Achieving the initial targets of improved service to customers, and better marketing, had led to an increased membership and turnover level. Peter Dodd and his colleagues began thereafter to look for ways to increase UniChem’s market penetration, particularly in other areas of the UK.
The lack of large amounts of available capital precluded any thoughts of taking over one of their significant competitors. However, geographical expansion remained the most obvious next step, and a list was drawn up of smaller pharmaceutical wholesalers.
This particular search concentrated on those who might be amenable to takeover, and whose area of operations was felt to hold potential for large scale development.
The first area chosen for expansion was Wales. UniChem already operated a single van delivery run into South Wales, from its Nuneaton branch. However, this service was, of course, under a serious handicap in competing with those based in Cardiff or Swansea.
In 1972, the only company available for purchase was a “short-liner”, as limited range wholesalers were called. This was Flaxman & Davies of Swansea. Although by no means an ideal target, they did have a warehouse and a customer base. Additionally, many Welsh pharmacists who had been members using the company’s postal service back in the 1950’s, had stated that they were eagerly waiting for the date when UniChem would offer a locally based, van-delivery service.
Peter Dodd negotiated with the two owners, and eventually terms were agreed and the purchase made. One of the former owners, John Davies, became the first UniChem Swansea Branch Manager, and the other, Michael Flaxman, worked for a short time as the branch sales representative in South Wales. The warehouse was quickly converted to all of the UniChem procedures and the full stock-range was introduced.
The whole sales force was drafted in for a recruiting drive, and every pharmacy in Wales was called on within the next three weeks. This procedure proved to be extremely successful, and was to become standard in all future UniChem branch openings.
Unfortunately, an existing co-operative pharmacy wholesaler, Swansea Wholesale Ltd, was already operating in the immediate area around the city and in West Wales, and this proved to be a stumbling block to the membership recruitment efforts. However, the drive went well in the Cardiff and Newport areas, and the new Branch quickly proved to be a financial success.
The two next moves both came in the following year. The first target was in the North-West of England, in the shape of Barnes & Crompton of Preston. Based in an old three-storeyed building in the centre of the town, and wholly owned by a Mr Challoner, the firm had a good reputation in the area, and a strong customer base in North Lancashire. It was within easy reach of Liverpool & Manchester yet had little or no business from either of these cities. As the potential for expansion seemed almost limitless, Peter Dodd and Ray Monaghan made strong efforts to buy the company, succeeding early in 1973.
It proved to be a very amicable handover. Most of the staff stayed on at the new UniChem Preston Branch and the third-in-command, Joe Harris, became the company’s branch manager, holding that position until his retirement in 1998.
Again a series of large-scale sales drives was launched by the whole of the UniChem sales force, and lavish recruitment dinners were held for independent retail pharmacy owners in both Liverpool and Manchester. Over five hundred pharmacists and their wives attended each of these dinners, which were organized by John Speller and Bill Hart. Every member of UniChem’s senior management team was present.
The Liverpool dinner was a big success, but unfortunately the one in Manchester was not. The city of Manchester was always to remain a tough nut for UniChem to crack.
Later in the same year, expansion thoughts were turned to the North-East, and here Wilkinson & Simpson Ltd of Newcastle were the targets. Again very long negotiations were necessary before the purchase could be completed.
“Wilky-Sims”, as the local pharmacists called it, was not a typical pharmaceutical wholesaler. Their operating procedures featured three particular difficulties for the UniChem management to deal with. Firstly, they owned a facility within their warehouse building, which actually manufactured drugs & compounds used in the dispensing of medicines. Here, poor quality control was an issue. Secondly, they maintained accounts with a fair number of dispensing doctors, which was against the interests of UniChem members, and thirdly, they gave unethical medical discounts to certain of their favoured customers. The remedy chosen was quite straightforward. All three practices were stopped at soon as the purchase was confirmed.
Although these actions caused some adverse comment locally, they were in line with the company’s principles, and in the longer term worked for its benefit.
As in the case of the new Swansea and Preston branches, a large recruitment drive was mounted, and the new Branch soon became profitable under the leadership of Keith Carlisle, who had been Assistant Branch Manager at Leeds. Unfortunately, membership recruitment in the area, was made more difficult by the presence of an efficient, family-controlled pharmaceutical wholesaler called Hall Forster Ltd, also based in Newcastle. In spite of this competition, the customer base grew steadily, particularly in the rural region toward the Scottish border. The lowest levels of penetration were recorded in the area around Sunderland. Here a combination of “dislike of anything coming from Newcastle”, and a loyalty toward the local wholesaler, Baum Ltd, made for hard going.
Two further major opportunities for geographical expansion were now identified, those of Scotland, and the West Country of England.
Early in 1973, as an experiment, an unorthodox UniChem delivery service had been offered to parts of Scotland. It had resulted from a small-scale recruiting drive carried out by John Speller, Bill Hart & Ray Leslie. They had trawled the Edinburgh area offering local independent pharmacies an early morning delivery of dispensing lines, assembled by the Walthamsow branch in London, and supplied via British Railways’ Red Star early morning service out of Kings Cross Station. These goods were delivered on the overnight train to Waverley Station, Edinburgh. From there a locally based van, in UniChem livery, picked up and delivered throughout Edinburgh and the Lothians.
Amazingly, this had been a success, and by the end of 1973, there were three local vans operating in Edinburgh, Fife and the Borders. It was now decided that a full service would be viable, and a search was started for a branch site.
Suitable premises were found on a trading estate in Livingston, near Edinburgh, and a new branch was fitted out. A local Vestric manager, Cyril Westgarth, was recruited to lead the project, and the branch became operational in January 1974.
Following the customary recruitment drives and dinners, many members were signed up. Excellent turnover growth was immediately achieved throughout the East of Scotland, but Glasgow and the Southwest were always difficult. Here, the competition was very stiff, with a very good local wholesaler in Glasgow, called Hamiltons, and a well-liked co-operative wholesaler, based in Kilmarnock, called Ayrshire Pharmaceuticals.
With Scotland and the North East of England now covered, only the West Country was not served by a proper UniChem van delivery service. This had not previously been considered as a top priority, because it was felt that time would provide the solution.
In the early 1970’s Peter Dodd had been promised “first refusal” by the excellent wholesaler, Evans Gadd of Exmouth, if ever they were to sell up. However, in the event the business was sold early in 1974, without any prior warning, to one of UniChem’s main competitors, Sangers.
As a reaction to this surprise, a once daily, overnight van route was offered to Devon pharmacies, from the UniChem Branch at Kingston. This was achieved by off-loading from a large trunker vehicle on to smaller local delivery vans. By this method, a network of 100 members was built up. However, this was not really a complete answer and many former Evans Gadd customers contacted UniChem asking for a branch to be opened in the area. Consequently, a search for premises was begun by Kelvin Hide, who was now Assistant Operations Director, and Tim Iveson, the Kingston Branch manager.
It took some time, but eventually a suitable warehouse was found on the fairly new, Marsh Barton Trading Estate in Exeter. The Branch was fitted out from scratch and opened in 1976. Tim Iveson (at his own request) transferred from the Kingston branch to be its first manager. The branch was highly successful from the start and remained one of the most profitable company operations.
The opening of the Exeter branch meant that UniChem, using only twelve branches, could now offer a van service to any pharmacy from Land’s End to John o’Groats.
The only one of its competitors that could say the same was Vestric, and they used 24 branches to achieve the same coverage. This feat was set to become even more of a remarkable achievement . In 1976 the UniChem Exeter branch began a to offer a daily van delivery service to Jersey and Guernsey, via the Weymouth ferry and locally based vans.