Kentucky whiskey giant Brown-Forman laying off hundreds, closing Louisville cooperage
Brown-Forman, the Kentucky spirits company that makes Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and Woodford Reserve Bourbon, announced it will lay off 12% of its workforce and close its Louisville cooperage.
About 650 people from its global workforce of 5,400 will be laid off as the company faces a 10-year low in its stock price and four consecutive quarters of declining sales.
And the possibility that new tariffs under President-elect Donald Trump could impact the worldwide spirits business again.
The Louisville-based company will close the barrel-making operation Brown-Forman Cooperage by April 25, impacting about 210 hourly and salaried employees there as part of the workforce reduction. Brown-Forman said the company will offer severance, outplacement services and benefits consistent with terms of employment to impacted workers.
“I want to express my sincere gratitude to our employees, particularly those impacted by these changes, for their dedication and contributions to Brown-Forman,” said Lawson Whiting, president and chief executive officer, in a news release. “We are committed to supporting them through this transition and are confident that these strategic initiatives will ensure the company endures for generations to come.”
The company will source barrels from an external supplier; last year, Brown-Forman sold its Alabama cooperage to Independent Stave.
The company also is restructuring its executive leadership team, naming Jeremy Shepherd chief marketing officer; Michael Masick has been named president of the Americas division; Yiannis Pafilis has been named president of Europe, Africa and the Asia Pacific division; Chris Graven joined leadership as chief strategy officer.
According to the announcement, all the layoffs and changes will mean about $70 million to $80 million in savings, some of which will be reinvested to accelerate growth. The company also will receive more than $30 million in proceeds from the sale of cooperage assets.
There will be about $60 million to $70 million in expenses related to severance and the cooperage cuts, the company said.
History of Louisville cooperage
Brown-Forman has touted itself as the only bourbon maker with its own cooperage for years, saying that it allowed them better control over the finished product.
The Louisville cooperage began as a furniture-making plant that was used during World War II to make gun stocks.
After the war, Owsley Brown bought it and turned it into a cooperage, with the first barrel made in 1945.
By 2013, it was turning out about 2,800 barrels a day in two nine-hour shifts. But it still couldn’t meet demand for Brown-Forman, so the company opened another cooperage in Alabama in 2014. In 2024, it sold that plant to Independent Stave.
In 2016, the company celebrated 70 years of barrel-making with a ceremonial rolling and signing of the barrel by longtime employees, some of whom had been with the cooperage for 30 years or more.
At one point, about 85% of the barrels that were made in Louisville went to Lynchburg, Tenn., for Jack Daniel’s, when the black-label “Old No. 7” was the highest-selling American whiskey in the world. While it still dominates, sales have slipped recently.
With the growth of Woodford Reserve and Old Forester as part of a major expansion in Brown-Forman, many of the Louisville barrels were used for those brands, as well as the distillery Brown-Forman built at Slane Castle in Ireland.
This story was originally published January 14, 2025 at 9:45 AM.
