Since November 10, the SAQ has increased the prices of 998 current products and those in continuous supply. These are the most popular products on the shelves, wines and spirits.
According to data provided by the state corporation following a request for access to information from the Soleilthe average amount of increases is 35¢ per bottle.
Furthermore, the prices of 2,413 products marketed by the SAQ remained stable and 61 were lowered. The average decrease was 63¢.
In May, the SAQ had already carried out an increase of an average amount of 53¢ on more than 2,000 products. Management then indicated that its suppliers were not immune to inflation and that their costs were increasing to justify this decision.
GST holiday
Last week, the Trudeau government passed a bill in the House of Commons concerning the exemption from the 5% goods and services tax (GST), including alcohol, with the exception of spirits.
This GST holiday will be in effect from December 14 to February 15.
The SAQ says it is able to apply the GST exemption to eligible products on the scheduled date. Customers will therefore see the bill reduced when checking out.
“We are currently in contact with the federal government to fully understand the impact of this announcement on our operations and plan its implementation,” said the Soleil Laurianne Tardif, spokesperson at the SAQ.
Increase in 2025
At the beginning of November, the SAQ announced that it would raise its prices in February 2025 by increasing its mark-up. This represents the gross margin that the state company applies on the products it sells. To this increase will be added that requested by suppliers twice a year.
The SAQ justified this new “moderate” increase due to the increase in its costs and the financial context in which it operates.
“Since 2017, we have only increased our increase once, in February 2024 for application in May. This is why, as we announced publicly, we now review our increase annually,” we could read in the press release.
The increase will, however, exclude wines priced under $12.
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