Total Wine doesn't get it (yet another freshness rant)

Except for when the distributor stocks the shelves with already or soon to be expired beer.

 

Well, yeah, they're all synonymous terms as far as I've ever heard/seen.

Such as (from MillerCoors date code pdf):

 

There are lots of reasons/causes for old beer at retail. Wholesalers shipping close-dated or out of date beer, for breweries to ship close dated, old beer, or improperly rotated inventory. And for a retailer to buy too much and not selling through at a decent pace. There are likely other ways old beer persists.

 

Thanks, I wasn't sure if there was a consumer oriented ”best by” date and a different (confidential) commercial ”pull by” date.

 

Local big grocery/ liquor store just reset their huge beer section. Reset was in cooler sections. What changed?
1. Smaller import beer section.
2. Local beers, Wisconsin breweries, no change.
3. Craft beer section was moved to a secondary wall. Same size.
4. Seltzers, ciders and malt flavored products now occupy the lead coolers with a huge increase in space.
5. Floor displays also changed. Large seltzer and flavored products now mass displayed in prime traffic area previously used by macro beers.
Beer rep building a seltzer display said “. . . it’s the new big thing.”
Oh goody!
A new big thing.
Yawn.

 

I understand the cost associated with keeping beer cold but for as much beer as they carry, a very small percentage of it is kept cold, whereas, every single grocery store I've shopped at in the past 20 years has 90+% of their beer in coolers.

I'll take a smaller selection of fresh beer over a huge selection of old warm beer, every single time.

 

My problem is I get so excited about finding something I've wanted to try that I sometimes forget to check the date, to my own detriment I'm afraid. There, I've confessed.

 

Wonder how much is psychological? It's 2 months old from the date so is is going to be bad. Looks like another sales tactic to me.

It's a new innovation in the UK, ironically created by Budweiser. All other beer has a best before which for some beers is a made up date. Seen a 10 year best before on some beers!

Another reason for beer sitting around? It's because you are not buying it. Everyone is always looking for the next beer and may only buy a beer once.

Overstocking is a big factor for sure. Stores will only sell X amount per week but they have >X and keep buying, having to constantly keep customers looking for new beer happy. How many go in to a store only to go buy from another store that has something different as they have had all that is on offer? That doesn't move stock.

 

I wonder how long the alcoholic seltzer ‘trend’ will last. Will it be as long as the wine cooler thing? Or the clear malternative (e.g., Zima) thing? Or the…

Cheers!

P.S. Maybe the next, next new thing will be New England Malternatives? A hazy Zima anybody?

 

TW is growing and learning. The owners/ceo’s are wine guys, that’s why they added “And More” to the end of Total Wine.

They started in Delaware in the early 90’s and had less than 100 stores by 2016. Since 2016, they’ve opened over 100 stores and approaching 200 total stores. Also close to $4b in revenue.

Growing and learning. Can’t make everyone happy over night. I love the stores in Houston - 12 stores in Houston with the 13th opening soon - and get a ton of my beer there, usually fresh

 

Thank you for your support

 

Oh, I'm sure of all that, but I've had the experience of picking up an out of code beer that was so recently stocked that the clerk had to go to the office for a price check. Furthermore no distributor should be sending old beer to a retailer in the first place and I know that has happened, too.

 

And I too know that has happened even though industry folks (@SierraTerence) choose to not believe me without 'proof'.

Cheers!

 

True, but it does happen. I'm not taking any sides on this issue. There's enough blame to go around as is. Paying attention at all points of a beer's journey through the market and clear and easy to understand dating on all bottles and cans would help.

 

Which is understandable given that they can do nothing meaningful without proof and a complaint by an anonymous person on a web site isn't good enough to "go to court with."

 

Just adding a couple of reasons to your list of problems that can develop.

 

True enough and the distributing beer industry (Breweries, Wholesale Distributors, and Retailers) really should take this issue of too much old beer on retailers shelves seriously and work together to rectify it if they want to have successful (e.g., profitable) businesses in 2019 and beyond. The craft beer market is very dynamic with lots of changes (e.g., soon to be 8000+ breweries) and if the distributing beer industry wants to succeed it is in their self interests to make changes accordingly.

It is popular for folks to blame the distributors (e.g., @nc41) and I get that since there are the infamous 'middle men' of the supply chain. Dale is an informed beer consumer so he has a good appreciation for the role that the Wholesale Distributors play here. A more casual beer consumer would just purchase a beer from a retailer not knowing the beer is too old and simply 'chalk up' their less than pleasant drinking experience as Brewery x makes shitty beer and say: I will never purchase beer from Brewery x ever again. Is Brewery x well served here? That is an easy question to answer: no, Brewery x is 'damaged' here.

The present day craft beer market is hyper-competitive right now. The distributing beer industry needs the participation (i.e., money) from all segments of the craft beer consumers. The money from casual consumers who do not check dates but expect a pleasant drinking experience and the money from non-casual beer consumers who check dates and will replace the old 6-pack back on the shelf and perhaps leave the store (e.g., Total Wine & More) without making a beer purchase.

My 'local' Total Wine & More is in my neighboring state a Delaware (Claymont, DE) and when I go there I will construct a list of 8-10 beer brands that I am interested in purchasing. On more than one occasion I have left that store with none of those beers (i.e., zero purchases of beer) because I could not find fresh product. It is not to this store's financial benefit that they received no beer money from me. In this specific case of buying from Total Wine & More I choose to place the majority of the blame on the distributors. I have had conversation with distributor personnel while shopping that store and after they were done stocking beer brand y on the shelf I would go back to check the dates of those recently stocked beers to see that they were old beers. Quite disappointing.

Non-cheers to so much old beer on shelves!!

 

Needless to say but I will not be "going to court". I will instead provide my beer money to another brewery.

Cheers!

 

Yup, that was in 1991. That store was called Liquor World at that time and I used to shop there regularly. Sometime later (late 1990’s I believe) they changed the name to Total Beverage.

But the two brothers who started this chain had prior beer business experience:

“In 1985, Trone and family members opened stores in the Pittsburgh area known as Beer and Pop Warehouse and later Beer World, though legal experiences in Pennsylvania led them to leave the state.”

The legal experiences mentioned above refers to the fact that in PA a person (or family) is restricted in how many beer retail licenses they can own. If you want an expanding business (i.e., multiple retail outlets) you need to setup retail businesses elsewhere (outside of PA).

The Trone Brothers have been selling beer for over three decades. That is long enough to learn this business. For some reason they prefer to not learn about the importance of beer freshness over those 30+ years. Perhaps market conditions in 2019/2020 will ‘encourage’ them to learn this lesson? Or maybe they will just concentrate on the wine & spirits portion and decide to just make whatever money they can from the casual beer consumer segment of the market? I suppose with time we may learn more here?

Cheers!

@RobH

 

I agree completely. Thing is, all of this is no recent phenomenon. The local beer explosion has only exacerbated and accelerated an old problem. There is more good beer to drink than there are people to drink it.