James McCullough
22 March 2013
Courier Mail
ENCOURAGING to see that outgoing Metcash CEO Andrew Reitzer is trying to crack the dominance of retailing giants Coles and Woolies in the Queensland hotel and bottleshop scene.
Not content owning the bulk of the country’s grocery and petrol market, the two supermarket majors have for years been amassing a large been amassing a large portfolio of Queensland pubs.
The rationale, of course, is to get access to bottleshops and saturate the place with their competitively priced Dan Murphy’s or First Choice liquor outlets. Queensland is the only state in the country where you are required to own a hotel to sell retail liquor. One hotel licence allows you to own three offsite bottleshops but they must be 10km apart.
Anyway, Metcash last year purchased the Queen’s Arms Hotel with local publican Chris Condon. Now they have snapped up the Envy Hotel at Broadbeach and the Mermaid Hotel with current owner Peter Thompson.
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