Non Government distribution in British Columbia

[Wayward]

Hi there,

I'm setting up shop in BC, Canada and am wondering if anyone has any experience in selling their product in the province without the government liquor stores.

As a craft distillery we will be barred from selling through the government controlled stores but I'm having trouble finding information on private provincial distributors.

Do you self distribute?

-Dave

[Natrat]

Dave, as you know the policy is 0-100 with BCLDB, but as I understand it that is per product. For instance, I have some friends with a brewery in Victoria, and when the LDB wouldn't give them any new SKUs for product, they chose to self-distribute that style...which ended up being their most popular beer.

As for private distributors in BC, go talk to the guys who run the Cascadia Liquor stores...they are part owned by Paul Hadfield at Spinnakers, and run their own private distribution. I've had good conversations on this subject with both Chris and Maria (Victoria branch managers) and I would think that any local private liquor store would have some distribution contacts. You're not that far from Hornby Island, and I think the guys at Phrog have a private distributor (at least, I've never seen it in a BCLDB store, only private) and they might be willing to share information. If they do, send me a bottle of their gin....I love it!