About Us

The history of Vascofar, collected in 1999 by the Governing Council when the cooperative turned 50, is intended for those who, more than half a century ago, knew how to see the future, wanted to improve the present and made a common grouping of their knowledge, experiences and efforts for the pharmacy offices to have in their Vascongada-Vascofar- Cooperative, a common home that would provide them with cohesion, strength, representativeness ... in short, service and effectiveness for a better defense of their individual interests in terms of solidarity and cooperativism. And to all those workers who made it possible with their dedication and effort to achieve the dream of the first pharmacists who bet on a cooperative movement that today maintains the founding principles intact.

• Mr. Víctor Llorente Balanzategui
• Mr. José Uriarte Zuloaga
• Mr. Manuel García Otero

El traslado a Particular de Costa 8-10 a finales de 1961, ampliado después al 12 y 14, supuso pasar a ‘respirar’ mejor ya que los casi 1500m2 que al final de 1965 ocupamos tras unos iniciales 700 m2, constituían casi un lujo puesto que nos permitía salir del agobio y la estrechez anteriores.

In Zaratamo, our current location, since January 1975 we have owned 10,000m2 built, between warehouse and offices, and in this location we have space to get around in complete comfort.

The first geographical expansion took place in 1979 when Vascofar bought an 806m2 warehouse on Monseñor Estenaga street in Vitoria, then the suburbs, today the heart of the capital of Alava.

We then start with about 40 partners, service 3 times a week for cost reasons and a 5% market share in this territory. Mr. Benito Ormazábal, a pharmacist of recognized prestige and drive, led a group of colleagues from Alava and Vascofar made his wishes for a forward-thinking cooperative warehouse come true.

Today, in 1999, when 20 years have passed, the number of partners has doubled and the initial market share has quintupled.

The second expansion took place in 1987 with the integration into Vascofar of CO.FA.SA (Colegiados Farmacéuticos Alaveses SA).

That same year and the following year, 1988, Vascofar expanded and diversified its presence in the market for pharmaceutical marketing products while favoring the management of its partners in an important aspect of this.

We refer firstly to the integration of the management of Alorva -Almacén Ortopédico Vascongado- in the functional operations and management of Vascofar. In addition to a real improvement in its global management, the number of references went from 400 to 8,000 of articles of parapharmacy and orthopedics available to the member.

In 1989, another step was taken in improving the service with the centralization of returns in FEDECO, a former company dedicated to the commercialization of drugstore products, whose directive function was carried out by Vascofar.

The associated cooperatives in Alorva and, therefore, their partners, benefited from a more agile and more economically positive management in such a thorny field as that of returns.

And from then until now, the cooperative has worked and works thinking about how to progress in efficiency while maintaining the inalienable cooperative identity.

The current appearance of the facilities is the best tribute to those who with effort, of one kind or another, managed to resurrect what was lifeless for a few days.

 

From the slide rule to robotics, through computing

The operations carried out in the first location of the cooperative in the 1950s - the premises of Calle General Concha - were very primitive, as is not difficult to imagine.

The preparation of orders was carried out by circulating the warehouse workers ‘basket on arm’ through the shelves, filling in what the order forms, handwritten, reflected. Of course the administration was based on the calculation of the delivery notes by means of crank machines, capable of performing the 4 operations "at the speed of a turtle", and was reflected in documents through typewriters with keyboard and printing slow and deficient, the problem exacerbated by the quality of the copies generated by the rubbings of the time.

At the beginning of the 60s, already located on Calle Particular Costa, Vascofar entered the world of new technologies by acquiring Italian-made machines from the Gispert house called ‘Tetractis’ that until 1970 made it possible to carry Get your administrative functions done faster and more efficiently.

Meanwhile, in the warehouse, the preparation of orders continued as in the early days of the cooperative.

Between the years 1970 and 1987 is when there are changes in the key of improvement with the incorporation of information technology in daily operations.

Starting in 1975, at the Zaratamo facilities, the placing of orders in the warehouse was aided by technology-based methods, such as the conveyor belt, which decreased and facilitated the movement of goods.

In 1998 Vascofar joined the programming and operations developed by CCS (Sabadell Calculation Center) for 8 pharmaceutical cooperatives with a unified system for adapting programs to the euro and the change of the millennium.

Slowly the process of change began in terms of order formalization, gradually imposing the use of terminals.

And from then until today, the incorporation of robots has allowed the warehouse to be automated by up to 70%, enhancing the speed and efficiency in order preparation, transferring the commitment of a cooperative with a vocation for the future.

 

 

Of course, always with the pharmaceutical partner at the center of the activity, with the cooperative spirit with which Vascofar was born in 1949.

 

1983 floods

On August 26, 1983, more than a hundred Basque towns were declared a catastrophic zone, after incessant rains flooded the whole of EuskalHerria and floods swept away everything. And when we say everything is that it was everything.

It is an episode in the history of the cooperative that was about to achieve what not even the attacks against our constitution could achieve: to erase Vascofar from the face of the earth, swallowed up by waters and mud.

The qualifiers were exhausted to reflect the consequences of such floods. Raising these ruins, after clearing and cleaning hundreds of tons of mud and stones, was the task of titans. A chapter in our history that has a list immense of praises and thanks. Physical assistance from employees and other institutions - both partners and some banking entities - whose generosity was vital to this situation ... A physical effort accompanied and reinforced by a spirit of the directing and governing bloc that transmitted strength, tenacity, a decision that it was necessary to be reborn ‘against all odds’ to continue the work cooperative started 34 years earlier.

There is the testimony. The experience we lived strengthened and prepared us to face new problems, of a different nature, but, in any case, hard and complicated.