José Francisco Justino (1889-1957), known as José Galucho, set up a blacksmith’s workshop in São João das Lampas in 1920 to manufacture hand tools and agricultural implements, animal-drawn agricultural implements, carts and ox-carts.
The first imported agricultural machinery could not bear the harshness of Portuguese soils. José Galucho, with the help of his children, spotted a business opportunity and started to repair and reinforce these machines.
José Francisco Justino and his sons start designing and manufacturing their own agricultural equipment already adapted to the Portuguese agricultural reality. They prove to be a success and quickly impose themselves on machines imported from Europe.
The sons (2nd generation), now at the head of the company, invest in a new factory with the best means of production available at the time. GALUCHO begins to produce large-scale equipment for the Agriculture and Transport Equipment sectors, a business unit that had been created. GALUCHO specialises in the manufacture of heavy disc harrows, a new product range designed to meet the needs of farmers in the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, especially Angola and Mozambique.
In 1974 the company sets up a factory in Angola. Sales increase not only in Europe but also in the Middle East and Africa. The São João das Lampas factory serves as a production base and exports on a large scale to countries such as Angola, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. GALUCHO starts taking part in the most important international agricultural machinery fairs in France, United Kingdom, Spain and Germany. In 1980 it buys the first welding robots.
GALUCHO creates a partnership with Steyr tractors (Austria) and strengthens its presence in Africa, Latin America, the Middle and Far East. With the entry of Portugal into the European Union, the subsidiaries of GALUCHO España, GALUCHO France and GALUCHO Deutschland were created. In 1985 GALUCHO becomes a public limited company and takes on a more professional management with the entry into the board of the first members of the 3rd generation. The Transport business unit has invested heavily in the development of new products.
A new production plant is built in Albergaria-a-Velha to meet the growing demand for GALUCHO equipment and the diversification of the range. Partnership with AGRAM (France), GOLDHOFER (Germany) and SIMBA (United Kingdom), for joint development of product engineering and manufacture of special agricultural equipment. Manufacture of the first line of semi-trailers.
Major investments in factory infrastructure and installation of sophisticated means of production, software, engineering and management support. Large expansion of the Transport Division’s sales mainly to Spain, where it achieves market leadership, and also to France and Germany.
Constitution of GALUCHO Algérie, a joint venture with the Algerian government for local manufacturing of agricultural machinery. Partnership with Farming Agrícola (Spain) and AGCO (Massey Ferguson) for the African and Middle Eastern markets. In 2015, GALUCHO presented a renewed image, a new logo and a new slogan: Efficient Solutions. Inauguration of the Training Centre (2019) for training its own human resources and for commercial and technical training of its distributors.
With 100 years of existence, GALUCHO celebrates the past by remembering all those who contributed to its development and growth, as well as the constant innovation and engineering processes that lead us to be market leaders. We look to the future with ambition.
