Shropshire company is fighting fit for expansion
It began life as an offshoot from a farm business making cattle grids – but now a company in rural Shropshire is securing top contracts with armies and blue chip corporations around the world.
Beaverfit, based at Walkmills near Church Stretton, makes steel rigs which can be quickly built into training gyms for several people, then collapsed into small boxes, allowing armed forces to carry training equipment with them in the field.
Tom Beaver, whose father Jim started the family's steel working operation to make cattle grids and gates for farms, made the first rig so he could train for an ultra-triathlon between London and Paris in 2006.
After it was picked up by armed forces, huge companies are now employing the Shropshire company to provide training equipment for staff in their major city offices.
"We have supplied to Google in London and American Express in New York," said marketing director Sam Ansloos.
Commercial
"The business was essentially founded in the military, but as we have worked in the commercial sector the big corporates have jumped on the bandwagon, as did commercial health clubs who wanted to provide boot camp-style training on these products.
"The functional training rig was developed by Tom in 2009-10, and since then we have had competitors providing the same thing but never able to break into military markets because we found our niche there.
"It has now spun off into the commercial sector and we have provided Fitness First, Virgin Active and True Gym."
He added: "The whole of the Royal Navy uses them, so every ship has one of these.
"You have the US marine corps, seal teams, Germany's military, the French military, the Spanish airforce, the presidential guard in Dubai, various cross fit gyms around the country use it.
"The premise of our model is that everything is quick and easy to assemble."
The Beaver family had seen their agriculture operation spin out into steel working over the course of several decades after moving to Walkmills in the 1940s, and branched out again into building bridges towards the end of the last century.
Since the launch of the first of the tactical training rigs, a variety of new products have been launched, securing patents in different territories to protect the business.
That includes a rig which can be packed away into a box, providing training equipment for several people while being transported by only a couple. Around 600 of those lockers have so far been shipped worldwide.
Because the kits are carried by air forces, they must also be able to withstand high g-forces so when planes take off with them on board, steelwork is not sent scattering.
As well as at its own rural location, work on the rigs is carried out by Telford-based Wrekin Sheet Metal as well as another steel specialist in Yorkshire.
A standalone company has been set up in Nevada in the USA to serve that key market, taking the overall workforce of Beaverfit to around 50 – about 35 of whom are based in the UK.
"One of our main aims at the moment is to expand further into the commercial market, working with people like Virgin Active designing different pieces," Mr Ansloos added.
"We hope that 2017 will be quite positive.
"We have gone from being a tiny business to being a small business, and are now breaking from being a small to a medium sized business, especially with the US influence. We are trying to get to the next level."
