Type Private Founder Leon Koffler Revenue $1.2 billion (2010) Headquarters Herzliya, Israel Number of locations 202 | Industry Drugstore, Retail Products Drugs, Health CEO Nitzan Lavi (1 Jul 2013–) Founded 1978 Number of employees 7,000 | |
 | ||
Key people Leon Koffler (Chairman)
Nitzan Lavi (CEO) | ||
Super-Pharm (Hebrew: סופר-פארם Super-Pharm) is a pharmacy chain in Israel, Poland, and China. Owned by the Koffler family, the pharmacy uses the same logo and some of the same private-label brands, such as Life and Quo, as Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada.
Contents
History
The origin of the company is with two pharmacies by Leon Koffler in Toronto in 1921. In 1941 his son, Murray Koffler inherited the two drug stores, called "Koffler's Drugs", and by 1962, Koffler's had grown to a chain of 17 pharmacies, which Murray then renamed "Shoppers Drug Mart" in the 1970s. During the 1970s, Koffler visited Israel, and following the visit he decided to set up a chain similar to his one in Canada. In 1979, the first Super-Pharm pharmacy was opened in the Neve Amirim neighbourhood of Herzliya, Israel.
The drug store was different from pharmacies in the past in that it was open on the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), and sold products that were not drugs. Two years later, they opened a second pharmacy in Jerusalem, and 1985 saw the opening of a Super-Pharm branch in the Ayalon shopping mall, which was their first location in a shopping mall.
In July 2007 Bank Leumi acquired 18% stake in for 190 million shekels giving Super-Pharm a company value of NIS 1.05 billion shekels.
On 4 January 2011, the trade publication Chain Drug Review’ recognized Super-Pharm as the Global Chain Drug Retailer of the Year for 2010.
Private label
Since 1995, Super-Pharm have sold products under their private label Life, and LifeStyle (which Shoppers Drug Mart also sells), which includes more than 400 different products from toiletries, to medicine, to food products. In 2007, the Life brand made up approximately 13% of their total sales.
Israel
Since opening its first store in 1978 Super-Pharm has grown to 160 stores spread across the entire country and achieving a market leading position as the largest drugstore chain in Israel. Super-Pharm is one of the country’s largest employers of non-Jewish Israelis, with close to 20% of their workforce, about 1,000 employees (out of 5,800), are Israeli Arabs; additionally 25 of the chain's associates franchise stores are owned by Israeli Arabs.
Poland
In 2001 the Super-Pharm opened its first branch in Poland and as of 2011 operates 33 branches throughout the country. Annual sales of the Polish chain for 2010 are estimated to reach $150 million.
China
In 2005 the company started operating in China in a joint venture with China's partners, as of 2010 operates 87 stores in the country.