End of an era and the start of… what? – Food For Kids Podcast episode 105

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. Today is a very special episode because it marks the end of a whole year of the podcast and also the start of a new era. As I mentioned back in episode 92, when I started the show, I had a list of useful topics that I wanted to cover. I knew I wanted to keep episodes short and about one narrow topic at a time so that that would be easy for people to find if they were looking for answers on a specific topic.

When I first started out, I wasn't sure how long it would take to properly cover those important subjects

and so I wasn't really sure how long the new episodes would run for.

After about three to four months of seeing how things pan out within a single episode, I realised we were probably going to be able to cover the majority of topics, although not quite all of them, within a one year cycle. I believe that we can easily overthink food in general and family food in particular, and I don't want to keep making episodes forever on more and more niche topics, just to keep giving me topics to make new episodes about. I want to cover the main questions in brief so that you can find the answers you

And then as I say at the end of each episode, get on with some happy eating. Don't get me wrong. There's definitely a place for that kind of podcast where niche topics are discussed or where main topics are revisited regularly with different professionals' viewpoints. Ideas change and evidence updates. And for professionals or for people who are deep in the stage of needing to focus on food, those podcasts will always be needed and they're super important.

But for families just looking for a couple of answers on a handful of regular topics, an ongoing weekly deep dive might not be the right thing.

So the idea for this show is to be a kind of audio reference book so that whatever stage you're at with feeding your kids, you can dip in and out

Whenever you want to focus on food for a while, you can come, get the answers you need, go away, put them into practice and then not think about food for a bit, get on with life and come back when the next thing comes up that you need an answer for. For this to work as a genuine drop in when you need it model, the main topics in that audio reference book need to be accessible all the time. It's no good having a reference book with random chapters missing. So the idea of this show is to repeat episodes on those main topics that they're sent out to new listeners.

but also remain available in the feed on the podcast app so that people can search them when they need them. Some of the subjects we've covered will need updating because something's changed in the evidence or in the news since they were recorded first time.

but a lot of them will just need refreshing and updating and will be reissued alongside blog posts, how-to crib sheets and videos to be more helpful for different types of learning.

The upside of this for you, the listener, that you don't have to stay subscribed forever. You can listen for a while and then drop off, or you can search the feed for the topics you want and just download those. So unlike most shows where you're trying to entice a long time subscriber, instead, I am focusing on being here for you when you need it and then fading into the background when you don't need it.

From my end, it's probably not the greatest business model long term, But I would rather do what seems like the right thing than just the done thing or the most business-like thing. So what this means going forward is that the next episode will be the start of June, so we'll be refreshing and repeating the first episode, which was the seasonal foods for June. I'll be adding some printables or web pages or videos along the way to episodes to make them more helpful.

As I get to episodes that need re-recording, I'll do that. Occasionally I'll take an episode out if it's not relevant anymore, but I will also add in some special episodes in between on some Saturdays. In episode 92, I asked listeners for feedback on things I hadn't covered yet that were needed, and I got quite a few really useful ideas. I've managed to get a couple of them in before the end of the year,

but some of them I still want to do, so I'm going to record those when I can find the right person to answer the questions and I'll release those on a Saturday. If you have ideas for things I haven't covered, I'll put a link in the show notes to that web form where you can tell me and I'll pop it in on a new Saturday episode. If you're one of the lovely people who subscribed early on and listened to all the episodes, you may want to drop off the subscription now

Or might want to stay on just to get the seasonal episodes every month and just delete the ones you don't want.

If you arrived sometime during the year, we did have a big uptick about halfway through, then you might want to stay on until you've done one yearly rotation. And if you want to just mooch through the catalogue and download the ones you want, that's all good too. Every download is precious to me and I want it to be practical for you. So I'm going to sign off on this episode now.

I do want to say a heartfelt thank you to you for listening, for downloading, streaming. It really does mean the world to me. So on the next episode, you'll be hearing about the foods that are yummy in June. So I hope to see you then. And in the meantime, here's to a whole year of happy eating!

00:00 The end of a year of the podcast