The biggest challenge facing the Canadian spirits industry is attracting our fair share of the global investment pool. The number one question that is raised is this. When a Canadian subsidiary puts its hand up and says, “I need $10 million to upgrade the Bacardi bottling line, to make it competitive with our other Bacardi plants around the world”, the question always comes back to what the return on that investment is.
The unfortunate fact is that, in Canada, our return on that investment is invariably less than in every other market.