Profits up at NSLC
HALIFAX – Nova Scotians bought less alcohol but the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC) made more money over the course of its most recent fiscal year.
The NSLC says it made $284.7 million in profits from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023. That’s a six per cent increase in earnings over its last fiscal year. The Crown corporation says its total sales for the year were $860.7 million; $749.5 million came from alcohol sales and $111.1 million came from cannabis sales.
Despite the money brought in from alcohol sales, however, the NSLC actually sold less alcohol in its most recent fiscal year than it did the year before. All told, the corporation sold 845,836 hectolitres of alcohol, compared to 844,258 in its previous fiscal year. That’s a drop of about three per cent.
Although the overall volume of alcohol sold dropped, the NSLC says its sales to pubs, bars, and restaurants increased dramatically over the last fiscal year.
In total, the corporation sold $51.6 million worth of booze to licensees. That’s a 52 per cent increase (or $17.77 million) year-over-year.
Cannabis sales, meanwhile, increased by 9.3 percent year-over-year, with overall cannabis transactions jumping by almost 13 per cent. The NSLC says it also lowered the average price per gram it charges for cannabis by 2.8 per cent over the year.
The corporation does continue to struggle to find users for its online platform.
Online sales at the NSLC still account for just a sliver of the corporation’s sales. And over the last fiscal year, online sales actually fell by nearly 18 per cent, to $1.8 million.
Meanwhile, the NSLC spent about $11 million building two new stores, renovating seven others, and opening 11 new cannabis locations across the province over its last fiscal year. It also spent $5.4 million on what it calls “key initiatives” like upgraded point-of-sale hardware and “other IT systems and retail support operations.”
More information about the NSLC’s financial performance over the last fiscal year is available here.