Economy

Posted April 23, 2015

Ontario Craft Brewers adds on beer retail changes

Toronto, ON – The Ontario Craft Brewers today released additional details surrounding its stance on the province’s retail change announcements:

Backgrounder: Ontario Craft Brewers Additional Key Points on Retail Changes

  • Ontario Craft Brewers continue to believe that government’s announced changes to Ontario’s beer retail system are game-changers and the most significant thing that has happened since prohibition.
  • Once fully implemented, these changes will allow us to create at least 1000 jobs in the province.
  • We appreciate the Premier and Minister Sousa’s leadership, as well as Ed Clark’s ideas for making this happen.
  • As we continue to work with government on implementing these ideas, there will obviously be a number of items that need further discussion to ensure that the playing field is as level as possible for all involved. After all, these are the first changes in 88 years, so clearly, it will take a while to work out the details.
  • While this work is going on, OCB also fully expects that some brewers will decide to raise points that concern them in the media. All follow up items are now being discussed with government by the Ontario Craft Brewers government relations team. We fully expect that they will be fairly resolved.
  • There have been a number of comments about added competition and without a doubt, there will be added competition between retail channels and between brewers, because they will have more points of access and more opportunities to create and display new brands.
  • The province has decided to maintain a uniform pricing legislation so clearly there will not be price differences among retail channels. This has been a longstanding policy of government. It means that a beer consumer in Thunder Bay pays the same price as a beer consumer in Toronto.
  • Our focus is now completely on the future, beginning with the implementation details of the announcement and moving on to identifying and working with communities that don’t already have breweries.
  • The proposed concepts for change that government has put forward are extremely positive and very broad reaching. We are eager to implement these important changes as quickly as possible and we fully expect that government will make further adjustments if needed as we go along.

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