Images from McLaren Vale - Trott's View (Trott, Brooks, White,
Campbell; Wakefield Press 2007; photographed by Milton Wordley, Christo
Reid, Don Brice and Eric Algra)
Pollster finds Woolies' way:
stranglehold on liquor retail,
peopled up by the Shoppies
by PHILIP WHITE
There
are 24 million people in Australia. 4.8 million of us buy ethanol each ordinary
week, ethanol ideally being the safest sort of alcohol taken in pursuit of
refreshment, gastronomic delight and/or intoxication.
Each
of that 4.8 million people spend an average of $61 per week buying ethanol in
one form or another.
Roy
Morgan Research this week confirmed that the Woolworths' chain, Dan Murphy’s,
is Australia's leader in market share and total customer numbers in the
ethanol-dealing business.
This
comes as little surprise to those of us who live with our noses to the
winestone. Hungry Dan's is in your face. Some hacks in this racket get to
thinking Woolworths IS the bloody winestone. [Note to self: write song for next
band: The Ballad Of Hungry Dan and
Winestone Woolie.]
But
the burgeoning reach of this giant dealer is breathtaking. 1.2 million -- 23.9%
of total ethanol-buyers -- attend Dan Murphy’s each week. Add that to the 1.1
million who attend Woolworths' BWS ethanol chain -- the silversleeve second to
Dan's silvertail -- and you get 2.3 million. Only 1.8 million Australians make
it to church each week, for Christ's sake, and I'm doubting that lot tithes
anything like the $48 the average BWS convert puts in the Woolworths plate. The
Hungry Dans' congregation tips in $68 per head per week -- $7 more than the
national average.
To
me, this indicates volume more than quality.
Then
there's Woolies' undisclosed share of the direct-order wine clubs sales, which
lure only 4.8% of us to make a contribution each week. When we do, mind you, the
whole 74,000 of us, it's a whopping $194 weekly spend, average. That's even
more godly than the 30,000 or so happy-clapping Penties who get along to
Hillsong each week to sweat and holler in the names of Jesus and money.
And
oh yes there's Woolworths' Liquor, where 4% of us spend $56 per week. They must be nice shops. And
then of course the 4% of Australia's gaming pubs Woolworths owns through its
75% slice of the ALH Group. Together they own 6% of Australia's poker machines
and 294 pubs.
Which
is not to say that Woolworths actually want you drink too much. Their website
seems almost delighted to be able to anounce that "Alcohol consumption in Australia has fallen by
over 20% in the last 40 years. Around 85% of Australians consume alcohol on a
regular basis and most do so responsibly. The amount of alcohol consumed in
Australia on a per capita basis equates to around two standard drinks per adult
person per day."
Those in the propaganda
trade love possibilities like this, where the opportunity is set, should a
clever retailer reverse this trend, to announce "destructive slump in
premium wine slows," rather than "Ockers back on the piss."
This language on
Woolworths' website sounds very much like Roy Morgan's finding of 28 August 2015 (No. 6422), which
reports a "distinct decline in the proportion of Aussie adults drinking
[alcohol] at all ... the total proportion of Australians 18+ who drink any kind
of alcohol in an average four weeks has fallen from 72% as of June 2006 to 68%
as of June 2015."
Images from McLaren Vale - Trott's View (Trott, Brooks, White,
Campbell; Wakefield Press 2007; photographed by Milton Wordley, Christo
Reid, Don Brice and Eric Algra)
While this plunge is not linked to the quality of the cheapest wines
Woolworths makes for its cheapest liquor hangars, its website also makes clear
that as a responsible corporate citizen, it is capable of assisting those susceptible
to inappropriate consumption.
"We have a small
number of supermarket liquor stores in remote communities," it says,
"where the effects of alcohol related harm can be magnified by other
issues such as social disadvantage and welfare dependency. We work proactively
with local authorities in these areas to address issues of concern – sometimes
changing our range, our trading hours and our service policies to meet local
needs."
A shareholder looking for
returns would probably prefer to know that Woolworths always adjusts its grog prices
and hours to meet local needs without any interference from pesky local
authorities, but at least the sentiment's there.
An ongoing relationship
with Roy Morgan makes very good sense for Woolworths. Especially when Andrew
Price, the pollster's general manager of consumer products reports "Along
with the corresponding increases in the proportion of us drinking red and
fortified wines during the July-September quarter, our findings also reveal
that Aussie adults are also much more inclined to drink hot chocolate at this
time of year than any other quarter. One has to wonder, therefore, why no
liquor brands have yet introduced a pre-prepared alcoholic hot chocolate into
the market ..."
Some may find it alarming to think that there's nobody working the vast
halls, barns and hangars of Woolworths who've had the smarts to think of the
hot Bailey's or steaming Kahlua and cream, but it is possible they need blokes
like Mr Price to do it for them.
All
that aside, I have a terrible confession to make. Whenever I'm in a Woolworths
store and the pimpled register person quacks "will you be having a receipt for that
today at all?" I can't help thinking of Bernard Finnegan, who's just resigned from the South Australian Legislative Council
after being found guilty by a court of obtaining child pornography.
All
those well-intentioned supermarket and liquor store staff are members of the Shoppies,
the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the biggest union in
the Australian Labor Party.
There's
28,000 of them in South Australia, Northern Territory and Broken Hill. The
Shoppies number around 200,000 members
nationally, including the employees of Coles, Bunnings, Hungry Jacks, Pizza Hut
and McDonalds.
Images from McLaren Vale - Trott's View (Trott, Brooks, White,
Campbell; Wakefield Press 2007; photographed by Milton Wordley, Christo
Reid, Don Brice and Eric Algra)
During
Finnegan's five years as assistant secretary of the union, he was a protégé of
Don "Godfather" Farrell, who later became a Senator and extremely
powerful hard Catholic right ALP powerbroker who helped chop the head of Prime
Minister Rudd, then lost his seat and was stopped from an easy parachute drop
into the SA upper house by Premier Jay Weatherill.
Weatherill
is handing Finnegan's seat to another Farrell protégé, Shoppies secretary Peter Malinauskas, a former Woolworths checkout jock.
He won't face an actual election until 2018. Malinouskas famously walked into premier Mike Rann's parliamentary office to
tell his days were up, which saw Weatherill take the job.
Farrell, meanwhile has
bought himself a full R. M. Williams rigout and moved to the safety of the
Jesuits at Sevenhill near Clare where he grows grapes and gets a neighbour to
make wine for him.
The
language on his website already looks like something from a Hungry Dan's
brochure.
"Nestled in the historic town of Sevenhill in the Clare Valley of
South Australia, Don Farrell and wife Nimfa bring you their bespoke wines hand
crafted from the most sought after grapes in Australia," it starts.
So how will this all finish? I dunno. But next time you're in a
Woolworths liquor store paying your tithes, look closely at the jockey riding
the register and realise that might just be your next Premier. Be respectful.
Later, if you manage to get your purchase home before cracking it,
wonder awhile how politicians like these manage the source of the cheapest, biggest
volume, most heavily-irrigated wines in the shop: the Murray Darling Basin,
where most growers are consistently making terrible losses and our precious
water regularly runs dry.
Peace in the valley?
Images from McLaren Vale - Trott's View (Trott, Brooks, White, Campbell; Wakefield Press 2007; photographed by Milton Wordley, Christo Reid, Don Brice and Eric Algra)
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