BEER in Albury is being sold at a cheaper price than Wodonga in spite of the container deposit charge which has lifted costs across NSW.
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The Border Mail this week found you could buy a slab of Victoria Bitter from First Choice Liquor in Albury for $42 and the same carton was selling for $47 at the chain’s store in Wodonga.
Aldi supermarket is also not charging extra for beer in Albury, despite the 10-cent container levy adding $2.40 to a carton in NSW.
A carton of Victoria Bitter was on sale for $44.99 at Albury and Wodonga Aldi stores this week.
A spokesman for the German chain admitted prices would have to rise in Albury.
“Alcohol retail prices will need to be increased at some stage due to the additional costs imposed by the NSW container deposit scheme,” he said.
“To date, Aldi has not passed on these costs via increased retails but has instead chosen to absorb them over the busy Christmas and summer period, thus providing better value for our customers over this time.”
A representative for Coles, which owns First Choice, could not specify why some beer was selling for more in Wodonga than Albury.
“A number of factors affect local pricing in our liquor stores but we remain committed to offering the lowest possible prices to local customers,” the spokeswoman said.
Border IGA owner Bob Mathews believes drink prices at major supermarkets in Albury are being held at Victorian prices.
He said that was good news for Border consumers, compared to their counterparts in other parts of NSW, but he was still being squeezed because he could not hold down prices.
“We’ve been forced to put our prices up, we’re actually buying off our suppliers in Victoria at a higher price than what we could from Dan Murphy’s with some products,” Mr Mathews said.
“That makes it extremely difficult.”
Mr Mathews said sales of beer cartons had fallen, but sales of wine bottles, which are not subject to the container fee, had been unaffected.
He said similarly six-packs of beer and single stubby transactions had not been hit as a hard as slabs because of their lower price differential.
