking & sorting over 3 busy days. We took the initiative to do the move in the most eco-friendly way possible. We achieved this by hiring a truck and splitting the team between both warehouses. Tom, our Chief of 'Getting Stuff Done' Officer, had the job of driving the truck between warehouses, where he’d meet the team on each end to help unload and reload the truck. 6 round trips later and our team had relocated over 100,000 products between Galston & North Rocks; An amazing achievement over 3 days! We’re still putting the finishing touches on our new F&F home, but every week it’s looking more like home.
Earlier this year in our old Galston warehouse we had one Australia post pick up per day. One Australia Post van a day, quickly turned into two, and now we almost fill a large Australia Post truck that has to be forklifted on!
November 2018 marked our 4th birthday. We celebrated with our team and had an amazing vegan lunch & red velvet birthday cake!
In 2018, we had the amazing honour of being nominated for 9 different awards and taking home the win for 7.
- Orias Awards - Best Small Independent Retailer
- GALA Awards - Best Online Retailer
- GALA Awards - Business Person of the Year (Julie)
- Telstra Awards Winner of Small & Succeeding Business Award for NSW
- AFR Fast Starters List
- Dynamic Entrepreneur No 1 of Top Ten Entrepreneurs in Australia (Julie)
- Voted No 4 of Inside Retail Top 50 People in Ecommerce (Julie)
One of the main highlights of the year was winning ‘Best Small & Succeeding Business for NSW’ at the Telstra Business Awards. These awards are considered the best of the best; 3000 companies entered in NSW, there were 24 finalists and 4 category winners, 4 out of 3000 - wow! This was a moment full of emotion and we were so thrilled to share it with our team.
We also travelled to 9 different fairs around Australia to set up a Flora & Fauna stall. We absolutely love meeting all of our customers and spreading the word about what we do and chatting to people with values that align with ours. In 2018 we attended fairs in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide & Brisbane.
One amazing achievement for us a business has been the amazing growth and development of our own in-house brand, Green + Kind. We’re super passionate about our Green + Kind range because we’ve designed it at an accessible price point with one goal in mind; hto help everyone make better choices & minimise their environmental footprint.
In our short 4 years of existence we’re also extremely proud to be partnering with charitable causes including Sea Shepherd and Where Pigs Fly Farm Sanctuary amongst others.
2019 looks set to be a great year and we can't wait to get started!
