Jack Daniel's maker Brown-Forman sees sales fall as Trump trade
conflicts weigh on spirits producers
[June 06, 2025] By
BRUCE SCHREINER
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.
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Bottles of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey line the shelves of a
liquor outlet in Montpelier, Vt., Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Toby
Talbot, File)
 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.
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