How a Global Brewer Tracks Pricing & Promotions Across Canada — Where the Sales Channel Itself Changes Province by Province

About the Client

Our client is a major international brewer selling a portfolio of beer brands across Canada. Alcohol retail in Canada is unlike almost any other CPG market: it is regulated province by province, and the channel itself changes with the border. In some provinces, beer sells primarily through a government-owned liquor board; in others, through private retailers and grocery chains like Sobeys, Metro and Loblaws — often through a mix of both. For a brewer trying to manage pricing and promotions nationally, that fragmentation is the core challenge.

The Challenge

• The channel map differs by province. Tracking "Canadian beer pricing" means tracking government liquor-board sites in some provinces and private grocery/retail chains in others — each with its own structure, product catalogue and promotion mechanics.
• Own portfolio + competitors, like-for-like. The brewer needed its own SKUs and key competitor brands priced across all these channels, matched at pack/format level (6-pack, 12-pack, tallboys, cases) so comparisons were valid.
• Promotions drive the category. Beer is heavily promoted — limited-time discounts, multi-pack deals, seasonal pricing. Missing a competitor's promo in one province meant missing the actual competitive dynamic there.
• The output had to feed BI, not a person. The client's category and revenue teams work in dashboards. Raw scattered data across a dozen sources was useless; a single normalized, BI-ready feed was the requirement.

The Actowiz Solution

The Results

• One feed — a fragmented, province-by-channel market unified into a single weekly BI-ready dataset — the category team stopped stitching sources together by hand
• Like-for-like — format-level matching made cross-province, cross-channel price comparison valid for the first time — case deals and multi-packs on a common per-litre basis
• Promo visibility — competitor promotions surfaced the week they went live, per province — the team could respond regionally instead of discovering shifts after the fact
• Evidence-led pricing — national pricing and promo strategy grounded in what's actually on shelf in each province, not head-office assumptions about a market that varies by border

Why It Worked

• Model the market, not just the sites. The province-aware source matrix — knowing which channel matters where — was the real deliverable; the scraping was downstream of that map.
• Formats are everything in beverages. Per-litre normalization across pack formats is what turned a pile of prices into comparable intelligence.
• Feed the tools that already exist. Delivering into the client's BI stack meant adoption was immediate — no new process to sell internally.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you cover all Canadian provinces and their liquor boards?

Yes — provincial liquor-board channels plus the private grocery/retail chains that sell beer in each province. We share a province-by-channel coverage matrix before scoping.

Do you track wine and spirits too, or only beer?

The same province-aware approach covers wine, spirits and RTDs. Format normalization is adjusted per category (e.g., 750ml vs 1L spirits).

Can refresh be more frequent than weekly?

Yes — weekly suits most promo cycles, but daily is available for high-promo periods or fast-moving competitive situations.

Is this compliant given alcohol is regulated?

We collect only publicly displayed product, price and promotion information from retailer and liquor-board sites — the same data any shopper sees — with no personal data. Collection follows Actowiz's responsible-scraping framework.