A month-long strike at Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries cost the Crown corporation around $10 million last year, CEO Gerry Sul said, but he's optimistic the company will make up the loss in the current fiscal year.

Sul anticipates Liquor & Lotteries' financial books will atone for the setback, in part, through a double-digit percentage increase this fiscal year in the sale of drinks such as coolers, hard seltzers and other pre-mixed products. He also credited the warmer-than-usual winter with giving more Manitobans a thirst for alcohol.

"We expect to see higher volume consumption in the last couple of months, leading into the end of the year," he said in an interview following a legislative committee hearing on Tuesday.

Sul revealed the estimated cost of the strike at Tuesday's hearing to discuss the corporation's report for the 2022-23 fiscal year. Progressive Conservative MLA Konrad Narth, the party's critic for Liquor & Lotteries, posed the questions.

Sul said Liquor & Lotteries calculated the $10 million cost estimate by projecting its sales in the absence of the labour dispute, which included daylong strikes and walkouts that closed some publicly-operated Liquor Mart locations and impacted the distribution centre.

Sul explained that Liquor & Lotteries also spent around $1.25 million on replacement workers and additional storage requirements during this time, while saving $2.8 million on salaries and benefits to unionized employees.

"We all focus on the bottom line," Sul said after the hearing, "but I think it's most important to focus on how it impacted our employees. Again, this was a significant impact to their lives, whether it's financial [or] mental wellness."

The strike occurred while the Progressive Conservatives were governing the province.

The lost sales, however, are only a small fraction of the corporation's overall financial picture, which pulled in nearly $1.65 billion in revenues and a record $740.9 million in profit in 2022-23.

In arguing for higher wages, the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union, which represents the employees, stated the corporation could afford the requested pay bump because it was raking in the profits.

The workers ultimately accepted a four-year contract with wage increases of about 12 per cent or more.

While Liquor & Lotteries is noticing higher sales for what it calls "refreshment beverages" — drinks like coolers, hard seltzers and other pre-mixed products — Sul said sales of beer and wine are drying up, extending a trend happening in Manitoba and across the country.

Sul said he isn't worried.

In fact, the corporation records a higher margin when selling coolers, hard seltzers and the like, which is offsetting the decline in beer and wine sales, he said.

"If we start to see consumers again straying away from beer or from wine products, then we might start increasing our selection in the spirits category or in" the coolers, hard seltzers and other pre-mixed products, Sul told the committee.

"We're always looking to monitor and make sure we have the right products on the shelf."

This fiscal year, sales of spirits are relatively flat, the CEO said, though he added that demand for Canadian and U.S. bourbons is increasing.

Sul said he's also seeing continued growth in recreational cannabis sales, driven by 199 and counting licensed retailers in the province.

The number of cannabis stores sprouting up in Manitoba has started to ease. So far, 22 net new cannabis stores have opened this fiscal year, which is down from the 36 retailers that opened the year prior.

Sul also said there's been a downward pressure on cannabis prices, but that's been the result of increased supply from a proliferation of cannabis producers.

Many of the questions the PCs asked of Sul concerned the differences in profitability between public and private liquor retailers, but Sul said it's difficult to draw those conclusions because a number of the private retailers have other lines of business.

Before last fall's election, the Tories tried to pass legislation that would have allowed alcohol to be sold in a wider variety of places, including privately owned retail stores.