Call for Tenders - details

The SAQ intends to offer approximately TWENTY (20) rosés wines (still and sparkling) to its customers. About ten (10) of these twenty (20) wines will come from renewal of products sold at the time of Summer 2011 Campaign. The concerned agents and suppliers will be contacted in September.

IMPORTANT: Within the framework of this call for tenders, the SAQ wants to meet the new and variety needs of its customers. In this purpose, all the other products having been sold in the Summer 2010 Campaign and which were not renewed for the Summer 2011 Campaign will not be considered for this call for tenders.

There will be no possibility of order renewal for the products of Summer 2011 Campaign during the year.

In order to fulfil the specific needs for the Rosé - Summer 2011 Campaign, the SAQ intends to offer to its customers approximately:

NINE (9) still rosé wines
ONE (1) sparkling rosé wine

The submitted products must meet the following criteria:

2010 Vintage

Minimum availability of 1000 of 9 L standard cases

Format:
Container of 750 ml or 1 litre
or
Multiple packing adding up to the maximum 1 litre

All container types

If the container is an Alternative Packaging, please refer to the related text in the General criteria and other conditions section.

N.B.: Each supplier may submit a maximum of ONE (1) PRODUCT. If a supplier submits more than one product, only the first one submitted will be analyzed.

A promotional budget is required to cover displays and promotion fees of 6.25% off the supplier price by each real case is required and MUST BE REGISTERED on the form in the section "Budget and others". Any supplementary offer of budget will be taken into account.

If the product is retained, this budget of 6.25% will be invoiced directly to the supplier according to the number of cases bought by the SAQ.

The SAQ counts on the collaboration of its partners so that they inform it when the ordered quantities are too high. Moreover, if some products will be confirmed as excess inventory at the end of the campaign, the SAQ needs your participation for a fast selling off (of stocks). These situations will be managed on a case-by-case basis.

Within the specifications of the "Recognition customer SAQ.COM 2011 Campaign", the SAQ reserves the right to select one (1) product of the aforementioned campaign for the customers of the SAQ.COM (approximate quantity = 50 of 9 L standard cases).

Within the specifications of this call for tenders, the SAQ reserves the right to retain a maximum of four (4) products among the refused submissions in order to fulfill the needs of the SAQ Dépôt banner.

To be considered for the SAQ Dépôt banner, the offer will have to include a reduction of at least 15% off the supplier price. The reduction offered on the purchase price will take shape in a participation at the ‘'scale reduction'' offered to the consumer.

Specifications for the samples:

Producers of the southern hemisphere:
The vintage of the sample must be 2010.

Producers of the northern hemisphere:
The vintage of the sample must be 2009 AND NOT a 2010 Brut de cuve (untreated wine).

In both cases, the SAQ will market the vintage 2010.

The expedition of a wrong vintage or of the Brut de cuve, will carry out to the automatic rejection of the offer.

For the selected products, the orders will be issued in the beginning of January 2011. The suppliers will have 30 days, at the most, to prepare the shipping of the order, following the launching of the SAQ's order.

Selection criteria

Quality
Quality price/ratio
Notoriety
Financial performance
Variety of tender

SAQ will make the final selection in order to optimize the variety offered to our consumers and to consider the trends of its market as well as the relative importance of the various categories.

General criteria and other conditions

You may submit your product tender directly online through the online gateway you are subscribed to, under the Call for tenders tab or My products tab, in the SAQ Catalog of offers section. To generate an "Alcoholic Product Submission Form", go to the end of the Call for tenders description and click on the "Add an offer" or ‘' Add an offer from an existing'' button. Be careful to fill in all requested information in the cells and to proceed to the online payment of your file-opening fees by credit card.

If you are not subscribed to one of our transactional websites, you can create an account, free of charge, in order to be allowed to submit tenders. Please follow the following stages:

- Access www.saq-b2b.com
- Click on the Subscribe tab to create an account
- Fill in the subscription form with the requested information
- When completed, click on the button Register now!
- A confirmation will appear on-screen: Congratulations! You successfully subscribed for a Membership.
- Do not take into account the statement: Your new Account Manager will be contacting you shortly, indicated in the Saq-b2b.com's subscription confirmation, which was sent to you by email.
- Access the online gateway and log in with your user name and enter your password.
- Follow the access instructions above.

Products of certified biological cultures:

WARNING: The products submitted in the "Agrobiological" category will be analyzed within their own category.

The products resulted from biological cultures must be certified by an Organic Certification Body. The Certification Body has to be accredited or recognized (biological productions) by one of the following bodies:

Products from Québec:
• CARTV Accredited Certifying Bodies

You can access those bodies from the CARTV Web site: http://www.cartvquebec.com/organismes-certification-biologique

Imported products:
• CFIA Accredited Certifying Bodies (products certified according Canada Standards) (www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/orgbio/cbliste.shtml)
• USDA Accredited Certifying Bodies (products certified according NOP Standards)

For more information, please consult the following Web sites: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/francais/fssa/orgbio/orgbiof.shtml and
http://www.cartvquebec.com/organismes-certification-biologique

The name of the Certification Body must be registered in the «Additional Information» cell under the «Notoriety» tab. Proof of certification will be required later on.

The lifetime of the products will be reasonably long in order to perform the sale of the products in reasonable delays. Estimated product lifetime: at least one (1) year from the pick up of the orders.

‘‘Fairtrade'' certified alcoholic products

The producer submitting his ‘‘Fairtrade'' products must be in possession of an appropriate licence allowing him to sale his products under the "Fairtrade" certification.

A ‘'FAIRTRADE'' logo must be put on the bottles of product.

The name of the certification body (Transfair or Fairtrade) must be registered in the «Additional Information» cell from the «Other» section, under the «Notoriety» tab.
Proof of certification and/or accreditation will be required later on.

Alternative Packaging

WARNING: The products submitted in the "Eco-Pratic" category will be analyzed within this new category.

The Alternative Packaging will have to be certified with a Letter of No Objection issued by the Health Products and Food Branch of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (www.inspection.gc.ca).

An approval delivered by FDA (USA) or the EFSA (Europe) could be accepted temporarily, if the approval process of the packaging is completed within 10 months after the acceptance of the products, within the framework of this call for tenders.

Moreover, after having received the information that his offer qualified for the second stage of the selection process, and also before the commercialization of the product, the supplier has to fulfill the "Special requirements for the alternative packaging" form.

The lifetime of the products will be reasonably long in order to perform the sale of the products in reasonable delays. The supplier is responsible to provide the information as for the lifespan of their product and will be, thereafter, ascribable to it. All the fees concerning the collect or the destruction of the out-of-date inventory will be at supplier's expense.

The SAQ reserves the right to carry out tests (in collaboration with the Food Research and Development Centre (FRDC), for approving the packaging in order to be marketed at the SAQ.

Environmental Claims:

The product submitted with an environmental claim will have to meet the standards of the Guide for Industry and Advertisers of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) available at www.csa.ca/cm/plus-14021-guide-for-industry-and-advertisers

If the new product is selected, the supplier will have to fill up Environmental claims form available on our online gateway: www.saq-b2b.com and forward it to the e-mail address written on the form.

Sales Forecast:

The amounts of reference to be used for the calculation of the annual sales target are the Minimum sales quotas by universe, into force on March 29, 2009, published on January 20, 2009

Exchange rates

The SAQ reserves the right to not accept any of the received tenders, as well as to cancel this present call for tenders and reject all tenders with no compensation to the submitters and without the SAQ being held liable for any costs or losses incurred by the submitters.

The SAQ will consider that any omission, abstention, inaccurate or nonconforming elements with one or other of the provisions of this call for tenders will make unacceptable the tender and subsequently will cancel the offer.

For more precision, the SAQ is not held to accept a tender of a product even if it corresponds to a specific need listed in this call for tenders.

The SAQ will not assume any expense incurred by the recipient, concerning the preparation and the submission of its offer.

All the received offers, all the documents and other items received during the treatment of the tender become the exclusive property of the SAQ.

If, at the end of the evaluation of the offers, the product is selected, the supplier must commit to observe the applicable conditions of the Purchasing and Merchandising Policy.

In order to avoid any confusion, please wait for SAQ's answer and instructions before sending the required labels and samples.

Only the French version of this call for tenders is officially considered. If differences arise between the French version and the English version, please note that the French version prevails.

For more details concerning SAQ Procurement and Merchandising Policy and Standards, please visit our online portal at www.saq-b2b.com, under the "Policy and Standards" tab.

For more information about how to fill out the form, please contact our Business Relations Assistance Service (Service d'Assistance aux Relations d'Affaires - SARA) by phone, at 514-254-2711 or by email at: sara@saq.qc.ca.