Drugstore

Caddy's turns 50 and aims to double market share

27 May 2025

2' min read

Fifty years of history, 360 sales outlets, over 1,700 employees, a 5% market share in the drugstore channel and the ambition to double it in the coming years: Caddy's, a brand specialising in personal and home care, continues to grow by focusing on strengthening its position in the Italian market, leadership in the drugstore channel and a new season of investment, sustainability and organised development.

Founded in 1974 as Cad - Centro Acquisti Detersivi - in Ponte di Brenta, in the province of Padua, Caddy's is the main brand of the Dmo group led by siblings Fabio and Annalisa Celeghin, the third generation of an entrepreneurial family that has built its future on concreteness, roots in the territory and organic growth.

"The offers from foreign funds and investors have come and continue to come,' says Fabio Celeghin, 'but for us the real value is human: the company is not just ours, it belongs to the people who work there.

The group, which had a turnover of around EUR 150 million in 2009, now stands at EUR 300 million, with Caddy's accounting for around 70 per cent of turnover. Along with Caddy's, the portfolio also includes Beauty Star (70 perfumeries in Italy, members of the Naïma consortium) and L'Isola dei Tesori, the pet care chain now managed by Dmo Pet Care with the entry of funds (Peninsula Capital and Azimut).

A capillary sales network (over 360 shops), a 52,000 square metre central warehouse and a catalogue with over 30,000 articles also served by e-commerce. But the real strength remains the growth model: constant, autonomous expansion, with the objective - never hidden - of consolidating the sector through strategic aggregations and new acquisitions.

'The market is too fragmented,' explains Fabio Celeghin, 'and the way forward is economies of scale. We are evaluating operations in these very weeks'.

In the heart of the Veneto region, in Pernumia, is the group's headquarters, in a restored 17th-century villa (Cà Battaja Belloni), a tangible symbol of a company that grows while remaining tied to its origins. And that, while working in a highly competitive market, chooses not to move to large centres.

"We do not want to move the centre of gravity elsewhere. We were born here and we want to stay here,' Fabio Celeghin emphasises. 'We think it is a mistake to train young people who then emigrate: we need an entrepreneurial system that enhances skills in the regions as well.

The link with the community is an integral part of the company's DNA. Even bureaucratic difficulties - recounted without filters - do not undermine the desire to continue investing in the territory.

That of Caddy's is a true Italian entrepreneurial saga, which began after the Second World War with Giuseppe Celeghin and passed through Giovanni - founder of the company in 1974 - to Fabio and Annalisa, today at the helm of a solid, innovative and deeply human group.

"We went through a rapid and complex generational transition,' recalls Annalisa, 'but today we are proud not only to have continued our father's work, but to have grown the company by enhancing its identity.

Marika Gervasioredattore
- @marikger
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Luogo: Milano
Lingue parlate: Inglese, spagnolo
Argomenti: Lusso, benessere, cosmetica, moda
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