How independent vets compete with corporate groups on cost

Around 60% of UK veterinary practice premises are now owned by corporate groups. Roughly 38% remain independent. If you are in that 38%, you are competing with businesses that pay less than you do for the same drugs, the same consumables, the same card terminal — and that gap is structural, not a reflection of how well you run your practice.

The CMA's review of the sector has changed what corporates must disclose about ownership and pricing. It has not changed their buying power. This is about what you can do regardless.

Where the gap actually is

It is worth being precise, because the gap is not evenly spread.

Pharmaceuticals and consumables — large. A group buying for two hundred practices negotiates centrally, hits volume tiers no single practice reaches, and often has terms an independent is not offered at all. This is the biggest single disadvantage and the hardest to close alone.

Equipment and capital — large but occasional. Analysers, imaging, dental units. Group purchasing and finance terms both favour scale, but you buy rarely enough that each decision can be researched properly.

Services — smaller than you think. Card processing, energy, insurance, telephony, waste. A group negotiates these centrally too, but the gap is far narrower, and — critically — you can close most of it yourself. Nobody needs two hundred practices to get a competitive merchant rate. They need to read the statement.

Staff costs — no gap at all. Wages, employer NI, pension. Identical arithmetic for everyone. What differs is retention, and small practices often beat corporates on that when they use it deliberately.

The strategic point: spend your effort where the gap is closeable, not where it is largest. The pharmaceuticals gap needs collective buying power. The services gap needs an afternoon.

What is closeable on your own

Card processing. Entirely within your control. Work out your effective rate — every charge divided by total card turnover — and compare. Most practices should sit between 0.6% and 1.4%. The arithmetic is here, and the audit is here.

Energy and insurance. Both quotable, both frequently renewing on autopilot with an annual uplift nobody agreed to.

Practice management software and telephony. Long contracts, silent renewals, prices set years ago.

Clinical waste. Priced per collection and per weight, often on terms that no longer match your actual volumes.

None of these need scale. They need attention at the right moment, which is the renewal date — the only point at which you have leverage, and the one that passes unnoticed.

What needs numbers you do not have

Drugs and consumables are the real gap, and you cannot negotiate well without knowing what good looks like. Your supplier knows the range of prices they charge across their book. You know one price: yours.

That asymmetry is the whole problem, and it does not resolve by trying harder. It resolves when enough independent practices pool verified invoice data that an aggregate exists — at which point a practice can walk into a renewal knowing whether its price is normal, good or poor.

Being straight about where that stands: it unlocks per product once enough practices have contributed, and until then nothing is shown. A benchmark from a handful of practices is an anecdote, not a number to negotiate against.

What independents have that corporates do not

Worth stating, because the cost conversation makes it easy to forget.

You decide in a day. You can change supplier without a group framework agreement. You can price a case on judgement rather than a matrix. Clients frequently prefer an owner-run practice and will say so — RCVS and CMA work both note continuity of care and the clinician relationship as things clients value and consolidation strains.

Cost parity is not the goal. Closing the avoidable part of the gap is, so that the structural part stops being decisive.

Where I would start

1. List every recurring cost with its renewal date and notice period. Sort by annual value.
2. Do card processing this week. It is one document, it is fully comparable, and it needs nobody's permission.
3. Diarise every renewal eight weeks ahead, permanently.
4. Contribute invoice data somewhere that aggregates it, so the consumables gap eventually becomes negotiable rather than permanent.

The first three are worth real money on their own and need no collective anything. The fourth is the only route to the part you cannot fix alone.

If you want the card-fee piece done for you, send a recent statement and I will tell you your effective rate and whether it is worth acting on.