Getting More Out Of Beer In Grocery Stores - An Interview with @beeratbrowns
Beer in Ontario grocery stores is not breaking news anymore; it was introduced in December 2015 and has now expanded to 450 stores province-wide. If you’ve ever perused the craft selection in your grocery store’s beer aisle, chances are you’ve seen a lot of the flagship brands of the province’s widely distributed breweries, and likely not a lot of variation from store to store. If you live anywhere near the west end of Ottawa, however, you might have been to Brown’s Your Independent Grocer in Stittsville and noticed something clearly different.
Jeff Mitchell is the Beer Manager at Brown’s, and not only is he the curator of the store’s beer aisle, he’s also the man behind @beeratbrowns where he’s constantly updating followers on new beers arriving in his fridges, including stock not seen in other grocery stores or even in local LCBOs.
Since its introduction, beer sales in Ontario grocery stores has always seemed from the outside to be a tightly restricted operation with little to no room for customization or creativity, which makes what Jeff is doing with his store all the more attention grabbing. Not knowing much about the internal workings myself, I talked to Jeff about his experience with grocery store beer sales, what he’s doing differently with the beer he gets on his shelves, and how he connects with his customers.
Jeff, Beer Manager at Brown’s Your Independent Grocer showcasing his favourite local IPA, Beyond the Pale Aromatherapy.
How did you get into craft beer?
When I was in my late teens, my dad started to brew his own beer. A family friend owned one of those breweries where you essentially brew your beer on site with them and return weeks later to bottle it. That was my first exposure to beer other than the traditional domestic brands. From there, I only ever wanted to drink something different. I moved onto import brands then finally to Lug Tread, which was popping up in LCBO's all over the city. Like many in Ottawa, Beau's was the gateway brand for me! At that time it was rare to see more than a couple brands in the LCBO. It is so encouraging to see the variety available to consumers these days.
What inspired you to start a social media presence for beer at your grocery store?
We at Brown's were lucky enough to be one of the initial 58 grocery stores licensed to sell beer in Ontario. We found out about a week before the launch that we were granted a license and were brimming with excitement. At this point, I was already really passionate about craft beer and I was personally just starting to engage and follow craft breweries online. I wanted to share this excitement with our customers so I started @beeratbrowns! It has been a nice creative outlet and a fun way to engage with more like-minded people. I have struggled to find the time to post consistently since we launched - which is disappointing. However, in the last few months my role at the store has changed and @beeratbrowns has become part of my daily routine!
It struck me as genuinely unique to see a social media presence advertising the craft beer selection at a grocery store. What kind of response have you seen from your customers to the @beeratbrowns posts?
It is unique, isn’t it?! I admittedly just started the account for fun, as a creative outlet that I hoped would connect with some of my local customers. I have no formal education when it comes to Marketing or Social Media and really have no idea what I’m doing half the time! Over time, my posts started reaching my local audience and response from customers has been fantastic. We have a lot of really loyal, regular customers that I interact with now through @beeratbrowns and in-store. I often get DM’s asking if certain beers are available, what’s going to be released soon etc. It is also really satisfying when a customer comes in and mentions they saw a beer on our Instagram. In a way, it validates the work I’m doing.
Muddy York Brewing’s Porter is a fresh arrival in Jeff’s fridge.
It's great that it’s become a source of connection with your customers. That kind of interaction has a similar feel to that of an independent bottle shop like you'd see in Quebec or down in the States. I would suspect that most shoppers don't have that kind of relationship with their grocery store for their beer aisle.
In a perfect world, I’d one day operate an independent bottle shop in Ontario without the restrictions currently placed on Grocers. There is an added layer of bureaucracy as it stands that makes it really difficult to be successful. I would love the freedom that retailers in Quebec have.
I find it interesting how selection can differ from store to store. Many grocery stores seem to have a pretty uniform selection of craft (the widely available offerings from Collective Arts, Great Lakes, Nickel Brook, etc.) but then there are some stores, like yours for instance, which have a much broader selection. Can you tell me a bit about how craft beer selection works in grocery stores, and how it is you manage to have beers in your store that you don't see elsewhere locally?
I could give you a really in depth answer but I’ll try to be as succinct as possible! The LCBO controls what grocery stores can sell. They created a website for Grocers to see what is available, and that is what I use to differentiate the selection at @beeratbrowns. Most of the larger grocery chains will provide their stores a layout or “planogram” of a variety of beers, ciders and wines that they carry everyday. These planograms typically use sales history to determine the most popular and best selling brands to fill their shelf space. That is why you’ll often see the Muskoka, Collective Arts, Nickel Brook brands in just about every store. Most of these corporate stores have no idea that this LCBO website for grocers exists because the planning and ordering is all done at a head office level for them. Brown’s is part of the Loblaw family, but we are still independent and still have a lot of control over what is on our shelves. We decided early on that we wanted to provide our customers MORE. If we are all legislated to sell the same products at the same price, I needed to do something different to bring customers in because eventually every competitor in my market would have a beer license. I started browsing this LCBO grocer website early on, and slowly started to add beers and brands that I knew you didn’t see elsewhere. From there I started to reach out to craft brewers to essentially beg them to list their beers for grocery stores. The reality is every store could have the same selection as us, but they don’t put the time or effort into it that we do at Brown’s.
It's unfortunate that more stores don't take advantage of that breadth of selection available to them, but it really seems like you seized a golden opportunity to offer your customers something that they can't get anywhere else. The fact that you have those products in your store that almost no one else is selling makes your social media platform that much more valuable because you've got a way to tell your customers "Look what I've got here!", which is another thing that almost no one else is using. I distinctly remember a couple of years ago seeing one of your posts that you had Anderson IPA in your store, which was LONG before it showed up in any Ottawa LCBOs.
It is really unfortunate. I think the most successful operators use every chance available to connect with their customers. If that means an amazing selection of craft beer, then why not? Well - I know why not and that leads me to your next question.
Anderson Craft Ales and some less distributed releases from Collective Arts are among the beers at Brown’s you won’t find in other grocery stores.
Is there anything that you'd like to see changed about how grocery store beer sales are done in Ontario?
Is everything an appropriate answer? I know the general public doesn't quite understand how the entirety of beer in grocery stores works so I'll narrow it down to one issue: there is no money in beer for grocers in Ontario. We buy our product to sell to them from the LCBO essentially at regular retail. The fact that it is essentially impossible to make money on the product we're selling is the biggest reason why most grocery stores don't have a large, well stocked section - or even refrigeration. The large majority of stores don't even have a dedicated person looking after their beer because it’s so unprofitable to do so. I would love to see a system in this province where we are ordering directly from brewers, where we don't have limitations on ABV (nothing higher than 7.1% in grocery stores!), and we have the freedom to operate like any other business. Unfortunately I'm not so sure we'll see that anytime soon.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about beer in Ontario grocery stores?
I guess I'll say this. Beer in Ontario grocery stores has been amazingly convenient for a good chunk of this province. I am thrilled we are able to offer our customers the selection that we do - but I wish we could do more for them. As great as things are now, they could be much better!
So under the hood, not surprisingly, beer sales in grocery stores are pretty tightly restricted. That said, Jeff has found a way to really make his store stand out from the pack in Ontario by maximizing the tools available to him, and even going so far as to reach out to breweries to try to get more listed to expand the available selection even further. Creating a social media presence to inform and interact with his customers makes the beer shopping experience at Brown’s something you can’t get anywhere else.
Thanks very much to Jeff for talking to me and shedding some light on grocery store beer sales in Ontario! If you’re in Stittsville, head over to Brown’s, say hi to Jeff and see what he’s got in the fridge!
Brown’s is even an Untappd Verified Venue!
Photography by Nathan Does Beer.
Brown’s Your Independent Grocer
1251 Main St
Stittsville, ON
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Nathan
Nathan is a craft beer enthusiast from Ottawa, ON. He is the Co-Founder of @TeamLactose, he’s passionate about travelling for beer and he loves talking about beer from Ontario, Quebec and beyond.