Posts Tagged ‘supermarkets’
A cautious welcome to UK Govt’s alcohol policy changes
Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, is absolutely right when he says:
The main responsibility in my view rests with the supermarkets
Indeed it does Keith!
It’s about time that the Government has a sensible approach to alcohol use in the UK, rather than just imposing punitive taxes which drive drinking away from public houses. Pubs are better places to drink than the home, and here’s why:
- pubs reinforce the social aspect of drinking, rather than “drinking to get drunk”
- pubs usually have a mixed clientele, where younger drinkers can be regulated and moderated by their older peers
So the Government might have finally realized that supermarkets are ruining the pub trade and encouraging bad drinking habits. They plan to tackle this problem by requiring supermarkets to make a profit on alcohol sales, and not use booze as a loss-leader. Good!
But they need to do one more thing: make sure that the brewers also don’t sell alcohol to the supermarkets below cost price too. The supermarkets have too much buying power, and faced with the choice “cut your prices or lose shelf-space”, few brewers or distillers will call the supermarkets’ bluff.
If the supermarkets can force dairy farmers to sell milk below cost price, they’ll try it on the brewers too. They mustn’t win.
Tags: beer, government, policy, pubs, supermarkets
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Nov 10th, 2008