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   From: transheuser-busch@gmail.com   
      
   On 05 Mar 2022, Steve Cummings  posted some   
   news:t01h93$26831$36@news.freedyn.de:   
      
   > Budweiser needs to learn a lesson.  Keep it up.   
      
   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.   
      
   “Our business philosophy is you take care of the community and the   
   community takes care of you — we’re doubling down on that,” Pestinger   
   said.   
      
   An official at High Plains Budweiser, a Nebraska-based distributor, told   
   ABC News: “In the end, the people hurt the most are the local small   
   business retailers and wholesalers in your community.”   
      
   The Kansas-based distributor told ABC News that while sales have slipped,   
   there have been signs that they are picking up again.   
      
   The Pacific-Northwest-based distributor agreed, telling ABC News: “I think   
   the bad times are behind us.”   
      
   “We do have a game plan if it does come to that level of severity,” the   
   distributor said.   
      
   Last week, Steve Tatum, general manager of Montgomery, Ala.-based Bama   
   Budweiser, paid for a radio commercial in hopes of reassuring alienated   
   consumers that he wasn’t on board with Bud Light’s social media campaign   
   partnership with Mulvaney.   
      
   “We too at Bama Budweiser are upset about it and have made our feelings   
   known to the top leadership at Anheuser-Busch,” Tatum said.   
      
   Steep drops in sales of Bud Light continued to worsen for the sixth   
   consecutive week, plunging by nearly 25% since the ill-fated promotion   
   with Mulvaney, the latest industry data shows.   
      
   Sales of the US’s No. 1 beer were down 24.6% for the week ended May 13   
   compared to a year ago — slightly worse than the 23.6% dip they suffered a   
   week earlier, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ   
   research.   
      
   Even more alarming, industry experts say, is the negative impact on   
   Anheuser-Busch InBev’s other brands, including Budweiser and Michelob   
   Ultra — with the latter being the nation’s No. 3 beer last year with more   
   than $3.3 billion in sales.   
      
   https://nypost.com/2023/05/26/bud-light-distributors-hurting-from-boycott-   
   over-dylan-mulvaney/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)