Cider rules

Grant Howes of County Cider Company says the rules are stacked against cideries.

Cider makers seek a level playing field

Our landscape is rich with the flora brought in by the French and British who colonized Canada. Some of those plants were so useful and took to the climate and soil so well they became part of Canadian culture.

In the glorious late spring air of Waupoos, on one of those plants, branches have shed their blossoms and the swell of new apples begins to show.

Grant Howes, owner of the County Cider Company, examines the trees for blight and damage from a tough winter and late spring frost. There is almost none. Apples match the Canadian climate perfectly. This isn’t news—the United Empire Loyalists used cider as a means to purify water for drinking.

Cider has seen an upward trend. The County Cider Company is 20 years old, but when it opened, it was alone on the market. Today, more than a dozen cider companies are producing in Ontario. Demand is up. In the US, there has been a 64 per cent growth in sales of cider.

“The potential for cider in Ontario is so great, because we are an apple growing province. No only can we grow great apples, but we’ve proven here over the last 15 years we can grow traditional cider apples from Europe,” Howes says. The University of Guelph’s agriculture program has taken an interest in the County Cider Company’s success growing cider apples.

It’s puzzling, then, that unlike wine and beer growers in the province, cider companies in Ontario must pay the same premium as foreign products in order to sell at the LCBO.

Grant Howes and his sidekick, Dudley, inspect the trees in his apple orchard on the escarpment overlooking Prince Edward Bay.

While wine and beer produced in the province enjoy discounted fees and incentives designed to invigorate the industry, cideries pay as much as winemakers from France or brewers from Germany.

When the County Cider Company delivers its product to a restaurant, that’s considered an LCBO sale, and more than half the profit goes to the LCBO.

Howes has no idea why the policies have been in place for so long, but he suspects size matters. The associations of Ontario wineries and craft breweries are much bigger and wield more lobbying clout than the handful of cideries in the province.

“Molson and Labatt came in with ciders— into the Ontario market—neither of which were made in Ontario. I think that was a real eyeopener for the government,” says Howes.

Last week, representatives from the province’s cider companies made their way to Queens Park to demand a change to the policies that give beer and wine makers an advantage over cideries. The mood was hopeful, as cider makers witnessed the first reading of a bill to improve policies for the production and sale of their product.

“We have the momentum and the right, key people in place in the industry close to Queens Park that hopefully can do something about it,” says Howes.

“Finally, as an organization, we managed to secure enough money to hire a lobbyist. And this lobbyist has put us in touch with a number of key people at Queen’s Park, including a member of the Premier’s office, meetings with the minister of agriculture, deputy ministers, and a lot of us just went and visited our local MPPs to let them know what’s going on, what our challenges are. And now they can build and grow an industry that has global potential for Ontario.”

Howes is hopeful that the council formed to advise on improving income from Ontario assets will see potential for revenue generation by opening up the market for cider producers and distillers along with wine and beer makers.

The only concern Howes sees with reform and more relaxed policies is the ability for ciders and wines to be made closer to the city, which could be a threat to small producers. Still, he feels confident taste will prevail.

“Good things will rise to the top. I think good cider is something that definitely has a market out there.”