Ontario premier Doug Ford has reportedly said Diageo will "pay dearly" for closing a local bottling facility in the Canadian province.

Last month, the Crown Royal whisky owner revealed its site in Amherstburg would be shutting down by February.

"I promise you that Diageo will pay the price and they’re going to pay dearly. We’ll just wait until the last person walks out that door and then we’ll act," Ford said on Friday (5 September), according to local outlet Global News.

Ford hinted at the idea of calling for a Crown Royal boycott earlier in the week when he poured a bottle of the whisky on the floor at a press conference last Tuesday (2 September).

"How can you go after your largest customer?” Ford was quoted as saying by Global News on Friday, citing the government-run Liquor Control Board of Ontario, or LCBO.

“The people’s business is the LCBO; the people of Ontario own the LCBO. We’re their largest customer in North America, we do C$740m ($536.1m) of business with Diageo. Who in their right mind would go after their largest customer?”

According to Global News, the Ontario premier's office said it was too soon to say whether other Diageo brands besides Crown Royal could be removed from the shelves and noted “every option is on the table.”

Local MPP Anthony Leardi told CBC last week he thought people should boycott Diageo products in response to the Amherstburg site closure: "I think people should do exactly as the premier did. Go to your cupboard, if you have a Crown Royal in your cupboard, if you have a Diageo product in your cupboard, you should just dump it out.

"Dump it out right now, don't even keep it. Don't worry about the money you spent on it, dump it out. Don't go to the store and replace it, you don't need it."

In Tuesday's press conference, Ford had told reporters: "They're [Diageo] hurting Ontario residents. They're hurting the people working at Crown Royal."

He added: "You hurt my people, I'm going to hurt you. You're going to feel the pain in February when these people don't have a paycheck. And I'm going to stand up for the people of Ontario, and I encourage all Canadians, all Ontarians: stand up for the people, because you don't know if you're next."

When Diageo announced the Amherstburg facility closure last month, the group said the move was “part of an ongoing commitment to increase the efficiency and resiliency of its manufacturing footprint”.  

It added Crown Royal would still be “mashed, distilled and aged in Canada”.

The group retains its Canadian headquarters and warehouse operations in the Greater Toronto area, as well as bottling and distillation locations in Valleyfield Quebec, as well as in Gimbli, Manitoba.

Crown Royal products destined for Canada and markets outside the US will also still be bottled at the Valleyfield facility. 

The number of employees expected to be affected by the facility closure was not disclosed, but Ford on Tuesday suggested the site employs up to 200 staff.

Diageo's brand review

Meanwhile, speaking at the annual Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference last week, Diageo interim CEO Nik Jhanghiani said the company's needed to review how it was focusing on its brands.

When asked by Barclays analyst Laurence Whyatt how the company was planning to "breathe life" into "all" its brands in the US as opposed to just a clutch of successful ones, Jhangiani said: "First, I think we should be proud of the growth that we've had
and the market share gains that we have had because that's where the growth has been and we've been winning there. I don't want to take away from that.

"But, absolutely, why do I have a portfolio or why do I have 100 children where only two of my children are smart and doing well and the other 98 are duds, right? Well, that's not great."

He noted Diageo had been too focused on "premiumisation", leaving its "premium-plus" and "mainstream core" behind as a result.

"I think... premiumisation was the one vector and that's great. But I've also got a great set of other brands in the premium-plus and the mainstream core that actually have a role to play for what is actually a great consumer base that I might not be addressing and I think we just need to look at it differently."