Since setting up shop in 2009, Animal Farmacy with headquarters in Co Kilkenny has grown to become one of Ireland’s largest and most successful livestock health stores, supporting farmers with free delivery across the country thanks to their unique business model. Rob McOwan, the company’s head of operations told us more about what they have to offer and why he believes so many Irish farmers are now buying from Animal Farmacy.
Rob, his wife Trish and a great friend Joseph Haire (the owner of the Kissanes Pharmacy Chain) set up the business more than seven years ago now, and from day one it was their plan to create a business that offered farmers a more complete ‘one-stop-shop’, ensuring they could gain the best advice, the best available livestock health products at the best possible price and all under one roof.
With only one shop available at the time, Trish and Joe were concerned that this present model could only support local, Kilkenny farmers, and this was not good enough, so it was decided that they should think bigger and open the shop and unique services to all Irish farmers and so the online side of the business – AnimalFarmacy.ie – was also born.
Within months of opening the doors to their first shop, which, by the way was carefully chosen to be situated within Ireland’s best animal livestock Mart in Cillin Hill, The Hub, on the outskirts of Kilkenny, they expanded their services within one of the Kissanes Pharmacys outlets based in Thomastown.
This enabled rural farmers within such a tight knit community to now call into to their well-known, friendly local pharmacy and buy everything they could buy from the main Animal Farmacy store. This included their dosing, their vaccines and any other key seasonal livestock and equestrian health products; the tills, customer accounts and records were linked to the main shop so all records and invoices could be recorded legally.
Everything was the same, so they just made the busy farmer’s life that little bit easier.
This mini, sub store neatly housed within a small section of Joe’s Kissanes Pharmacy
This is now a business model in itself and one that they would like to replicate across Ireland, so if you own or manage a rural pharmacy and would like Animal Farmacy to help generate you extra income, whilst taking away the headache of all of the Departmental legal paperwork, why not give Rob or Joe Haire a call on 086 8961223 to find out more!
The main hub of this exciting enterprise still focusses around their Licence Merchant shop in Kilkenny’s New Mart, The Hubb; where farmers gather to buy and sell their livestock two to three times a week.
This prime location is now being ran by a great new team and heading this busy operation is a very well experienced James Taylor. Apparently it took a long time to find the right candidate, so James was carefully chosen by the management at Animal Farmacy thanks to his 10 years plus experience in the animal health industry, having worked for a multinational pharmaceutical company and multinational animal health company.
The former semi-pro rugby player brought to the table many specialties and attributes that help farmers on a daily basis, such as advice on scour prevention, lameness and silage additives to mention but a few.
The same applies to their other
“Everyone, including all the dedicated staff found within the various Kissanes Pharmacies, our store in Kilkenny and the newly appointed, on the road sales agents, play a vital, individual and important role in promoting and building the business that is Animal Farmacy,” Rob stated.
“As for me, I bring a slightly different approach and skill set to the business and one that I hope is beginning to prove worthy and a part of our overall success; Marketing, Promotion and Branding; all of which I truly believe are strongly needed when building such a business that is designed to expand across Ireland and having worked around the world, this is a sector that I have sadly, far too many years experiences within!
“Marketing is frowned upon by some of my partners and as anyone that works with me will tell you, I am definitely more of a marketer than a livestock or pharmacist expert.
“This element, combined with our unique partnership with Joseph Haire of Kissanes Pharmacy
“Part of our success is the fact that Animal Farmacy pass on all of these discounts and benefits to our loyal customer base, ensuring that within such a competitive industry Animal Farmacy always offer the best deals for farmers and equestrian yards and the reason our agents visiting farms are proving so successful.”
As part of their never ending expansion plans and brand building exercise, Animal Farmacy are now taking on independent sales agents, with the sole purpose of hitting the Irish country roads and calling in to every farm and equestrian yard in the country, no matter how rural or remote.
A mammoth task you may say and a route to market that has previously proven to be not so successful for their competitors; but given their buying power, trained agents, free delivery service and by-weekly visits to farmers along with the proven test bed in their local area, they are determined to make this work.
Rob elaborated: “Today’s farmer is so busy trying to make ends meet that by calling to their place of business on a regular basis can only but help and in most cases depending on the product, orders are called in whilst in their yard, taken and processed by our in store approved staff, then shipped out free of charge, next day, direct in to the farmers yard. The same service works for our web site – AnimalFarmacy.ie.”
If you would like one of the Animal Farmacy agents to call to your farm on a weekly basis offering free delivery and great deals call 056 7712550 to find out more. Or if you think you would like to become an independent agent for Animal Farmacy call James on 056 7712550.
Although now one of Ireland’s great business success stories, Rob went on to state: “Since we launched Animal Farmacy.ie the company has grown year on year with a small blip in 2015; a sad reflection of the hard times Irish farmers are encountering and like any new businesses growing up within such a gloomy economic climate has confronted us with great challenges and many ups and down along the way.
“But, as such a closely knit team, we have always tried to turn any negative into a positive and learn from our mistakes! This is a rule that we live by each and every working day and no matter how big the company grows and successful we become, we still encounter problems and stressful times so such strong, positive beliefs are a must.”
What’s left to do and what’s next on the agenda?
“There is a massive amount of things to do, changes and improvements to be made but one of the main projects that everyone here is extremely excited about and that is our soon to launch Short Dated Stock website,” Rob explained.
“This unique shopping and cost saving porthole will eventually allow all farmers, equestrian yards and pet owners to view the majority of short dated stock available in Ireland; all in one, specially designed location – Shortdatedstock.com or
“The idea is to work closely with all of the key manufacturers, wholesalers and retailer and deal with a problem they all suffer from and all spend a fortune trying to destroy or sell off; Short Dated Stock.
“It’s our long term goal to be able to bring all of this useful, short dated stock “virtually” under one roof by using our cleverly designed software that will allow members to view any and all available short dated items.
“By this we mean a product that has six months to one week left on its Expiry/ Best Before Date, displayed on its packaging. The system will automatically calculate a fixed discount, depending on the length of time remaining on the individual product or products; with saving available from 20-70% off normal retail pricing.”
He added: “With such incredible savings, it should become a farmer’s first port of call to visit or phone into Short Dated Stock before buying any livestock health products and obviously we can never guarantee what’s available, but it will definitely be worth taking a look.”
For Farmers and Equestrian Yards who would like to find out more about how to become a Short Dated Stock member call 056 771250. For Wholesalers and Manufactures who would like to find out how your business could benefit from this great new service, call Rob on 056 7712550.
“The other projects that continue to excite me and everyone at Animal Farmacy, its within our belief and need to support other Irish businesses and through, this we constantly look for new Irish made products that was can sell and promote through our various channels,” said Rob.
“A prime example of this is a new calming paste for horses and ponies aptly named Chillax. This is one of many new products manufactured by a clever Irish Company called CF Pharma and brought to market thanks to wholesalers such as Acravet, another Irish success story in itself (see Acravet.ie).”
So if you are an Irish farmer, or work with horses or ponies, and want to find out more about this unique business and how you can benefit from their success, then why not give them a try, they have a proven and trusted solution for all your Livestock, Horses and Pets!
Animal Farmacy Ltd
Address: Unit 1, The Hub,
Cillin Hill Mart, Dublin Road,
Kilkenny
Tel: +353 (0) 56 7712550
Web: animalfarmacy.ie
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 7, September 2016
