At 87 years old, Bevan Crombie has a lot to smile about as he greets staff during a tour of Crombie and Price’s recently expanded Torridge St base in Oamaru.
With a sales office in Auckland, and eight full-time sales reps around the country, the company employs 37 people nationwide and distributes to 900 pharmacies, 360 health stores, 320 supermarkets, an assortment of organic stores and 20 district health boards.
And yet its owner and managing director had no plans for such grandeur when he moved to Oamaru in 1954.
After studying pharmacy in Wellington, the Southland-raised Mr Crombie bought Bremner’s Pharmacy in Thames St and Crombie the Chemist opened its doors.
Mr Crombie settled into life in Thames St for 15 years before "an extraordinary thing happened", he says.
Harbour St’s nationally known health tonic Lane’s Emulsion went up for sale.
Invented in the late 1890s by Edward "Ted" Lane, the cod-liver oil-based emulsion was made in Oamaru’s historic area and Mr Crombie says in 1969 he was approached by the New Zealand Insurance Trust Department to buy the company: there were no Lanes left alive.
After some hesitation, Crombie and Price was formed with an Invercargill partner and Mr Crombie owned "the national tonic".
"We had a formulation that sold millions of bottles," he says.
But it was more than a winning product he bought.
He had infrastructure he soon learned to capitalise on. Lane’s Emulsion was already being shipped across the country.
"When different opportunities came up we had this distribution company, apart from Lane’s, available.
"It was a lucky break, but a lot of it was Johnny on the spot."
About 1975, Mr Crombie took advantage of import licensing when a Wellington perfume company "hit the wall" and he bought it.
Until 1988, the company distributed the fragrance Joy by Jean Patau, as well as a range of French perfumes.
Next, the company saw "an abnormal distribution of import licences for cane furniture".
"Pretty well all, 95%, of cane licences were all with North Island importers. They didn’t bother with the South Island because they could sell everything they had in the North Island without trouble. Anyway, Crombie & Price were looking for opportunities. At this stage we were starting to march."
Mr Crombie calls the 1970s and 1980s "those crucial years" when business took off.
"Seven or eight" drug companies closed their doors, pharmacies formed co-operatives and Crombie and Price saw another opportunity, he says.
"Those big drug companies, they used to import a tremendous range of pharmaceutical sundries," Mr Crombie says.
"As they closed their doors, we suddenly saw the fact that somebody had to import these. The CDC in Christchurch, they didn’t want to buy 10,000 eye droppers, which would have been the minimum order, they wanted to buy maybe 72, 144, every six, eight, 10 weeks. We saw the opportunity, and we hopped in and went around the world countless times picking up the agencies of pharmaceutical sundries."
Mr Crombie’s background in pharmacy paid off again in the 1980s when "the health supplements side started to come alive".
While other companies were pursuing vitamins and health supplements, the former pharmacist saw the opportunities in gluten-free, wheat-free, egg-free, nut-free, dairy-free and vegan products.
So-called "free foods" have become much more mainstream in recent years as diets that were once uncommon, like gluten-free, became more normal.
With skin in the game for three decades, Crombie and Price is now the biggest importer of gluten-free products in New Zealand.
One of the company’s main lines now is an imported cosmetic, Sukin, the biggest selling medium-priced cosmetic in New Zealand, available in 700 stores across the country.
Mr Crombie’s wife of 47 years, Margaret, died 11 years ago.
His oldest son Peter and his daughters Anne and Catherine are company directors.
And although his son, general manager John Crombie, has proven to be "an excellent buyer", Mr Crombie is not stepping away from the business just yet.
"I’m in reasonably good health, and I find it fascinating, interesting," he says.
"I could have a week off if I needed it. But I’d go mad just looking out the window and you can’t play golf seven days a week."
The secret to Mr Crombie’s longevity in business could come from his products.
"I take a bit of a cocktail . . . We’ve got plenty to choose from."
