Ten Years of The Bug Farm and Beetle Boy

10 July 2026

The Bug Farm and onsite cafe Grub Kitchen opened to the public ten years ago this year and a day of celebrations is planned for Thursday 23rd July to mark this momentous occasion, with special events for visitors running throughout the day.

The opening of The Bug Farm coincided with the launch of the award-winning book series, Beetle Boy, written by M. G. Leonard, on which Bug Farm founder, Dr Sarah Beynon, was the scientific adviser. The book won the Branford Boase Award in 2017 and the Children’s Choice Gold Medal at the China National Children’s Book Awards in 2018. M. G. Leonard, who is now an established and well-known children’s author, was a guest of honour at the launch of The Bug Farm in 2016 and returns to celebrate the joint tenth birthday of The Bug Farm and Beetle Boy with a special talk and reading, along with a signing of the special tenth anniversary edition of Beetle Boy.

M. G. Leonard says: “There is no place I’d rather celebrate the tenth anniversary of Beetle Boy than The Bug Farm. When Dr Sarah Beynon was building her brilliant Bug Farm, I was creating Beetle Boy. It was a chance sighting of her on Countryfile that convinced me that we should be friends and that I needed her expertise to make sure my book was entomologically accurate. I love The Bug Farm. I find it endlessly inspiring. It is always growing, seeking ways to champion insects and educate humans about their importance. It is one of my favourite places in the world. I cannot wait to return and celebrate a decade of bigging up brilliant beetles with everyone at The Bug Farm. I’ll be reading from the new special tenth anniversary edition and talking about beetles, how Dr Sarah Beynon has been a huge inspiration behind the series, meeting insect lovers and readers, signing books and having a fantastic time with the bugs!”

Another familiar face, who was also a special guest at the launch, is Jenny Ogden from Beetles and Bees, who will bring her Wildlife Roleplay to the party.

Dr Sarah Beynon will also be leading a special Bug Farm tenth Birthday guided tour where she will explain how she and the team created The Bug Farm over the past decade.

The day’s events:

11am-12pm Beetle Boy Book reading and signing of tenth anniversary special edition copies of Beetle Boy
1am and 1pm Up-Close Meet the Bugs sessions
12pm-2pm Interview a Pollinator
12-3pm Special Birthday Lunch Menu in Grub Kitchen (with produce from the farm on the menu)
2pm-2:45pm Guided Tour with Dr Sarah Beynon

Over the ten years since opening its doors, The Bug Farm has welcomed over 128,000 visitors to learn about invertebrates, nature, food and farming. “We make sure our visitors have a truly unique, fun and educational experience” says Sarah. “As well as the general public, we welcome thousands of school pupils, university students, cruise visitors and special interest groups from across the world each year, who enjoy bespoke tours, lectures, walks, food of the future tasting sessions and the ever-popular ‘Meet the Bugs’ sessions”.

Since it opened, The Bug Farm has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Best Start-up Business in the UK, and Best Green Business of the Year in Wales. Dr Sarah Beynon won the Royal Agricultural Society’s Research Medal, Plantlife’s Meadow Maker of the Year for Wales and was named as a runner-up in Welsh Government’s Environment Hero category at the Saint David’s Awards. The attraction has maintained its Visit Wales Quality Assured attraction award since opening, while Grub Kitchen has maintained its Quality Cafe award.

Behind the scenes, The Bug Farm has expanded its research and nature recovery programmes over the years, with the farm now a fully-fledged nature reserve, hosting undergraduate, masters and PhD students working on various projects alongside the core team or staff and volunteers. A decade of joining-up wildlife habitat across the St Davids peninsula has enabled rare species, such as small red damselflies, to thrive. The Bug Farm now manages around 200 acres of land for nature, has created 50 acres of wildflower meadows, 40 acres of biodiverse marshy grassland and heath, 20 acres of habitat for rare arable plants, dug 20 ponds, planted 13 acres of woodland and created over 1.5km of new hedgerows. It hosts rare wildlife, including one of the world’s 100 rarest species – willow blister fungus. In June, Sarah published her late father’s memoirs, Hay Days, that documents the history of the farm and of farming life in Pembrokeshire.

The Bug Farm is truly a centre for innovation, with Andy Holcroft, Sarah’s husband, opening the UK’s first edible insect cafe, Grub Kitchen, in 2016 and the couple launching an insect-based food research and manufacturing facility – Bug Farm Foods – in 2017, for which they were followed by the BBC, filming a documentary called The Bug Grub Couple. They have since sold their Cricket Cookies in outlets such as Selfridges. Bug Farm Foods won Welsh Government’s Go Wales award for the creation of VEXo – an insect and plant-based protein mince developed to tackle the issue of ultra-processed, imported, low-welfare in children’s food. VEXo forms the basis of Grub Kitchen’s signature bug burger and the thousands of ‘Food of the Future’ tutored taster sessions that Andy runs with school pupils each year. Recent student research with Swansea University shows that the education delivered onsite not only changes opinions on nature and insects as food at the time, but also changes behaviour for the better after a visit, ensuring visitors make more informed and sustainable food choices and help nature when they get home.

“We have poured our love into The Bug Farm over the past decade and are extremely proud of what we have achieved. We would like to thank all the team of staff, volunteers and students that have all been part of The Bug Farm’s journey – we simply couldn’t be here without them” says Sarah. “A few of the team have been with us since day one, when we worked from the front room of the farmhouse and the site looked very different to today”. Sarah says that recent visitor comments, such as: “This is the best visitor attraction we have ever visited, anywhere in the world” and : “This is far more than just a bug farm” make everything worthwhile.

“We look forward to the next ten years and have lots planned” says Sarah. This year, The Bug Farm is delivering Wales’s first marsh fritillary butterfly reintroduction, after five years creating and managing its habitat, and is currently working on a project to reduce the impact of livestock wormers and pet spot-ons, alongside other contaminants, across the St Davids peninsula. Sarah, Andy and friends have also set up the Nature Recovery Trust to protect land for nature, forever. New exhibits for 2027 include phase two of the Nature Recovery Centre and Pembrokeshire Farming History Museum, as well as a new Nature Discovery Centre, and the roll-out of half-day and full-day courses on habitat creation and management.

Special birthday events are open to Bug Farm visitors who can either book onto them for free on the day until spaces are full or pre-book with a small booking fee to guarantee a place: https://www.thebugfarm.co.uk/product-category/experiences/