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INDUSTRY INDUSTRYSPOTLIGHT SPOTLIGHT
NATIONAL SUNSHINE COAST
MGA Board President, Debbie Smith addresses local artisan beer, wine and spirit suppliers, Jackie Ingram Executive Director for Strategic Business Policy QLD Small Business and the MGA board. embers.
Sunshine Coast local businesses meet with MGA On 15 June 2022, MGA Board members met with local Queensland artisan beer, wine, and spirits suppliers to discuss how their products could be stocked and sold by local Queensland food and grocery stores. MGA’s Queensland members cannot stock or sell packaged liquor of any form and wish to propose to the Queensland Government that local food and grocery businesses stock and sell only locally produced beverages - including wine, beer, cider and spirits – based on the Tasmanian model. In attendance were: Michael Conrad from Sunshine and Sons Distillery, Kirra and Steve from Beechtree Distillery, Tony Thompson from Flame Hill Vineyard, Jackie Ingram Executive Director for Strategic Policy with Qld Small Business, and MGA’s Board of Directors.
mga.asn.au | Aug 2022 | Edition 4
This has been a 15-year journey for MGA and the MGAQ Committee with no successful outcomes delivered to date. By way of background: • Some 5 years ago under the then Queensland Small Business Minister Leeanne Enoch (together with the Queensland Small Business Consultative Committee), a unique report was researched and written to bring local producers of food and beverages together to form an economic local eco system to enable long term sustainable growth and prosperity for Queensland’s small businesses.
• This was initiated to help Queensland small businesses develop a point of difference in the face of extreme competition (market power) from the duopoly Coles and Woolworths
and also Aldi. Coles and Woolworths both sell packaged liquor – 80% market share of packaged liquor in Queensland.
• The Entrepreneurial Pipeline Project was created. A project that would bring local Queensland producers, manufactures and suppliers of local foods and beverages together in an eco-system that creates a unique point of difference.
• Stocking and selling local food and
wine, beer spirits beverages to local consumers and tourists.
• The market share of the family and
private food and grocery sector has diminished in the face of this adversity to a market share of 7% in Queensland.
• Distribution channels to market for
locally produced wines, beers, spirits,
