The Ardagh Group, a renowned glass bottling company, is experiencing severe repercussions in the wake of a botched promotion by beer brand Bud Light featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Two of the company’s major plants located in North Carolina and Louisiana are set for closure, a move that will result in the loss of approximately 645 jobs.
Documents obtained by WRAL News suggest that a significant drop in Bud Light sales in May led to the Wilson glass plant scaling back bottle production. Ardagh Group, which owns the plant, announced last week that the facility is set to shut down in July. This decision comes in response to a substantial decline in Bud Light sales and will lead to over 400 people losing their jobs.
In a statement issued last Thursday, the company informed Ruston leader in Louisiana that the Wilson plant, along with the Ruston factory, which employs 245 people, would be closing. The communication didn’t delve into the specific reasons behind the closure but attributed it to a “Multi-year Performance Optimization Program.”
James Munhall, a Journeyman Machine Repair Mechanic at the plant, offered some insight into the situation. “Since April, we’ve had a couple of machines down,” he said. “It was, of course, being pointed towards the Bud Light situation.”
However, an internal memo from the Wilson plant manager, dated May 18 and obtained by WRAL News, indicates “slow sales with Anheuser Inbev” as the reason for shutting down two production lines at the factory. Long-term employees at the Wilson facility echoed this sentiment, pointing out that bottle production for Budweiser and Bud Light constituted the plant’s primary focus.
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Employees at the Wilson, North Carolina plant reportedly said their manager confirmed to them that they were shuttering its doors because of the Bud Light boycott.
“‘Because of Budweiser no longer selling the bottle, they no longer needed our product,” David Williams, a machine repair mechanic, told WRAL.
Bud Light sales have slumped since the beermaker gifted Mulvaney special cans in April to celebrate a full year of “girlhood.” A second video then featured Mulvaney in a bathtub drinking a Bud Light beer — prompting online outrage and nationwide boycotts that resulted in a sales decline that has yet to rebound.
The brand, which has already lost billions of dollars in market value, has taken several steps to alleviate the backlash, such as heavily discounting beer and offering rebates that make Bud Light “basically free to the consumers” in some markets. The beermaker has also taken steps to help distributors, increased its marketing budget, launched a new summer ad campaign, and dispatched CEO Brendan Whitworth to appear on “CBS Mornings” to provide clarity on the now-infamous debacle.
But despite their best efforts, the backlash against the Bud Light brand seems to be lingering as sales of the beer continue to slide. Bud Light sales were down 24.4% compared to a year ago for the week ending June 3, NiselsenIQ data provided to FOX Business by Bump Williams Consulting showed. Modelo Especial passed Bud Light as the #1 Selling Beer Brand on a dollar basis for the four-week and single-week period ending June 3.
This story originally appeared on TheGateWayPundit
