From La Rambla to wholesaler

The family firm from the Catalan capital Barcelona is now run by the two brothers Jordi and Antoni Font. The origins of the company go back to their parents, however, who established a small shop in the old part of the city, close to La Rambla, in the 1960s. Here they sold glass products for the home. A visit by a sales rep for bird accessories prompted Dimac’s entry into the pet supplies business, and as this developed ever more satisfactorily over the years, the pet product range was slowly expanded. The small shop in Barcelona’s old town continued to operate as a cash’n’carry store with no field sales team to distribute the products to other retailers, but its development into a wholesale enterprise accelerated rapidly: from supplying products exclusively to Catalan traders in the 1990s, it had progressed by 2000 to distributing goods all over Spain. A new warehouse in La Roca del Valles near Barcelona in 2007 extended the company’s operating range significantly. Dimac also sells a growing number of non-Spanish brands, such as products of the German company Eheim. The company started with the sale of foreign brands in the 80s. It still also runs the cash’n’carry store in Barcelona that was opened in the 1970s in addition to its wholesale operation. “This is inten­ded primarily to cater to those shops that only need a few particular items in a hurry,” explains Carles Vallejo, Dimac’s purchasing manager.

The company has also invested considerably over the years in the development of private label products under the Wuapu brand. Its product range includes food for dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, small mammals and fish, along with accessories and even its own aquariums. “In the next few years we aim to concentrate above all on developing these private label products further and exporting them.” Featuring alongside the private label range is a selection of international branded products. “We have focused closely on quality and have deliberately decided to distribute around ten major brands only, therefore.”

The two brothers believe that direct personal contact with the customer is important when it comes to selling its products in Spain. “We supply many firms in Spain that…