Short answer
The Formulation Bench is unlocked by the Church Lighting I technology, not by an alchemy branch. It costs Wooden Planks, Bronze Details and one Polished Bronze to build, and all of its 36 recipes also require the Anatomy talent — which is why many players see the bench but cannot craft on it.
The Town workshop
View full-size image ↗Official promotional screenshot · © Lazy Bear Games / tinyBuild · Official media kit · Material credits
How to unlock it
Look for the Formulation Bench under Church Lighting I in the tech tree. Players searching the alchemy-style branches for it usually miss it for that reason.
Its recipes have a second gate: every one of them requires the Anatomy talent. Without it the bench can be built but shows nothing you can make.
Build cost
The standard build is 4 Wooden Planks, 5 Bronze Details and 1 Polished Bronze. Some placements use a slightly cheaper variant, but every version needs one Polished Bronze.
That Polished Bronze requirement is what pushes the bench past the demo — see the Polished Bronze guide for the bronze chain that leads to it.
Demolishing the bench returns the same materials, so moving it later costs nothing.
The church and graveyard in an official screenshot. Candles and incense from the bench supply the church; this is not a Formulation Bench interface.
View full-size image ↗Official promotional screenshot · © Lazy Bear Games / tinyBuild · Official media kit · Material credits
What the Formulation Bench makes
Candles in Simple, Pretty and Magnificent grades, plus Simple and Fancy Incense for the church.
Fertilizers — Crop Boosting I–III, Farming I–III and Headstart I–II — for your garden plots.
Embalming solutions and injections for both corpses and zombies, organ improvers using red or white skull improvers, and teeth extraction from skulls.
Utility items such as Dynamite, paper glop from flax or wheat, funeral urns with ashes, and an iron-to-gold conversion that uses a Philosopher Stone.
Using zombies at the bench
Like other workstations, the Formulation Bench can be staffed by a zombie and given a crafting queue.
Give it long queues so it keeps producing while you are away or asleep, and keep a supplier zombie delivering materials to a nearby chest.
The Alchemist and Dead alchemist perks raise the success chance of its recipes, so they are worth picking on the zombie you assign here.
