CARR GOTTSTEIN INKS PACT WITH MCKESSON

CHAPIN CLARK

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Carr Gottstein Foods here has signed up McKesson Corp., San Francisco, as the chain's exclusive supplier of pharmaceuticals for the next five years.

McKesson recently entered the Alaska market with the proposed purchase of Anchorage-based V.F. Grace Wholesale's pharmaceutical business. V.F. Grace had been Carr Gottstein's primary supplier of prescription and over-the-counter products, providing the chain with between 12,000 and 18,000 stockkeeping units, according to Martin Krull, Carr Gottstein's director of pharmacy.

Based on previous buying patterns and projected growth, McKesson expects the agreement with Carr Gottstein to yield $180 million in revenues to the supplier over the term of the deal, according to Larry Kurtz, a McKesson spokesman.

The sale of the V.F. Grace business to McKesson is set to close Aug. 21. McKesson's first shipments to Carr Gottstein are expected to begin Aug. 25.

"We saw it as an excellent opportunity to avail ourselves of their programs and to provide better service to our customers," said Krull of the agreement with McKesson, which claims to be the largest health care supply management company in North America.

McKesson is opening a new 40,000-square-foot distribution center in Anchorage that will have a state-of-the-art, computerized inventory-control system, according to Krull.

"If they don't have something, they can probably get it in 12 hours from Seattle," he said. "If they can't get it from one manufacturer, they'll get it from another," commented Krull.

He said that in the past, V.F. Grace, because of its relatively limited network of suppliers, sometimes took days to replenish a product's depleted stock.

Carr Gottstein also had trouble stocking certain "fringe" products that were requested by the many people who had moved to Alaska from other parts of the country, Krull noted.

"There were some orphaned things, some regional things our wholesaler wouldn't have carried," he said.

Krull expects working with McKesson will translate into improved day-to-day dealings with the consumer because of greater efficiency achieved through the new partnership.

"You can spend more time with customers when you don't have to deal with everyday things like paperwork," he said. "Anything I can do at the store level to let the pharmacist interact with the customer more, that's what you're trying to strive for."