Ahead of July 4th, Factories Associated With Bud Light Shuttering

About 650 employees will be losing their jobs at plants associated with Bud Light in North Carolina and Louisiana ahead of America’s birthday.

AP/Nam Y. Huh, file
Bud Light at a grocery store on April 25, 2023, at Glenview, Illinois. AP/Nam Y. Huh, file

As some manufacturing plants associated with Bud Light begin to close down, a former executive at the brand’s parent company Anheuser-Busch is calling on the current chief executive to step down over his handling of the boycott.

About 650 employees will be losing their jobs at plants associated with Bud Light in North Carolina and Louisiana ahead of America’s birthday.

At Wilson, North Carolina, a glass bottle factory that works with the Anheuser-Busch brand will be shutting its doors in the coming weeks, according to reporting by WRAL.

After declining sales led to a slowdown in bottle production, about 400 employees will be losing their jobs, according to the business that owns the plant, Ardagh Group.

At the North Carolina plant, management sent a May 18 memo stating that they would be idling certain production facilities due to “slow sales with” AB InBev.

At Ruston, Louisiana, Ardagh Group is also planning to close a plant that employs another 245 employees. In a statement provided to a local news outlet, the Ruston Leader, the operator said that the closure is part of a “multi-year performance optimization program.”

It’s not clear whether the plant closures are directly attributable to the slowdown in sales of Bud Light. In a February earnings call predating the Bud Light boycott, Ardagh Group reported that fourth-quarter earnings were up 110 percent in Europe and Africa but down 1 percent in North America.

At the same time, the former president of Anheuser-Busch’s sales and distribution company, Anson Frericks, wrote an op-ed for the Daily Mail calling on the current chief executive, Brendan Whitworth, to step down

“Whitworth has clearly shown himself to be incapable of solving the Mulvaney crisis,” Mr. Frericks wrote. “It’s time he did the right thing and stepped aside to make way for someone capable of righting the sinking Bud Light ship.”

Bud Light has suffered a decline in sales since doing a single promotion with actress Dylan Mulvaney. Anti-transgender activists responded by organizing a boycott of the brand because Ms. Mulvaney is transgender. 

In mid-June, Bud Light lost its title as the best-selling beer in America after seeing its sales compared to the same period in 2022 decline by 24.6 percent in the month ending June 3, according to data from Bump Williams Consulting.

After the boycott began, supporters of Ms. Mulvany and other transgender Americans also criticized the brand for not defending Ms Mulvaney in the wake of the boycott.

Last week, Ms. Mulvaney directly addressed the situation for the first time in an Instagram post in which she said that she waited “for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did.”

Bud Light representatives did not address Ms. Mulvaney’s comments directly but said the company is “committed to the programs and partnerships we have forged over decades with organizations across a number of communities, including those in the LGBTQ+ community.”

Mr. Whitworth is scheduled to embark on a “listening tour” to solicit opinions from customers this summer, though he has not yet made any public appearances.

“We recognize that over the last two months, the discussion surrounding our company and Bud Light has moved away from beer,” Mr. Whitworth’s statement announcing the tour reads. “We are a beer company, and beer is for everyone.”


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