E-Malt.com News article: 2623

Canada, Vancouver: Microbreweries in British Columbia are straining to meet demand during a strike that has halted distribution of major brands across most of the province, The Associated Press revealed on May 10. About 300 workers hit the bricks May 1 in a wage dispute at Brewers Distributor Ltd. in New Westminster, halting deliveries of Canada's two leading brands of beer, Molson and Labatt, and of many imports, including Miller, Coors and Budweiser from the United States.

At the Labatt brewery in New Westminster, about 100 employees have been temporarily laid off and operations have been shut down since May 4. Some stores and bars have run out of Labatt and Molson products and stocks are rapidly disappearing from others.

The Picadilly Pub in Vancouver ran out of Labatt and Molson late May 5 and sales declined by 15 % to 20 %, general manager David Kim said. "It's definitely affected business because we don't have any more cheap beers here," Kim said.

Meanwhile, at some provincial liquor stores, orders for more expensive microbrewery product such as Granville Island and Sleemans have nearly doubled.

Granville Island Brewing has doubled production and tripled distribution, and about 100 employees at Vernon's Okanagan Spring brewery have had to work overtime on weekends to keep up with demand. "We did 55 percent of our business for the month in the first four days (of May)," Granville Island marketing manager Walter Cosman said.

Labatt and Molson brew close to 90 % of the beer sold in British Columbia and account for more than 80 % of the beer sold through the province's Liquor Distribution Branch. Granville Island has about 2 % of the market, and Cosman hopes the strike will boost that figure to 3 %. "(The strike) is a huge opportunity for us to get people to try our product who maybe haven't tried it for a long time or ever," he said.


12 May, 2004