The Bug Shed turns one year old this week! Let’s take a look behind the scenes…
“What are all the bananas for?” asks the grocery store clerk as she stares at the multiple cases of bananas on the belt.
“We feed them to our chimpanzees,” replies our co-founder and intrepid CEO Rich with a straight face.
“Wow! How many chimpanzees do you have?”
“I’m just kidding. Actually, we raise and sell cockroaches.”
“Get out of here!”
This is a typical conversation that we have on a weekly basis here at The Bug Shed. People don’t seem to believe us when we say we’re cockroach farmers.
Since The Bug Shed turns one year old this week, we thought we’d take this opportunity to look back on how we started, share our plans for moving forward, and celebrate our one year anniversary!
How We Got Started
It all started in Spring of 2020, just before the world shut down. Rich used to breed feeder insects decades ago, and together he and his then-girlfriend (they got married in the summer of 2021) and The Bug Shed co-founder Ona decided to give it another go.
So they ordered a few hundred dubia roaches and started planning. During this time, Rich had roach bins on shelves in his home office, with little room for expansion. Still, they pressed on.
As luck would have it, just as the couple was looking for a new home both for themselves and their nursery stock of roaches, the perfect house became available. It had a big workshop in back, separate from the living space, that was tailor-made for expanding their feeder insect colonies into. Rich and Ona made an offer right away, which was accepted! They- and their bugs- moved into their new digs in July, 2020.
Our First Year
About a year later, The Bug Shed was finally ready to launch. And on April 5, 2021, we made our first sale!
The Bug Shed has changed a lot during this first year. What started as a small operation in the corner of an office has expanded into a dedicated “bug room”. Shelves hold not just dubias, but also super worms, bug keepers, and shipping supplies.
But it’s not just the bugs that have upgraded. A lot of things have changed since the first few months. Our shipping process has been streamlined. We’ve developed our own, proprietary system for sorting dubias into various sizes. And we’ve expanded The Bug Shed team to include Aster and Etha, whom you’ve likely seen on our Facebook and Instagram pages.
Looking Ahead
We’ve come a long way in just one year, and our intention is to go a lot farther in the future.
Eventually, we would like a larger facility, and we have plans for combining The Bug Shed with a greenhouse operation and sustainable farm production system using bug waste as fertilizer.
Short term, our main goal is to serve more reptile owners in our current facility. As we move into year 2, we are confident in our ability to expand our market to help a lot more reptile enthusiasts properly nourish their pets.
Let’s Celebrate!
To celebrate The Bug Shed’s first anniversary, we’re giving away FREE SHIPPING on all orders $50 or more through Sunday, April 10. Just use code CELEBRATE at checkout. Visit our shop here.
Also, keep your eye out for more fun stuff happening throughout the rest of the month of April!
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