Wines and spirits “are not immune to inflation”. For the second time this year, the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) made an adjustment to its prices on Sunday and applied an average increase of 2.4% on 1,458 items.
Now, a bottle of wine or spirits costs an average of $0.69 more. About 100 products will only change prices on January 29, 2023, since they are currently on promotion, the SAQ said.
Some 539 articles, mostly European, are sold at a lower price. The average decline of 1.3% is “partly attributed to the depreciation of the euro […]for the benefit of our customers,” the organization said in a statement.
The price change affects 90% of the products sold by the SAQ to customers.
“Considering the upward trend and the legitimate demands of our suppliers related to the various challenges they face”, the CEO of the SAQ, Catherine Dagenais, believes that her teams have “know how to negotiate at a fair price”.
The products with the highest markup are Scottish whiskey and tequila, spokesperson for the state-owned company, Geneviève Cormier, said by email.
Wines are also affected by these increases, since the SAQ is “still suffering the impacts of the poor harvest of 2021, indicated Ms.me Cormier. The frost in several regions of France and northern Italy caused lower yields of around 40% to 60% depending on the region”.
The SAQ pointed to other factors to justify this increase, such as the “labour shortage” or the “rise in the price of materials related to bottling”, such as bottles, corks and labels. Disruption of the “global supply chain” as well as “rising transport costs” also weighed in the balance.
Similar arguments were put forward by the SAQ last May to justify the price increase at the time.
Only two rate adjustments are allowed each year, in May and November.
Last May, the SAQ raised the prices of 2,500 products by an average of 3.7%, or $0.78 per item. A decrease of 2.1% was also applied to 182 products.