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Ontario seeks bids from grocers wanting to sell beer

The Bread Guy

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This out today from Ontario's info-machine:
In a move that offers consumers more convenience and choice while maintaining a strong commitment to social responsibility, the Ontario government is now accepting bids from grocery retailers interested in carrying beer.

Premier Kathleen Wynne made the announcement today with Ed Clark, Chair of the Premier's Advisory Council on Government Assets. This is a key step forward in the biggest change to alcohol retailing in Ontario since Prohibition was repealed nearly 90 years ago.

The government has established specific eligibility criteria to provide the best value for consumers while ensuring that small and large grocers, and all regions of Ontario, are fairly represented. Beer sales will be expanded to grocery stores starting with 60 locations, to be announced in December 2015.

As part of Ontario's commitment to social responsibility, grocery stores interested in selling beer must commit to meeting strict requirements for the safe retailing of alcohol, including standard hours of sale and rigorous training for staff.

(....)

- Under this initiative, up to 450 grocery stores across the province will be allowed to sell beer — including up to 150 by May 2017.

- Interested grocery retailers can register at www.biddingo.com under LCBO RFB #2015-010. The deadline for submissions is November 6, 2015. A third-party Fairness Commissioner will oversee the bidding process.

- The new beer agreements and grocery store allocation process meet key principles laid out in the Council’s final report, released in April. Grocery store retailers will not be subject to a strict cap on sales. When fully phased in, should sales across the grocery network exceed $450 million, grocers whose sales exceed their share of that global cap will pay a small fee.

- The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario will be responsible for appropriately regulating the new private retail channels ....
A bit more, from the LCBO info-machine:
The LCBO today released a Request for Bids (RFB) for eligible Ontario grocery retailers wishing to sell beer. The RFB for as many as 60 locations has been posted on the procurement website, www.Biddingo.com.

The LCBO Request for Bids initiates a competitive process to select which grocers will be able to purchase beer from the LCBO for resale to the public.  This will be an open, fair and transparent process through which eligible grocery retailers will bid on the financial terms on which they will purchase beer from the LCBO. Successful bidders will then apply to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) for an authorization(s) to sell beer.

Eligibility requirements are set out in regulations under the Liquor Control Act.

Interested grocery retailers are asked to register and access the LCBO RFB at www.biddingo.com. 

The deadline for submissions to the RFB is November 6, 2015 no later than 10:00:59 am (Toronto Local Time).

LCBO has engaged the services of a fairness commissioner to provide oversight and advice to support integrity and fairness throughout the bidding process.

As many as 60 grocery stores are expected to be selected and authorized before the end of calendar, 2015 with the potential of as many as 450 grocery stores eventually selling beer six-packs or smaller formats ....
 
Now, if they were able to secure a law that allowed us to DRINK said beer whilst careening around the grocery store attempting to explain to the wife that pizza really IS all 4 food groups - and KD being the mysterious 5th...

Then you have something!
 
Why are they taking it so slow, they say "— including up to 150 by May 2017," as if that's something to me proud of. Why can't they just open it to all grocery stores? Or at least increaes the number of acceptable applications?

Now if only grocery retailers could purchase directly from the breweries, we'd see some real price drops. The LCBO is, IMO, a dinosaur that needs to go the way of the Dodo.
 
Kill the Beer Store first, then the LCBO.  And, were it up to me, include as a condition of licensing that any seller of beer must accept empties back as well.
 
Lumber said:
Why are they taking it so slow,......

It gives them time to reverse their decision, should too many 'complainants' appear on the horizon.

I like shopping for beer, wine and liquor in German grocery stores.  ;D
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Now.....If only we could have Home Delivery of Beer, like in Germany.  That would be soooooo 'Civilized'.
 
Lumber said:
Why are they taking it so slow, they say "— including up to 150 by May 2017," as if that's something to me proud of.

Well that allows 2 more years of assorted consultations, studies and tweaking of it to ensure the sale of suds does not impact on the (insert whatever politically correct cause is required). All of which will ensure several of her Highnesses friends will again make the Sunshine list  on your dime. It also gives her a chance to roll this out agian if she needs a distraction for whatever scandal or screw up  may incur between now and 2017. 8)
 
dapaterson said:
Kill the Beer Store first, then the LCBO.  And, were it up to me, include as a condition of licensing that any seller of beer must accept empties back as well.

From a logistical standpoint wouldn't it make more sense and be cheaper if all the empties were in a centralized location I.E the beer store? If you had to stop a truck for hundreds of stores and process all the payments for each and every store?

Though the service that beer store provides could be sub contracted to certain convenience stores similar to what Canada post does with the mail.
 
Wouldn't make more sense to have the delivery truck go out with an empty spot for empties and have each truck accept empties from the stores when deliveries of new stock.

I know it would take more time per delivery but we are only looking at 450 stores overall.  Not every store needs deliveries every day, once a week might suffice. A little time invested in some delivery routing software may surprise you with what is actually needed.  You would be amazed at what you can do with postal codes.
 
SherH2A said:
Wouldn't make more sense to have the delivery truck go out with an empty spot for empties and have each truck accept empties from the stores when deliveries of new stock.

I know it would take more time per delivery but we are only looking at 450 stores overall.  Not every store needs deliveries every day, once a week might suffice. A little time invested in some delivery routing software may surprise you with what is actually needed.  You would be amazed at what you can do with postal codes.

But that's wasted space. You'd want to pack the truck as full as you possibly could. What if the store doesn't have as many empties as empty stock? Or what if the store took more empties in than it sold? you would then have empties that you couldn't move.

One thing I'm not sure is how empties are allocated. While most bottles appear to be the standard brown bottle. There are some that are notablely different i.e Steam Whistle, Heineken, Corona.. ETC. When I toured the steam whistle brewery they said that they bought the bottles back for 0.05 cents a bottle and that they washed them on site.. What do you do with these bottles? Are the brown bottles interchangeable? I truly don't know. If I don't sell steam whistle at my store how is steam whistle supposed to get their bottles back?

How i imagine it currently works is that steam whistle (and other brewers) deliver beer to the beer store distribution centers and then on the return trip, bring back whatever empties are for their brand(s). Mainly for craft brewers and smaller brewers what the hell do we do with their bottles if they are scattered across multiple stores?

The problem with requiring every dealer is to take in empties in my opinion is that there is no way to guarantee that you won't take in more bottles than you sell. Assuming that this gets wide spread in Ontario there would be nothing stopping be from buying a 60 pack at Costco and returning it the Mac's when I pick up some milk.

I'm just confused because I used to work in grocery store and obviously we would send back the empty skids, bread trays, milk crates*, apple baskets to the distributors because empty containers take up less space than full containers*. But what do you with a product that takes up the exact same amount of space as when it was shipped?

*The milk man also delivered some yogurt/sour cream type products for his parent brand so that would allow for the extra space.

The big question i have is how does it work in other provinces? I'm just having a problem wrapping my head around the concept of every dealer being required to take in empties.
 
runormal said:
But that's wasted space. You'd want to pack the truck as full as you possibly could. What if the store doesn't have as many empties as empty stock? Or what if the store took more empties in than it sold? you would then have empties that you couldn't move.

Coke and Pepsi do this with their containers of Post and Pre-Mix.  That is but one example of the delivery truck delivering and picking up empties.

runormal said:
One thing I'm not sure is how empties are allocated. While most bottles appear to be the standard brown bottle. There are some that are notablely different i.e Steam Whistle, Heineken, Corona.. ETC. When I toured the steam whistle brewery they said that they bought the bottles back for 0.05 cents a bottle and that they washed them on site.. What do you do with these bottles? Are the brown bottles interchangeable? I truly don't know. If I don't sell steam whistle at my store how is steam whistle supposed to get their bottles back?

How i imagine it currently works is that steam whistle (and other brewers) deliver beer to the beer store distribution centers and then on the return trip, bring back whatever empties are for their brand(s). Mainly for craft brewers and smaller brewers what the hell do we do with their bottles if they are scattered across multiple stores?


A central collection and sorting facility does this for the Beer Store.

runormal said:
The problem with requiring every dealer is to take in empties in my opinion is that there is no way to guarantee that you won't take in more bottles than you sell. Assuming that this gets wide spread in Ontario there would be nothing stopping be from buying a 60 pack at Costco and returning it the Mac's when I pick up some milk.

The Retailer buys the empties from you, perhaps at a lower rate than the Beer Store, and then sells them to the central sorting and distribution center for all empties; or sells them to the Beer Store.

runormal said:
I'm just confused because I used to work in grocery store and obviously we would send back the empty skids, bread trays, milk crates*, apple baskets to the distributors because empty containers take up less space than full containers*. But what do you with a product that takes up the exact same amount of space as when it was shipped?

Empty skids do have a small refund, if the person returning them knows about it.  Bread trays and milk crates, etc. are often picked up by the distributor who delivered them at no cost.
 
If I remember correctly, Quebec used to accept empties in every beer selling store and there was a lot of stores.

The thing we need to remember, is we are only talking about 450 stores and not every store needs daily deliveries. If we schedule deliveries six days a week, we only need 75 trucks ie 450 / 6 every day. The other factor is routing the trucks. I assume because of the area to be covered that there would be more than one center delivering.

Another factor is how many deliveries can one truck make in a day? From past experiences I would suggest 40 or so deliveries in a large urban setting or 20 in a rural setting.

Then we approach the delivery of beer. A quick look at the systems needed suggests setting up regional centers where the beer would be accepted from the brewers and other suppliers eg foreign brewers. The product would be cross docked and shipped out.

As for different types of empties, if the store sold it, it would take back the empties.
This, to me, is an interesting distribution problem.

Of course it might be more fun to do it online using an Amazon.CA model. Just think of staying at home and having your beer delivered to you,  of course it might take a few days for delivery. Maybe a better solution would be to allow taxi companies to sell and deliver beer

This is fun speculating on different delivery models.
 
I cannot believe you guys are debating beer and empties deliveries methods in Ontario.

In other provinces (say like, Alberta), this sort of thing just happens. Seamlessly. Must be because the government is only involved at the warehouse level. Everything else- retail and distribution- is done by the private sector.

Leaving aside the whole NDP government thing, actual anarchy and the general breakdown of society has not occurred yet as a result...
 
SeaKingTacco said:
I cannot believe you guys are debating beer and empties deliveries methods in Ontario.

In other provinces (say like, Alberta), this sort of thing just happens. Seamlessly. Must be because the government is only involved at the warehouse level. Everything else- retail and distribution- is done by the private sector.

Leaving aside the whole NDP government thing, actual anarchy and the general breakdown of society has not occurred yet as a result...

Not to mention across the entire U.S.

As Jeff Goldblum said, "LifeCapitalism finds a way."

That is, if the LCBO can take it's monopolistic finger out of the pie.
 
SeaKingTacco said:
Leaving aside the whole NDP government thing, actual anarchy and the general breakdown of society has not occurred yet as a result...

That's because of the overall mellow atmosphere on the West Coast, supported no doubt by consumption of the major agricultural product of that location.
 
What's particularly funny is reading the rules for the LCBO selling 12 packs of beer.  Apparently, if they sell too many then that initiative will be cancelled.

Regulatory capture much, The Beer Store?
 
dapaterson said:
That's because of the overall mellow atmosphere on the West Coast, supported no doubt by consumption of the major agricultural product of that location.

You mean "Beef"  ??? :cowboy:

BTW, for those logistics nuts here: The various breweries have no problem here in Quebec distributing their beer directly to the thousands of private  food stores, Costscos, Walmarts, and other assorted corner -mom and pop - accomodation stores that are allowed to sell beer. What makes you think that there even is a need for a "centralized" warehouse system?
 
George Wallace said:
A central collection and sorting facility does this for the Beer Store.

The Retailer buys the empties from you, perhaps at a lower rate than the Beer Store, and then sells them to the central sorting and distribution center for all empties; or sells them to the Beer Store.

Interesting, I wasn't sure how it all worked. I was under the impression that everything was handled internally by the beer store. To be honest I've never put that much thought into this until now. Thanks for the information.



SeaKingTacco said:
I cannot believe you guys are debating beer and empties deliveries methods in Ontario.

In other provinces (say like, Alberta), this sort of thing just happens. Seamlessly. Must be because the government is only involved at the warehouse level. Everything else- retail and distribution- is done by the private sector.

Leaving aside the whole NDP government thing, actual anarchy and the general breakdown of society has not occurred yet as a result...

:rofl:

I've got be honest I'm more curious than anything. I've grown up in Ontario and the "beer store" is all I know. I've never bothered tried to return bottles when I'm out of province because I've never understood how it worked.
 
runormal said:
The big question i have is how does it work in other provinces? I'm just having a problem wrapping my head around the concept of every dealer being required to take in empties.

SeaKingTacco said:
In other provinces (say like, Alberta), this sort of thing just happens. Seamlessly. Must be because the government is only involved at the warehouse level. Everything else- retail and distribution- is done by the private sector.

Leaving aside the whole NDP government thing, actual anarchy and the general breakdown of society has not occurred yet as a result...

Well, "say like Alberta", the government is completely out of it, save for issuing of licences to (privately owned) liquor stores, liquor wholesalers (they probably have warehouses), brewers, vintners (there is, or was, some plonk made in the province) and distillers; and collecting fees and taxes from them.  There are no "beer stores" and you can't buy alcoholic beverages in grocery stores of any size.  Some of the large grocery chains have liquor stores associated with some outlets but they have to be (by regulation) physically separated (i.e. different building).  As for empties, take them to any "bottle depot" for return of the deposit, just the same as liquor and wine bottles, milk, juice, water and any other beverage that comes in bottle, jug, carton, can, etc.  Do the breweries reuse bottles?  Probably, but how they get them is their problem and, frankly, no one cares except for the people who are in that business.
 
BinRat55 said:
Now, if they were able to secure a law that allowed us to DRINK said beer whilst careening around the grocery store attempting to explain to the wife that pizza really IS all 4 food groups - and KD being the mysterious 5th...

Then you have something!
Hawaiian pizza
1. Meet(ham)
2. Fruit/veggie(pineapple/tomato
3. Bread/grains (crust)
4. Dairy( cheese)
Works in my 7 year olds school
 
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