A former Anheuser-Busch executive warned that Bud Light’s continuous decline in sales will lead to more layoffs amid a months-long boycott that was initiated in early April, saying that “more employees” could be “at risk.”
The executive, Anson Frericks, a former president of operations for Anheuser-Busch, recently spoke with Fox Business Network’s “The Claman Countdown” and said that Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth should have responded differently to the ongoing controversy. Mr. Frericks said that Mr. Whitworth should have responded by saying, “‘We wouldn’t do this again ’cause we’ve lost billions of dollars of market cap. Our brands are down almost 30 percent, and all of a sudden, we’re putting a lot of our suppliers at risk, and they’re laying off hundreds of people from jobs at some of their suppliers.’”
“I think there’s going to be some permanent damage to this brand,” Mr. Frericks told Newsweek on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be a long way to go to get back the market share they lost and a lot of headwind in front of them.”
Mr. Frericks added, “I project that sales are not going to improve and potentially could get worse” amid data showing that the light beer saw yet another decline in sales in the week ended July 1. Data from Bump Williams Consulting citing Nielsen IQ showed a 28 percent drop for that weekly period as compared with the year-ago period.
The former executive, who left several years ago, predicted that Anheuser-Busch is suffering “permanent damage” from the boycott, adding that “the contagion is spreading from Bud Light to their other brands and that means not only Bud Light but a lot of the other brands in their portfolio are also going to be losing shelf space.” He is referring to supermarkets’ decisions on whether to stock the beer or not due to declining sales.
“There’s going to be more employees at risk if we don’t find a CEO who can somehow address the situation, get those customers back that were always loyal to Bud Light, and move this company forward,” Mr. Frericks also told Fox Business in an interview this week, saying that the current management hasn’t appropriately responded to the controversy.
Top executives at the company, he added, haven’t fully addressed the controversy or apologized either. Days after the boycott and backlash began, Mr. Whitworth delivered a statement that said the beer never wanted to be part of any controversy, but made no mention to the transgender influencer.
“They never really addressed this completely,” Mr. Frericks told Newsweek. “I’ve been relatively critical of that response where I feel that early on there should have been a clear response.”
Responding to Mr. Frerick’s comments and sales numbers, a spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch said that for the year-to-date period, Bud Light is the “No. 1 brand in the industry” in both dollars and overall volume at “8.7 share.”
“The Anheuser-Busch portfolio continues to be the leader of the category as the No. 1 brewer at 35.6 share in the latest week,” the spokesperson told news outlets.
The Epoch Times has contacted the company for comment on Thursday.
Bud Light, which held the top spot as the most-sold beer in 2022 and in the first four months of this year, has seen sales drop because of backlash from conservatives after it engaged in a social media promotion with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney after the TikTok influencer posted a personalized Bud Light can and appeared with numerous Bud Light products in a bathtub.
The reaction was swift. Conservative musicians, including Kid Rock, said that consumers should switch beers, while the company has been criticized by industry analysts for alienating its buyers with the marketing campaign. The CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s global operations, Michel Doukeris, told analysts in a conference call in May that only “one can” was made with the transgender activist in a bid to distance Bud Light from the controversy.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have proclaimed the sales decline to be a victory after U.S. corporations largely lurched to the political left in the midst of the riots and unrest that swept across the United States in mid-2020. Other companies like Target have also been subject to criticism and have seen their stock valuations drop
Other Sales Numbers
Data also show that Constellation Brands’ Modelo Especial was the top-selling beer brand in the United States for a second straight month in June after taking the top spot from Bud Light in May. The Mexican-made Modelo Especial was the top-selling beer brand in June, with an 8.7 percent share of overall beer sales through retail stores for the period, while Bud Light was second with a 7 percent share for the month of June.
A number of non-Anheuser-Busch-owned beers, such as Miller Lite, Coors Lite, Yuengling, and more, have seen sales upticks in the same period.
“The Fourth of July is the biggest beer holiday in terms of retail sales and an opportunity to move a lot of volume,” Dave Williams, vice president for analytics and insights at Bump Williams Consulting, told the New York Post earlier this week, referring to the another sales slump before the July 4th Independence Day holiday. “And there has been no notable signs where the course has changed for Bud Light.”
When recently asked about the transgender controversy, Mr. Whitworth told CBS News: “Over the last month, we’ve talked to over 100,000 consumers and their feedback is very clear.
“The feedback is to reinforce what Bud Light has always meant to them, which is good times, goodwill, and easy enjoyment,” he also said.
