“The Warehouse has fired its first shot in the battle for New Zealand’s $1 billion-plus
take-home liquor market, opening a beer and wine outlet in one of its Tauranga stores… Tim Morris, Managing Director of grocery industry research company Coriolis Research, said he
expected The Warehouse to start in-store beer and wine outlets quite quickly. “There are a lot of independents and not a lot of strong chains in the liquor sector, which must make it attractive to a major retailer like The Warehouse who can bring in chain discipline, buy in bulk and push it through its distribution system. They’ve got good control over most of their sites so I would expect them to roll it out quite quickly.”