In Quebec, restaurateurs pay the same price for their bottles as the general population.

“We are the only market in the world where restaurateurs do not have wholesale prices and it is completely revolting,” says Véronique Rivest. The restaurateur and sommelier is well placed to talk about this situation: her wine bar Soif is in Gatineau. Just across the Ottawa River in Ottawa, his colleagues are entitled to a 20% discount on their purchases at the LCBO, the Ontario monopoly.

On January 1, 2022, the government of Queen’s Park introduced this discount for restaurateurs who buy beer, wine and cider. A measure that is equivalent to annual support of $60 million directly to the restaurant industry.

At Soif, 95% of the references on the menu are private imports. Véronique Rivest must therefore deal with the SAQ and pay the same price as her customers for her cuvées.

“It’s essential, it’s urgent: we must change the laws on alcohol in Quebec,” claims the sommelier, who has worked for La Presse for many years. She believes the provincial government should be consistent in its rhetoric about dining and buying local.

In an inflationary environment, restaurateurs have it tough, she says. Raising card prices becomes an impossible mathematical exercise: “We know that the restaurant industry doesn’t have big profit margins. Now it has become labor of love. »

The claim echoes in the middle. Several players in the Quebec restaurant industry also believe that the law should be changed quickly to allow volume discounts.

“I order about 50 cases of wine a week. At the end of the year, that’s a lot of thousands of bottles,” recalls Sébastien Muniz, co-owner of the Tapeo restaurant in Villeray, Montreal.

Mr. Muniz would like to be treated like “any other good SAQ customer”, including being entitled to discounts on wine and being able to reserve the products he commonly uses, which is not not currently the case.

Although he left the Plateau Mont-Royal in April 2022, where he was the head of the Rouge Gorge wine bar, to devote himself to his vineyard in France, Alain Rochard continues to deplore the fact that the SAQ does not grant discounts to restaurants.

“She does not give them certain prices even if they are big buyers,” he laments. There is no discount on quantities purchased. »

In France, wines can also be expensive on the cards, but this allows restaurateurs to generate a greater profit margin, because they have a wholesale price, recalls Frédéric Laurin, professor in the department of economics at the University. from Quebec to Trois-Rivières (UQTR).

According to him, the request of Quebec restaurateurs is legitimate. If Ontario has opted for this avenue, Quebec should certainly consider it, especially since the effect would be reduced in the overall royalties of the SAQ.

For now, the only way for a sommelier to stand out is to offer privately imported wines or rare Quebec cuvées that consumers cannot otherwise obtain, says Frédéric Laurin.

Currently, restaurateurs here can obtain Quebec alcohols at the SAQ or directly from the winemaker, if the latter does not sell his cuvées to the state-owned company. In this case, it is the winemaker himself (or an employee, if he has one) who must deliver directly to the restaurant.

The Association Restauration Québec (ARQ) also believes that its members should get a better price for their alcohol than Mr. and Mrs. Everyone who goes to the SAQ.

The collective La Table ronde, which represents the gastronomic tables of Quebec, has already broached this subject with elected officials. “We find ourselves in a completely absurd situation where large buyers, private individuals, go to taste something at the restaurant and then get better treatment to find that thing [at the SAQ] than the restaurateur,” said Félix- Antoine Joli-Coeur, Secretary General of La Table Ronde.

“We have entered into discussions with the government to present to them the idea that restaurateurs at least should have the same advantages as frequent consumers, he says, with their Inspire cards and discounts. »

The demands of the group have not yet found an echo with the Legault government.

“We feel that the Quebec government understands the situation, we expect decisions to be made,” said Félix-Antoine Joli-Coeur. We hope sooner rather than later. »

In 2021-2022, SAQ sales amounted to $3.854 billion. Its sales to liquor licensees reached 302.8 million, which represents 7.9% of the Crown corporation’s total sales.

Effective this morning, April 1, the federal alcohol excise tax is increased by 2%. In practice, will consumers see the difference? Probably not. In a product that is already heavily taxed, this increase is only a small drop in the bottle. Explanations.

Excise and customs duties – Canada: 3.4%

Specific tax – Quebec: 7%

Federal Goods and Services Tax: 4.3%

Provincial Sales Tax: 8.7%

Operating expenses – SAQ: 15.2%

Dividend – SAQ : 25.9 %

Price paid to supplier (including the entire transport chain): 35.5%

The amount received by the winegrowers is far from being the most important to hide behind the price of a bottle. Of the 35% paid to the supplier, only a small share goes to the winemaker.

As surprising as it may seem, in the end, the server who will serve the wine in a Montreal restaurant could receive more money for his gesture than the winemaker who made the cuvée, explains Pascal Gerrits, of the Primavin agency. .

This importer has already had to explain to one of his winemaker partners how his bottle of Beaujolais could cost so much on the menu of a Montreal restaurant.

The calculation is simple.

A wine that will be paid 5 euros at the cellars will suffer an increase of around 3.75 times by the SAQ, which takes care of the logistics as soon as the bottle leaves the vineyard and even before, at the time of the order. So we end up with a wine at $28, SAQ price. Added to this are the agency fees which raise the price of the bottle to around $32. If the restaurant lists it at $74, before taxes, chances are the waiter will receive a tip at least equivalent to the $5 received by the winemaker, at the beginning of the chain.

The bottle mark-up varies a lot from one establishment to another, but we can say that the practice in the restaurant is around two to three times the price paid, with a tendency towards 2.3. It can be more, even much more in exceptional cases and depending on the value of the bottle – a rare wine gains in value.

The share of tax paid on the bottle of wine may seem exaggerated, but alcohol, by definition, is a surcharged product. Two principles explain this reality, according to economist Jean-Marie Cardebat, professor at the University of Bordeaux.

First, it is an agricultural product. “The agricultural sector is the most taxed sector in the world in terms of international trade. If we go to the WTO website, we will see that the main barriers to trade are in the agricultural sector. And wine is part of the agricultural sector, so don’t escape it. »

Then, alcohol is targeted by public health issues. “Sectors that generate externalities, whether social or environmental, are taxed more than others, because it is a way of limiting their consumption”, recalls Professor Cardebat, contacted this week in Léognan.

According to him, despite the freedom of management that comes with the monopoly of the SAQ, what is applied as a level of taxation in Quebec, as high as it is, is consistent with what is done elsewhere on the wine planet.

For economist Frédéric Laurin, professor at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières (UQTR), all taxes are not equal.

The specific tax applied by Quebec is what could be called the public health tax, which is directly concerned with the effects of alcohol. “I agree with that one,” says the economist. I would even increase it, because it is there to fight against the negative consequences of alcohol. »

On a $16 wine, Quebec imposes a specific tax of $1.12, citing Professor Laurin as an example, who considers that the multiplication of taxes and their constant increases are difficult to justify. And that the speech is full of contradictions, and drives up the price of wine.

“At a price of $16 it’s a regular wine,” he said. This is what a Frenchman would call a Wednesday wine. It’s not piquette, but it’s not the wine with which we will receive guests. But this wine, in a supermarket in France, it is sold for 3.5 euros. With operating costs and supermarket margin. »

As of this morning, April 1, for sales made in grocery stores and other businesses where alcohol is sold, but from May in the SAQ network when other price increases will be announced.