‘A bottle here and there’: Sask. distiller happy to see interprovincial deal on alcohol sales

A local Saskatchewan distiller says it’s great to see trade barriers being removed between the provinces when it comes to alcohol sales, but the new deal announced this week won’t necessarily be transformational for the company’s bottom line.

This week, Saskatchewan and eight other provinces signed a deal to allow brewers and distillers in those provinces to sell directly to consumers in the other provinces.

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In Saskatchewan, there’s been a similar deal in place for Alberta and B.C. for many years. But Meredith Schmidt, one of the founders of Last Mountain Distillery in Lumsden, said it’s not currently a huge part of her business.

“Mostly we’re selling to retailers – retailers is where the majority of our sales are,” she explained on The Greg Morgan Morning Show on Wednesday.

“It’s nice to be able to expand your business in a small way. People occasionally, they scroll online and they find you and they order, but it’s not a huge percentage of our business either way.”

Schmidt added that the deal does offer some growth opportunities, and might bring a modest boost to the company’s finances.

“Your sales are going to be a bottle here and there, and then there’s shipping, which adds to it,” she said.

Premier Scott Moe agreed during an appearance on The Evan Bray Show a later in the morning, when he was asked about the deal. Moe said there will be less of an impact for Saskatchewan alcohol producers, but more of an impact in other provinces which might have had a more protectionist regime of regulations.

Schmidt said she’d like to see sales rates from Saskatchewan carried over into other provinces when Last Mountain sends its products. While she doesn’t expect to see that change any time soon, she said “a girl can dream.”

In the deal signed this week, Quebec and Yukon were aiming to sign on in the near future, and B.C. said it would make the changes to allow direct-to-consumer interprovincial sales by February.