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Beer came to a handful of grocery stores on Tuesday, an historic, coming-of-age moment for Ontario that arrived with a whimper, beside the peanuts and trail mix.
There was no getting around the underwhelming impression at 10 a.m. at the Loblaw store at College Square on a grey December morn: be still my heart, it just looked like a few cans and packs of beer on a shelf — just like you’d find at the Beer Store across the parking lot, or the LCBO, ah, across the parking lot.
It was a low-key launch. When I showed up mid-morning, another reporter accidentally tried to interview me, so few were the customers even looking at the two end-aisle displays.
OK, you’re right. Cut them some slack: consumers, no doubt, will take to picking up a six-pack with the broccoli and President’s Choice lasagna.
“I think it’s great,” said Bert Gemin, 50, a software developer at Blackberry, shopping with his wife Fiona. “I do want to support them.”
A fan of craft beers, he opened his cloth bag and popped in a couple of “quarts” of Kissmeyer, Nordic Pale Ale, at $5.95 each, and a pair of tall boys.
Convenience, clearly, will be the big selling point with consumers. Fiona put it this way: “Look at this Loblaws. I can work out (in the second-floor fitness centre), do my grocery shopping, maybe pick up some beer and avoid the lines at the LCBO. At Christmas time? They’re massive.”
Absolutely. Consumers are obviously not satisfied that, for generations, buying a bottle of wine, a case of beer and a litre of milk involved three stops, possibly kilometres apart. “Beer Here” is long overdue. Has Quebec not survived?
There wasn’t tons of selection on Day One. One rack held the mass-produced beer (six in all, Labatt Blue, Budweiser, Coors Light, Molson Canadian),while the second had all the craft beers, from Beau’s popular Lug Tread, to the Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion, Almost Pale Ale, to something called Pompous Ass English Ale.
There will eventually be a large refrigerated unit holding a lot more stock, said store manager Blaine Cross, but not before Christmas.
The introduction of beer did involve training of staff, he added. Some cashiers were required to take the Smart Serve course and beer must be purchased at designated “Beer Lanes.”
“It’s a good start,” said Jim Thompson, 68, another craft beer fan who was spying the aisles on Tuesday.
A frequent traveller to Florida, he is familiar with grocery stores with fridge after fridge of frosty ale. In North America, Ontario was one of those rare, precious places where beer had to be guarded by the authorities and strictly dispensed.
Thompson said he can see himself picking up a six-pack while out hunting for peanuts. He doesn’t see any particular problem with greater access to beer, a worry for some.
“They’re not creating any new beer drinkers. They’re just splitting the existing market.”
If anyone needs to worry today, it’s the Beer Store. It specializes in a big selection and larger cases, but their stores tend to look and feel like refrigerated warehouses and the staff, of necessity, look like industrial workers with construction-like boots and fleece-tops and gloves.
At my local on Scott Street, the design is ill-suited for bottle returns. Customers are handed a wine-stinking black bin, to be filled with empty product on the floor of the store. When there is any kind of a line, the (heavy) bins need to be pushed along the floor with feet.
The line blocks the automatic doors in and out, creating clogging at the entrance. Throw in the pickers, with their garbage bags full of empty cans, and you’ve got this: a crappy customer experience.
Is it any wonder more people are buying beer at LCBO, where the new stores are big and well-laid out, and the product isn’t just dumped on a pallet?
In announcing the grocery-store initiative, Premier Kathleen Wynne said the move would save consumers time.
True. Funny thing is time. It took someone forever to discover it’s not 1955 anymore and Ontario, The Good, is all growed up.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
Related
查看原文...
There was no getting around the underwhelming impression at 10 a.m. at the Loblaw store at College Square on a grey December morn: be still my heart, it just looked like a few cans and packs of beer on a shelf — just like you’d find at the Beer Store across the parking lot, or the LCBO, ah, across the parking lot.
It was a low-key launch. When I showed up mid-morning, another reporter accidentally tried to interview me, so few were the customers even looking at the two end-aisle displays.
OK, you’re right. Cut them some slack: consumers, no doubt, will take to picking up a six-pack with the broccoli and President’s Choice lasagna.
“I think it’s great,” said Bert Gemin, 50, a software developer at Blackberry, shopping with his wife Fiona. “I do want to support them.”
A fan of craft beers, he opened his cloth bag and popped in a couple of “quarts” of Kissmeyer, Nordic Pale Ale, at $5.95 each, and a pair of tall boys.
Convenience, clearly, will be the big selling point with consumers. Fiona put it this way: “Look at this Loblaws. I can work out (in the second-floor fitness centre), do my grocery shopping, maybe pick up some beer and avoid the lines at the LCBO. At Christmas time? They’re massive.”
Absolutely. Consumers are obviously not satisfied that, for generations, buying a bottle of wine, a case of beer and a litre of milk involved three stops, possibly kilometres apart. “Beer Here” is long overdue. Has Quebec not survived?
There wasn’t tons of selection on Day One. One rack held the mass-produced beer (six in all, Labatt Blue, Budweiser, Coors Light, Molson Canadian),while the second had all the craft beers, from Beau’s popular Lug Tread, to the Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion, Almost Pale Ale, to something called Pompous Ass English Ale.
There will eventually be a large refrigerated unit holding a lot more stock, said store manager Blaine Cross, but not before Christmas.
The introduction of beer did involve training of staff, he added. Some cashiers were required to take the Smart Serve course and beer must be purchased at designated “Beer Lanes.”
“It’s a good start,” said Jim Thompson, 68, another craft beer fan who was spying the aisles on Tuesday.
A frequent traveller to Florida, he is familiar with grocery stores with fridge after fridge of frosty ale. In North America, Ontario was one of those rare, precious places where beer had to be guarded by the authorities and strictly dispensed.
Thompson said he can see himself picking up a six-pack while out hunting for peanuts. He doesn’t see any particular problem with greater access to beer, a worry for some.
“They’re not creating any new beer drinkers. They’re just splitting the existing market.”
If anyone needs to worry today, it’s the Beer Store. It specializes in a big selection and larger cases, but their stores tend to look and feel like refrigerated warehouses and the staff, of necessity, look like industrial workers with construction-like boots and fleece-tops and gloves.
At my local on Scott Street, the design is ill-suited for bottle returns. Customers are handed a wine-stinking black bin, to be filled with empty product on the floor of the store. When there is any kind of a line, the (heavy) bins need to be pushed along the floor with feet.
The line blocks the automatic doors in and out, creating clogging at the entrance. Throw in the pickers, with their garbage bags full of empty cans, and you’ve got this: a crappy customer experience.
Is it any wonder more people are buying beer at LCBO, where the new stores are big and well-laid out, and the product isn’t just dumped on a pallet?
In announcing the grocery-store initiative, Premier Kathleen Wynne said the move would save consumers time.
True. Funny thing is time. It took someone forever to discover it’s not 1955 anymore and Ontario, The Good, is all growed up.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
Related
查看原文...
