For certain bottles of wine sold by the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), we will have to pay almost $1 more in the next few days.
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The state-owned company will increase prices on 1,862 products by an average of 1.1%, for an average increase of $0.87 per bottle.
The SAQ normally authorizes two price increases per year, in May and November. The appointment from last May had been postponed to June 18th.
This shift has allowed SAQ to “integrate the recent drop in shipping costs into its pricing structure,” we explain.
About 795 products see an average price drop of $0.53 (-2.7%), but the SAQ can apply this at any time.
The SAQ sells less wine
When shipping prices drop, SAQ suppliers are “not immune to the current inflation.”
“Your production costs are increasing, especially in relation to dry matter and labor costs,” we explain the recent price increase.
In its annual report published last week, SAQ states that it has sold less wine over the past year, with the volume falling from 172.9 million liters to 172.1 million liters.
While sales fell by nearly 1 million bottles of wine, revenue from those sales increased $93 million to $2.7 billion.
A situation partly explained by the two price increases in 2022, namely by an average of 3.7% in May (2,550 products) and by 2.4% in November (1,458 products).
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