Grocery Stores

[MacBerry]

I get a somewhat uncomfortable whiff of classism that it is the Zehrs and Sobeys banners that get the thumbs up for alcohol sales and not ValuMart or FreshCo. Real Canadian Superstore somewhat contradicts that though.

Less class-ism and more cost to store.

The new site licences are not free and must be paid to LCBO. They also come with large back end costs.

You need a whole back-end operation such as your own bonded warehousing and distribution systems. Thirdly, merchants wanting to display and sell product in the stores must pay a placement fee (shelf space) that must be paid by each liquor, beer and wine merchant and negotiated with the store warehousing.  

The large merchants like Loblaws, Sobey and Metro have these in place so it is just adding another site. They have been running these in store sites for many years outside of Ontario.