An innovative biological specimens supplier is set to move to a former butchers’ in a village near Shrewsbury and has plans to expand.
Darwin Biological will move into the former home of Woods of Shawbury, on Church Street, which has stood empty since the building went up for sale in June.
The company, which provides specimens and specialist supplies to secondary schools across England, Wales and Scotland, will renovate the building to make it more sustainable and useful for them and aim to move in by summer.
Meg Bilson, Founder and Managing Director of Darwin Biological, said it was an exciting time for school biology and this move will help their business make it even more gripping.
She said: “As a Shawbury resident I am so pleased to be able to bring life to this vacant unit and ensure our business remains in the village, which our staff know and love.
“This move will enable us to expand our offering to schools and have a huge positive impact on the education sector.
“We have seen a shift in demand towards frozen specimens and our new base means we will not only be able to increase our stock, but also offer quicker delivery and a wider range of products while maintaining our commitment to ethical sourcing, with British suppliers who value animal welfare and whose ethics we are aligned with, for example our cow hearts are natural by-products on the meat industry, from a local abattoir.
“This, in turn, offers the potential to take on more employees.”
Darwin Biological was founded in 2019 in a spare room at Meg’s home. She said she is pleased her business can move to the former butchers and have a positive impact on the village.
As it is an online and mail order business, they will not be adding to traffic in the area as there will not be lots of cars arriving and any deliveries will be able to use the layby.
She also intends to turn the yard garden at the site into a wildlife haven, working alongside insect experts from the Royal Entomological Society, as part of Darwin Biological’s commitment to sustainability and encouraging the natural world. It is hoped the wildlife haven will provoke curiosity and learning for children walking past the site.
The company currently operates out of a double garage at the home of Meg and her husband Bil, as well as an upstairs spare room. The new site will also be all on one level, making operations more efficient and enabling them to expand their range of niche live biological supplies for schools, universities and labs, including preserved specimens, bacteria, fruit flies, and algae.
Meg’s parents had a similar business called Timstar which originally sold locusts to schools and later expanded into general school science supplies.
“I have seen a lot of change in demand over the years and we are really looking to work with schools now to update and expand their annual experiments,” Meg added.
“Modern educational needs are very different to years gone by and it is a great opportunity to reinvigorate biology education, by making science fun and engaging.”
Darwin Biological has previously donated £1,000 to Shawbury Parish Council to plant trees in the local park and last month (NOV) sent out a booklet of expert-led practicals to 4,500 schools. Meg said the feedback has been extremely positive, with many technicians at educational institutions describing it as helping to make their job ‘interesting and easier’.
The company works closely with experts and gets supplies from ethical sources, such as mother cultures for bacteria from the UK Health Security Agency and algae from the world-leading Culture Collection in Scotland.
For more information about Darwin Biological visit their website www.darwinbiological.co.uk or contact them via the email address hello@darwinbiological.co.uk.
Meg and Bil Bilson of Darwin Biological with their children outside the new business premises.
