TheQuartering [5/26/2023]
Truck drivers who deliver Bud Light have been flipped the middle finger and vendors have been called homophobic slurs, according to beer distributors reeling from slumping sales in the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco.
Several top officials at beer distribution companies told ABC News they have been put in an untenable position by Bud Light’s St. Louis-based parent company, Anheuser-Busch, which has seen sales of its top brand fall six consecutive weeks since the April 1 tie-up with the trans influencer.
Aside from harassing truck drivers, distributors have faced intentional collisions from shopping carts as they drop off Bud Light and vendors have been called “gay beer salesmen,” officials for the family-owned businesses told the outlet.
“I feel like my main supplier has put the wholesalers and their employees in a really bad spot,” one Anheuser-Busch beer distributor told ABC News.
“It’s frustrating.”
Another Anheuser-Busch distributor based in the Pacific Northwest told ABC News: “It’s sad that they [the boycotting consumers] can’t make that disconnect between the independent wholesale and a big corporation — it’s disheartening.”
A Kansas-based distributor, Pestinger Distribution Company, which serves 23 rural counties in the state, told ABC News that it has seen a nearly 30% fall in sales of Bud Light since boycott calls grew early last month.
Anson Frericks, an executive who left Anheuser-Busch InBev last year, told ABC News: “The biggest losers here are the 500 independent businesses in the US that distribute Anheuser-Busch products.”
“Those are the people really hurting,” Frericks said.
Matt Pestinger, the owner of the distributor, told ABC News that he has seen a 2% drop in revenue since the Mulvaney social media posts went viral.
“We’re stressed some because you never want to see red numbers,” he said.
Pestinger has resisted cutting costs. To make up for the shortfall, he has spent more on sponsorships of local festivals and charities, he told ABC News.