How great is Wegmans?

Wegmans and Whole Foods are great. I suspect they will continue to take away business from traditional beer distributors and force them to change(sell less than a case) or close their doors in due time.

 

Besides "mediocre", Wegmans is way down on my list for a few other reasons - old beer litters the shelves, esp. their singles/bombers/imports. And they actually have "open" cooler that have florescent lights UNDER their shelving, so that beers in the back are also constantly exposed to light, not just the front facing bottles.

Finally, they do not discount beer case sales, which is typical at most chain and many indie stores in NJ. I will always remember seeing a stack of Nugget Nectar sitting in the middle of the floor, fresh off the distributor's handtruck. Inquired as to the price of a case, got an outrageously high "same as 4 X 6 pack" price*, jumped in my truck, drove 4 miles down Rt. 9 and saved something like $8 on a case at Shop Rite Liquors in Freehold.

*A few years back, when NN was still well under $40/cs.​

 

Our local Wegmans now paints the caps of their singles for sale so you can't do what you were doing.

 

It's not that beer distributors don't want to sell less than a case, by law, they are not allowed to. So unless the law changes, they will still be forced to sell by the case, no matter what they might like to do.

 

That is what I was eluding to in my post, I expect to see the law change in the next 5 years or I expect to see a few less beer distributors.

 

That would be nice. I'd like to see a Total Wine and Bev in the midstate.

 

No Wegmans in my area.

 

​

Isn't this a problem with our area in general though? Anything that isn't seasonal sits and sits and sits almost everywhere it seems. I've been trying to find some fresh Resin to send to my good buddy out in California for months and I can't find anything that isn't months old, or even "expired". It seems to be getting worse and worse.

Sorry to go off on a tangent, perhaps this should be in another thread, but

 

I miss Wegmans, not really for the beer but the prices and the food!
Can't beat that club pack.

 

If you were taking beers that weren't in the mix-six section and putting them in a mix-six pack, that's kind of a dick move.

 

Well, no - not a particular problem for "our" or any other regionl - I'd say it's universal all over the US.

I agree, and (like many BA's) whenever I do mention checking date codes in a specific store, I will think to myself after I write it, "Well, where or what store is that NOT the case?"

But, for the NJ Wegmans I visit (primarily Princeton and Manalapan) it does seem to be a particularly notable problem. I recall checking single 500ml bottles of numerous German and UK brands in the latter and often finding beers that were 1-2-3 years old.

And in Princeton, a few years back now, I recall visiting the nearby Joe Canal's hoping to get a fresh case of Flower Power. JC's often had Flower Power that was between a week or two from the bottling date but, at the time, only seemed to receive 10-12 cases and they sold out quickly.

Striking out at Joe's, I figured I'd stop into the Wegman's at the shopping center across the road. Was surprised to see a floor display of something like 15-20 cases, even if I was slightly disappointed at the room temperature storage (despite the cases clearly labeled "Please Keep Refrigerated"*). That quickly turned to full disappointment when I checked the bottling date stamps on the cases and they were all the same date, 7 or 8 months previous (so 4 - 5 months past the notched "Best Before" on the labels at the time). So the JC's less than a mile away, often had 1-2 week old Flower Power, stored in their walk-in cooler which sold out routinely, while Wegmans had multiple cases that sat for months and expired...

* I think. Or maybe just "Keep Cool"? Looked around the cellar and garage but don't have
an empty case around and, sadly, no longer routinely buy Flower Power due to its current recipe.​

 

It's a problem with pretty much any store that is in the business of stocking a few hundred or more SKUs of beer at any one time. Hell, it's a problem at most bottle shops, period. The market simply does not support fast turnaround of all of these beers. Stores like Wegman's and Total Wine, that focus on stocking as wide an assortment as possible, are the worst offenders, because they aren't catering specifically to craft beer drinkers. They're just throwing up on the shelf anything they can get their hands on. Total Wine in Claymont, DE is the absolute worst - the beer shelves are never organized, and there are 1500 different kinds of beer just strewn about on the shelves that they never seem to straighten out. Wegman's is at least well organized, but in every one I've been to, it's painfully clear that they don't sell through most of their stock.

 

From what I have noticed prices for beer are much lower at Whole Foods and Wegmans vs the bottle shoppes that have popped up over the last few years.