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Dear members,
We are pleased to advise you the Ministry of Attorney General has
announced that work is now underway on the long-awaited independent review of the BC Liquor Distribution Branch's distribution centre.
The Ministry has engaged Deloitte Canada to conduct the review. The review was commissioned by the provincial government in December 2018 in
direct response to our industry's constant concerns and to ensure distribution centre operations are "meeting the needs of wholesale customers."
Government says Deloitte will also be looking at how orders for non-stocked wholesale product (NSWP) are processed and how NSWP product is transported between distribution centres operated by the LDB and third party providers.
Over the past year, ABLE BC and other industry stakeholders have been actively advocating to improve wholesale product delivery by allowing third party distributors to deliver NSWP.
ABLE BC looks forward to engaging with the independent review team and representing the interests and concerns of our members throughout this process. The review will take several months to complete; government expects the results of the review will be released in the fall.
The review of the LDB's distribution centre was also one of several
recommendations made by the Business Technical Advisory Panel (BTAP) last year. Read the full BTAP report
here.
As members know, earlier this year
at our annual post-holiday Industry Reception, Attorney General David Eby
announced that the BTAP recommendations are forming the "roadmap" of government's liquor
policy reforms in 2019. Government announced the first of those liquor policy reforms in February,
implementing new policy for industry trade testing and charity events. We anticipate further
announcements in the coming months and will keep members updated on this progress.
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