In today’s research landscape, laboratories are under constant pressure to do more with less, whether it’s space, staff time, or budgets. One area where significant savings can be unlocked is sample storage. While owning ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers and managing biobanking in-house may seem like the straightforward option, outsourcing can deliver far greater long-term value.

Here are five key ways outsourcing biobanking storage saves your lab money, without compromising on quality, security, or compliance.

1. From Heavy CAPEX to Flexible OPEX

Purchasing, installing, and maintaining ULT freezers represents a significant capital expenditure. A high-quality freezer can cost £8,000–£12,000 upfront, and that doesn’t include the costs of backup systems, alarms, and redundancy. Outsourcing transforms this into a predictable operating expense (OPEX), freeing up capital for core research activities rather than tying it up in equipment that depreciates over time.

2. Eliminate Maintenance & Downtime Hassles

Freezers don’t just run on purchase cost—they require annual maintenance, servicing, and eventual replacement. Unexpected breakdowns can lead to costly repairs, emergency sample transfers, or even catastrophic losses. By outsourcing, you pass these maintenance headaches to a dedicated provider who invests in redundant systems, back-up power, and monitoring technology. Your lab can stay focused on science, not equipment troubleshooting.

3. Optimise Lab Space & Reduce Energy Costs

Every freezer you own consumes both valuable lab space and a significant amount of energy, thousands per year in electricity for a single ULT freezer. Outsourcing frees up prime laboratory real estate for research equipment, while cutting your energy bills and reducing your environmental footprint. Providers also benefit from economies of scale in energy efficiency that individual labs simply cannot achieve.

4. Enhance Sample Security & Regulatory Compliance

Sample storage isn’t just about keeping things cold, it’s about ensuring security, traceability, and compliance. Meeting MHRA, FDA, or ISO standards requires robust processes, staff training, and audit readiness. Outsourced biorepositories are built around compliance, with 24/7 monitoring, audit trails, controlled access, and disaster recovery protocols. This removes the costly burden of compliance from your lab while ensuring your samples are always inspection-ready.

5. Reduce Non-Value-Add Tasks & Gain Flexibility

Managing freezers, monitoring temperatures, and logging samples can eat up countless hours of skilled staff time. These are non-value-add tasks that distract from actual research. By outsourcing, your team can focus on discovery, while gaining scalable storage capacity that flexes with your project needs, whether that means short-term storage for a clinical trial or long-term archiving of critical samples.

The Bottom Line

Outsourcing biobanking storage isn’t just a matter of convenience, it’s a smart financial strategy. From reducing capital investment to cutting energy costs, from ensuring regulatory compliance to freeing up space and staff, the savings quickly add up.

By choosing the right biorepository partner, your lab gains peace of mind, cost predictability, and the ability to focus resources on what matters most: groundbreaking science.

Get in contact with Harrow Green today to find how we can help your budget go further!