Growth in company’s animal health business results in facility expansion
Norbrook® North American, located in Lenexa, Kansas, is nearly doubling the capacity of its warehouse due to recent double-digit and projected growth in the company’s animal health business. The facility will increase to 60,000 square feet of storage and distribution space for its food animal and companion animal health products sold in the United States.
Bruce Brinkmeyer, vice president for Norbrook® North America, says the planned expansion in warehouse and distribution capacity is a significant investment for the company to make to better serve the needs of its customers today and into the future. “One of our core values is to drive continuous improvement in our customer delivery performance. Our warehouse and sales and marketing offices here in the Kansas City area are perfectly centralized to efficiently and quickly serve the wide variety of customers we have across the country and help us to meet that core customer service value.”
In the last few years, Brinkmeyer notes that Norbrook® has significantly increased the number of products and overall sales of products for the food animal segment, which make up most of the company’s overall business on the continent. In 2021, the company’s food animal product sales grew 12 percent and its companion animal product business increased by 17 percent over the previous year.
“In the last five years, in particular, we have significantly expanded our product portfolio of generic antimicrobials for livestock, and our overall sales volume has grown to the point where we were running out of space,” he explains. “The expansion of facilities and our investment into the region allows us to continue that growth into the future for both Food Animal and Companion Animal.”
Norbrook® is a 53-year-old company and one of the largest family-owned veterinary pharmaceutical companies in the world. Most of the food and companion animal products Norbrook® markets in North America are manufactured at the company’s home-base facilities in Newry, Northern Ireland, then shipped to the Kansas City warehouse for distribution to animal health distributor partners who serve customers across the country. Norbrook® has had a presence in Kansas City area since 2002. The expansion is expected to be completed this fall.