“Opening up interprovincial trade of alcohol would have a very detrimental effect on the breweries that are here in Newfoundland and Labrador,” Mr. Farrell said in an interview Friday. “There’s no upside. You’d flood the market with trucked-in beer.”
Is it about the same two usa-owned breweries? If so, fuck them.
Better title: “Molson-Coors is worried customers will stop drinking mass produced pisswater if they have more options available from the rest of the country.”
A brewery making quality products would welcome gaining access to a larger market.
It looks more like “Molson-Coors could easily terminate the local factory because the bigger Molson-Coors factories in Quebec and Ontario could pick up the demand with lower production costs”.
I don’t know if the economics of shipping the beer inland is cheaper than maintaining a local factory, but if that really is the case then Newfoundland might wanna keep some of its protectionist guards up or be smart about the barriers. Like allowing beer in from small producers only, not the likes of Molson.
The giant breweries everywhere make low flavour beer as their aim is to make a product that won’t offend anyone. That sort of beer is also cheap so it’s more popular than more complex beers for both reasons (inoffensive and cheap)
I expect Newfoundland also Labrador, serving the beer drinkers in half a million people population, is higher quality than Molson-Coors, but even if they increased production it would be hard to keep the quality or meet the price of their competitor
Though in Australia we have regional beer and the giant east coast beers haven’t squashed the smaller breweries in South Australia or Tasmania – and South Australia and Tasmania produce better beers than Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria
I sympathize with Newfoundlanders, but running more efficient operations at scale is how we increase our national productivity. I think the answer is to figure out how to make that work both ways and also to repurpose the labor that’s made redundant.
I’d wager Newfoundland will remain the primary market for their own unique alcohol products, and won’t they additionally be able to grow their interprovincial sales? That won’t cover all the losses, but Canada also needs a lot of stuff that Canada does not produce and no longer wants to buy from the U.S. That represents opportunity.
A list of those beers please. Am happy to chip in! Cheers
Is Newfoundland beer bad or something?
The industry is small, and getting things off the island is expensive. Medium sized brewers from Ontario and Quebec will eat their lunch.
Shouldn’t be too hard to compete with Ontario brewers. We seem to only be able to make the same 3 or 4 craft beers in different packaging.
We’ve been sheltered from interprovincial competition, and our products have suffered for it.
Edit: I think I misread your comment! Sorry in advance, I thought you were saying Ontario didn’t have good beer.
Original content:
That’s not true at all, you probably don’t even have to go very far to find a good brewery near you, in every major town and city in the province.
Just to name fantastic breweries I’ve personally been to: Bicycle, Muskoka Brewery, Small Pony, Whiskeyjack, Gateway City, Tooth and Nail, Whitewater.
Yeah, IPAs were super popular during the start of the microbrew days, but these days there is so much diversity in Ontario beer.
If you want something lighter have a Creemore pilsner, Mill St Organic, a Farmers Daughter wheat beer, a small pony sour, or a Whisjeyjack Cold Front. Want something heavier, go for a Beaus or a Calabogie brown cow. Want an IPA pick up Muskoka Detour or a Flying Monkey.
Seriously we have a ton of good beer that’s worth trying.
Nah, you read me right. I’m absolutely ragging on Ontario beer, but ESPECIALLY so on LCBO.
You’re right, there are a few nice beers here and there. The pony sours are very nice. Left-field has some great stuff. Tooth and nail has had some fantastic colab beers, and their standard lineup is quite passable. But where are our Belgian style ales? Our west-coast style IPAs? Where are the Baltic porters and imperial stouts? I want a full bodied malty IPA. I want a double IPA with some seriously lacto funky notes, not just “this baby can fit so much hops”.
We’re just SO unadventurous, and I think a lot of it has to do with LCBO. I used to be able to get all that stuff, but selection has shrunk and shrunk.
Make Ontario craft work for their spot on the shelf. Too much protectionism is bad for consumers.
Wouldn’t that mean that getting things onto the island is also expensive?
Also notice that this article only mentions the giant multi-national brewers Labatt and Molson. Small craft brewers will be fine, they’re already more expensive (and better) than the mass-produced stuff.
This certainly sucks for the 110 or so workers that work for Labatt and Molson. I guess it’s possible that the interprovincial trade rules could be modified so that only small companies are allowed free trade, preventing Molson and Labatt from pulling out, but still allowing people to buy craft beers from across the country. Not sure how easy it would be to define “small” though.
Yes, getting things onto the island will be expensive, but if you have a war chest, a distribution network, and the facilities to produce at scale, you can enter the market just fine. And if a bunch of others do as well, the lot of them can squeeze out the local brewers.
Weirdly enough, the amount of money you have today directly impacts how much you can fuck over someone smaller than you tomorrow.
This article doesn’t talk about small brewers though. It’s talking about the two largest beer companies in Canada. Yes, interprovincial trade will kill Labatt and Molson production in Newfoundland, as they move production inland to gain benefits from economies of scale. But small brewers will be fine. They might even see a growth as they gain access to bigger markets.
It’s just two different markets. Craft/local beer is one market, and really doesn’t compete at all with the likes of Molson and Labatt.
and getting things off the island is expensive. Medium sized brewers from Ontario and Quebec will eat their lunch.
But isn’t shipping thins in the island also expensive? Why would medium sized brewers be at an advantage?
They’re coming from larger markets, so already have a larger sales base, large income flow, and reduced costs from producing at a larger scale.
Y’all come from large provinces, don’t ya? Because none of you are talking like you’ve ever seen a bigger neighbour wipe out your local industry. Or paidnany attention while Walmart and Amazon decimated things.
Hm, maybe I had a different idea of what “medium” meant. I thought it was referring to brewers that had smaller production than Molson.
Because none of you are talking like you’ve ever seen a bigger neighbour wipe out your local industry. Or paidnany attention while Walmart and Amazon decimated things.
Not sure what I said pressed your buttons, I just wanted to make sense of how a medium company would have an advantage against a bigger company in terms of logistic costs.
If there is any alcohol trade policy that could potentially exist that could make a major impact on your economy, something is fucked up. Alcohol is human misery in a bottle.
