Big booze dealt another blow as Brown-Forman cuts 12% of its workforce
The company behind Jack Daniel’s is laying off ~650 global employees, as the whiskey and bourbon boom fades hard.
It doesn’t matter how hard you went on December 31st, your start to 2025 won’t have been as rough as the alcohol industry’s.
After a stark health warning from the nation’s top doctor, Brown-Forman, which counts Jack Daniel’s whiskey, Herradura tequila, and Chambord liqueur in its lucrative drinks cabinet, announced this week that it’s shedding ~650 global employees as it looks to cut costs — yet another sign that the business of Big Booze seems a little shaky.
The 155-year-old drinks giant is also closing its Louisville barrel-making facility, and announced new appointments in its executive team as part of the “Series of Strategic Initiatives for Growth”, presumably a response to sales slumping for the last 4 quarters in a row, as its stock recently dropped to a 10-year low.
Hangover
For years, Brown-Forman enjoyed a whiskey and bourbon boom, as America embraced the smoky, caramel, and complex taste of grain-based spirits.
But, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, sales volumes of U.S. Whiskey dropped 1.2% last year, the first fall since 2002. That was a trend that Brown-Forman failed to buck, with annual sales dropping for the first time since 2017, making the surgeon general’s recent warnings — and Dry January and the coinciding talk Americans’ broader turn away from booze more generally — sting all the more. Its whiskey division, which made up roughly two-thirds of the company’s revenue and includes the whole Jack Daniel’s family, Woodford Reserve, 3 scotch brands, and more, fell 3% in 2024.
