Wine to be sold in almost every supermarket in town starting October 28.

By Staff

September 2, 2016

BURLINGTON, ON

When the province announced earlier this year that beer would be available for purchase at supermarkets Burlington residents wanted to know where they could make a purchase.

The answer at that time was – not in Burlington – Oakville and Hamilton – but not in Burlington.

Yesterday the province announced that wine would be available for purchase at supermarkets – and we made the list – there are a number of supermarkets that will be selling wine as of October 28th.

In its media release the Ministry of Finance said: Ontario has selected the first grocers that could sell both domestic and imported wine inside up to 70 grocery stores across the province, increasing convenience and choice for consumers.

The winning grocers were selected through a competitive bidding process held by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). The sale of wine in grocery stores is scheduled to begin October 28, 2016.

Don’t expect the wine selection in local supermarkets to look anything like this.

Reflecting a mix of independent and large grocers and geographic representation to ensure fairness, the successful grocers in the Burlington market are:

Loblaws Inc.
Longo Brothers Fruit Markets Inc.
Metro Ontario Inc.
Sobeys Capital Inc.
Fresh Market Foods
Wal-mart Canada Corp.

Fortinos appears to be missing from the list, however they are part of the larger Loblaws operation – perhaps they will come under that brand name – checking on that.

The other supermarkets that will sell wine in the province are:

Canex Canadian Forces Exchange System
Coppa’s Fresh Market
Farm Boy 2012 Inc.
Highland Farms Inc.
Starsky’s Fine Foods Hamilton Inc.
Uxbridge Foods Inc.
Yummy Market Inc.

These grocers will have to abide by the requirements for the safe sale of alcohol overseen by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), including designated sales areas and standard hours of sale, limitations on package sizes and alcohol content and staffing and social responsibility training requirements.

The longer term plan is to eventually have up to 450 grocery stores authorized to sell beer and cider and, of these, up to 300 may also sell wine.

It will be interesting to see which wines the different supermarkets decide to sell – it will tell us something about how well they know their customer base.

Up to 70 existing winery retail stores that operate just outside a grocery store’s checkout will also be permitted to operate inside the store and share the checkout. These “wine boutiques” will broaden their assortment to sell wines made by other Ontario producers, and will be located at grocery stores that sell beer. These wine boutiques will be permitted to begin operating this fall, at the same time as wine is introduced to grocery stores.

Sales of beer in grocery stores started in December 2015. Between December 2015 and the second week of August 2016, grocers received more than 532,000 cases of beer from the LCBO, amounting to net sales of approximately $24 million.