Jack Daniel's maker Brown-Forman sees sales fall as Trump trade conflicts weigh on spirits producers

The Hill

2 days ago

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Brown-Forman Corp. reported weaker sales Thursday as the maker of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey confronts challenging market conditions amid global trade conflicts and pinched consumer spending.
The Louisville, Kentucky-based spirits giant said its full-year net sales of nearly $4 billion were down 5% from a year ago, and fell 7% in in the fourth quarter. Net income was down 15% for the full fiscal year and plunged 45% in the fourth quarter ending April 30, the company said.
The quarterly drop came as Brown-Forman and other U.S. spirits producers who rely heavily on foreign sales felt the reverberations from President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff plans and consumer anxiety about the economy.
Brown-Forman also offered a sobering assessment for the coming year.
Having steered the company through an 'extremely challenging and uncertain operating environment' in the past year, Brown-Forman CEO Lawson Whiting predicted another challenging year ahead.
'Fiscal 2025 was a year unlike any other that I've seen in the past three decades,' he said during a conference call with industry market analysts.
Whiting pointed to industry figures showing that many consumers are purchasing smaller sizes of spirits. He called it unusual and said it reflects a consumer 'who's pinched and just goes to the store with a $10 bill instead of $20 and then they get the smaller size.'
'The consumer and their wallet just doesn't have as much money in it,' he said. 'They're spending money on things like vacations and lodging, and other things like that. But then when it trickles down and they go to the grocery store, I think in some cases, spirits have fallen out of the basket a little bit.'
In its outlook for the next year, the company said the challenges include continued consumer uncertainty and the 'potential impact from currently unknown tariffs.'
'We know it's highly volatile,' Leanne Cunningham, the company's CFO, said while fielding a question about tariffs during the conference call. 'None of us can predict what's going on.'
The company believes the market volatility will 'create sustained levels of consumer uncertainty, which we believe will lead to another year of below historical total distilled spirits trends,' she said.
Trump has often announced changes and pauses to his sweeping tariff plans on his social media platform. Trump hiked nearly all of his tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to a punishing 50% on Wednesday in a move that's set to hammer businesses from automakers to home builders, and likely push up prices for consumers even further.
Brown-Forman executives said Thursday that American spirits brands mostly remain off store shelves in Canada. Trump has angered Canadians with his trade war and calls to make Canada the 51st state.
Spirits makers in Kentucky have expressed fears of becoming 'collateral damage' by getting caught up in trade conflicts.
'The uncertainty of the tariffs continues to weigh down distilleries large and small,' Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said in a statement Thursday. 'We are urging the Trump administration to help get the spirits sector back to fair and reciprocal trade with zero-for-zero tariffs with our major trading partners.'
Meanwhile, Brown-Forman's full-year results showed that net sales for its whiskey products were flat. Growth from Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey and its Woodford Reserve brand was offset by the negative effect of foreign exchange and declines in other super-premium Jack Daniel's products, it said.
The company will launch a new product, Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry, this summer.
'BlackBerry is a globally recognized, well-established flavor trend, and naturally complements the flavor of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey,' Whiting said.
In January, Brown-Forman announced it was reducing its global workforce by about 12% and closing its hometown barrel-making plant in Louisville. Whiting reaffirmed Thursday that those actions are expected to produce about $70 million to $80 million in annualized cost savings.