A wine importer criticizes the SAQ for having acted to the detriment of private import agents in its inventory management, affected by restrictions related to COVID-19. The state-owned company’s private import warehouse, which was overflowing at the end of April, is still in a “critical” situation.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
Earlier this month, The Press revealed that thousands of privately imported products were at risk of being seized1 on June 18 because they had been stored for too long in the premises of the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ). The state-owned company then explained that the prolonged closure of restaurants and bars was the cause of this “exceptional” situation.
In a newsletter of May 17, the SAQ indicates that “unfortunately, the level of inventories is still very high”.
However, Philip Morisset, founder of the Origines wine import agency, accuses the SAQ of having given priority to its branches, applied storage times at inopportune times and multiplied the amount of penalties that can be imposed on importers. private.
The Crown corporation denies, qualifies or admits some of these grievances by email. The director of supply management and merchandising at the SAQ, Josée Dumas, refused multiple interview requests from The Press without giving reasons.
According to Mr. Morisset, the SAQ would have favored “the collection, transportation and processing of products intended for stores upon arrival to the detriment of private orders, thus resulting in a much longer immobilization for the agents”, and this, from the summer 2021.
“Orders are processed chronologically,” says spokesperson Clémence Beaulieu Gendron. The SAQ says it gives priority to “containers that [lui] allow you to set up planned promotions, avoid stock shortages and send the most requested products to branches or restaurants.
Explosion of delivery times
Pierre Birlichi, spokesperson for Raspipav, a group of around 50 private import agencies, including Origines, also says that the state-owned company favored its branches, “particularly because the restaurants were closed”, which he judge “understandable”. “Once the restaurants were open, I heard more about prioritization,” he adds.
Average delivery times, however, have dropped from 4 to 5 weeks to between 8 and 12 weeks due to “disruptions in the supply chain”, says Ms.me Beaulieu Gendron.
MM. Birlichi and Morisset both deplore these additional delays, which have had the effect of missing the “marketing windows” of certain products, such as the Holidays.
Mr. Morisset also resents the Crown corporation for not suspending its storage times during the last closure of bars and restaurants last winter. She had stopped meters earlier during the pandemic to help agents, who were struggling to sell with successive waves of shutdowns.
“The counters started again on September 12, 2020. On the other hand, we have extended the storage period according to the number of weeks that the stricter sanitary measures lasted, observed from the last days of December 2021 and which were extended at the beginning of of the year 2022”, specifies however the spokesperson.
Triple storage fees
Storage costs did indeed increase dramatically in September 2021, which Mr. Morisset sharply denounces. “Fees increased from $1.10 to $3.95 at 151e day and from $2.20 to $6.95 at 181e day”, confirms Mme Beaulieu Gendron. However, these have not yet been invoiced, she adds.
“Naturally, as a spokesperson for an importers’ association, I don’t like that,” says Mr. Birlichi. But he is “not too worried” about the impact of these increases for his members.
The state-owned company was unable to specify, in time for the publication of this text, the number of cases and products still at risk of being seized on June 18. At the beginning of May, 27,000 cases were on track to reach the maximum period of 210 days of storage — taking into account suspensions of periods — by that date.
The storage situation “will be reassessed during the summer,” said the SAQ in its May 17 newsletter. “In the event that it is still critical, other measures could be put in place. »