Alcohol Sales: Why do we have a 3-tier system

Many people wondeer why we have a a 3-tier alcohol delivery/ distribution sales system . While some people believe that there is some government/lobbyist conspiracy “keeping the little guy down”, the truth is, the government control system was born out of a need for purity – not greed. The 3-tier system is actually a remnant of the post-prohibition era, where those who opposed repealing prohibition wanted a promise from the government that things would not return to the way that they were – they wanted a promise that the government would help control the flow of liquor to stop sin, or something like that. Hence the term “control state”. The entire point of the system as it was devised was to drive up the cost of liquor and collect revenue for the government, controlling the flow and (in theory) reducing consumption. Over time, many control states deregulated slightly and allowed private distributors – although not all have. Today, the 3-tier system does not necessarily help small producers (or even large producers, for that matter) – but it was never designed to. It was designed to increase the cost to the consumer so to appease the pro-prohibition crowd. There are, however, some advantages to using a distributor over self-distribution. It isn’t solely a “take” relationship when you work with a distributor, and many distributors genuinely care about the suppliers and producers they work with. But the big breakthrough in understanding distributors is this one… They provide a service. How many craft producers really want to spend all day running a shipping operation? Or running around to every location with their product to make sure that everything is in place? Distributors have a service that they provide, and it is valuable. That is just one of the mindset shifts that should occur for a producer/supplier to see success in finding the right distributor for them, and creating a win-win scenario for both parties.