Guelph Alcohol Businesses Are Facing Bottle Shortages

Local businesses selling alcohol face a unique challenge. Glass bottles are becoming harder to come by, and the scarcity is reducing their profits. Read on to know more about why Guelph alcohol businesses face bottle shortages and what can be done about it.



Talking about the situation, Tariq Ahmed, founder of Revel Cider, said, "You can find glass bottles right now, but they're twice the price, and that's the real issue." As of now, Revel Cider is procuring glass bottles from Germany. They were lucky enough to negotiate for them a year in advance. Still, they are paying more as shipping costs and commercial space rent have risen in price.

Ahmed said, "It's not only glass, it's aluminum cans, it's cardboard, it's affected the price of everything."

The co-founder of Dixon's Distilled Spirits, JD Dixon, stated that glass bottles are only one part of the problem due to ongoing supply chain disruptions. Even labels, caps, seals, and boxes are seeing delivery delays. All of this impacts production.

Dixon said, "We didn't just start feeling it, this definitely started that way last year, but we're now feeling those backlogs, and you have to be willing to adjust."



Dixon also mentioned that he realized there could be future issues with the supply chain early on in the pandemic and started to order larger quantities of glass bottles in advance. As the costs associated with shipping and manufacturing have risen, Dixon's had to increase prices. He said, "It's a domino effect ... it's also all the components along the way because their shipping costs have doubled and tripled. So they're passing all those things along, and by the time it gets to me, well, that's why it's a 53 to 56 percent in the raw material before the liquid even goes in."

At the time of writing this article, Dixon's had about 15,600 bottles and 26 skids of product that were ready to go for the upcoming Victoria Day weekend. Another truck will also be coming at the end of June. Dixon stated, "That's where other distilleries or breweries are going to find themselves in trouble. If they're not thinking about July, August, or September right now, they're going to be in trouble."



New Hope

As international manufacturers of these products are closing down, new North American manufacturers are coming up. Commenting on that, Dixon said, "I think that's a good thing, people see opportunity. All of a sudden, I'm getting calls now like, 'Hey, we're making bottles in Windsor,' and 'We're making bottles in Montreal,' so we're like, okay, that's great!' It comes with a little bit of an extra cost, but the security or safety is that you know you can get your bottles because your bottles are only a few hours away."

Return Your Empties

Customers can help the companies dealing with the shortage issues by returning their empty bottles so that the manufacturers can reuse them and get them back into the system. Or you can recycle them too. Read more here.  

Sources:

https://www.guelphtoday.com/membership/features/glass-bottle-shortage-not-the-only-reason-guelph-alcohol-businesses-are-raising-prices-5392754

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/guelph-distillery-frustrated-with-glass-bottle-shortage-1.5910002

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/guelph-distillery-frustrated-with-glass-bottle-shortage-1.5910002

 

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