{"id":516948,"date":"2026-03-05T23:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/516948\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T23:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:46:14","slug":"alcohol-sales-in-canada-just-saw-largest-annual-drop-since-tracking-began-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/516948\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol sales in Canada just saw \u2018largest\u2019 annual drop since tracking began – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sales of alcohol declined for the fourth straight year in 2024-25, according to a\u00a0Statistics Canada report<\/a> released Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

From April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, sales dropped by three per cent to 2,898 million litres on a volume basis, marking the fourth consecutive year volume sales have declined.<\/p>\n

This was also reported as \u201cthe largest annual decrease since Statistics Canada began tracking this series in 2004\/2005.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liquor authorities and other retail outlets \u201csold $25.8 billion worth of alcoholic beverages in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, down 1.6 per cent from fiscal year 2023\/2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

This decrease happened despite a 1.6 per cent increase \u201cin the price of alcoholic beverages in stores from March 2024 to March 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tValue of beer sales drops\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The overall dollar value of beer sales by liquor stores, agencies and other retail outlets dropped 1.6 per cent to $9.1 billion in the 2024-25 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

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By volume, beer sales declined 3.8 per cent to 1,876 million litres in 2024-25, the ninth consecutive annual drop in beer sales by volume.<\/p>\n

However, beer held its position as the top-selling beverage category in 2024-25; its market share went unchanged from a year earlier at just over one-third (35.1 per cent) of total sales.<\/p>\n

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Following the tariffs imposed by the U.S. on aluminum and steel<\/a>, Canadian breweries have noted a struggle with producing beer cans in Canada<\/a>, as the country switched gears from\u00a0U.S.-reliant supply chains and as consumers double down on the \u201cBuy Canadian\u201d<\/a> sentiment.<\/p>\n

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In addition, American alcohol was removed from the shelves of many provincial liquor stores in response to the first round of tariffs levied by U.S. President Donald Trump on March 4, 2025.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

Ontario imported roughly $965 million worth of booze from America before the ban.<\/p>\n

As a result, roughly $2 million worth of U.S. products have either expired or will expire<\/a> in the next few months. Most of those products, according to the government, are beer, ready-to-drink beverages and wine.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tSales of imported wine decline for the first time\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Wine sales fell 2.2 per cent to $7.7 billion in 2024-25, which was driven by a decline in imported wine sales (-3.9 per cent). Imported wine accounted for 70 per cent of total wine sales.<\/p>\n

The report noted that \u201cthis was the first time imported wine sales have decreased since Statistics Canada began tracking alcohol sales by origin in 1992\/1993.\u201d<\/p>\n

Domestic wine sales were found to be stable, increasing 1.9 per cent to $2.3 billion.<\/p>\n

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This was the fourth consecutive year of decline for wine sales by volume, equalling 460 million litres.<\/p>\n

Ontario (-5.3 per cent) and Quebec (-4.3 per cent) saw the largest declines in imported wine sales in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tSpirits sales also took a dive\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Total sales of spirits dropped 3.2 per cent to $6.7 billion in 2024-25. Whisky (29.6 per cent), vodka (22.9 per cent) and liqueurs (15.4 per cent) were the top-selling spirits by share of total sales.<\/p>\n

Overall, sales of spirits by volume decreased by 4.4 per cent to 177 million litres in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tOntario Premier Doug Ford empties a Crown Royal bottle of whisky at a press conference in Kitchener, Ont., on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. Ford criticized the popular whisky\u2019s parent company, Diageo, for their plan to close one of their Ontario bottling plants in the coming months.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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However, spirits were found to be the top seller in the Northwest Territories (44.1 per cent) and British Columbia (30.8 per cent).<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tCiders and coolers lone beverage to see growth\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

For the second straight year, ciders and coolers were the sole alcoholic beverage category with increased sales.<\/p>\n

Sales of ciders and coolers rose 4.8 per cent from the previous fiscal year to $2.4 billion in 2024-25, seeing increases in nine provinces and two territories but down in British Columbia (-2.0 per cent) and Yukon (-1.8 per cent).<\/p>\n

The volume of ciders and coolers sold also rose by 2.2 per cent to 385 million litres.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tCannabis sales are growing\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Despite the sales of alcohol tanking across the country, cannabis sales are rising.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

The report also evaluates the sales of cannabis in Canada, finding that recreational cannabis garnered $2.5 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, up 11.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:37
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBIV: Legal cannabis sales continue to soar\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Sales of recreational cannabis by provincial cannabis authorities and other retail outlets also increased 6.1 per cent, rising $0.3 billion from the previous fiscal year to $5.5 billion in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

Yukon was found to have the highest sales per person with an average of $384, while Quebec had the lowest with $105.<\/p>\n

Quebec\u2019s lower sales partly reflect restrictions in effect during the fiscal year, including a ban on cannabis vaping products and topicals, as well as limited edible offerings.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sales of alcohol declined for the fourth straight year in 2024-25, according to a\u00a0Statistics Canada report released Wednesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84806,45,49,48,204531,46,50],"class_list":["post-516948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alcohol-sales","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cannabis-sales","tag-economy","tag-statistics-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}