Allied Master Chemists of Australia Limited (Amcal) is an Australian pharmacy retailer and was founded by Major General C. H. Simpson on 13 July 1937, starting a movement that was to greatly influence pharmacy in
Australia. The founding group consisted of 11 pharmacists.
The launch of Amcal to consumers was included personal letters to each household, window posters, a giveaway of a tablet of soap and a brochure entitled "Why this is an Amcal Pharmacy".
Australia
Originally Amcal was a
buying group owned by the members who all had shares in the Amcal group. Amcal
demutualised
Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (''mutual'') or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, memb ...
when
Sigma Pharmaceuticals bought out the members shares in 2000 with the lure of more money and better centralised marketing. It is still a marketing group, however a franchise division of Amcal called Amcal Max is now marketing under a more competitive and compliant model. Between 2016 and 2017, some Amcal Pharmacies were converted to
Terry White Chemmarts. There are now 223 Amcal pharmacies in Australia.
New Zealand
In New Zealand, Amcal was a pharmacy
franchise
Franchise may refer to:
Business and law
* Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees
* Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...
. Amcal's
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
was managed by the owner of Amcal New Zealand,
Pharmacybrands, a division of Australian Pharmaceutical Industries. The chain was re branded as Unichem in 2015.
References
External links
Australian Amcal websiteNew Zealand Amcal website
Health services companies of Australia
Pharmacies of Australia
Pharmaceutical companies of Australia
1937 establishments in Australia
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