Bud Light reportedly plans to purchase expired cases of its beer from wholesalers amid backlash over its social media partnership with transgender TikToker Dylan Mulvaney.
“The brewer recently told its wholesalers that it would buy back unsold cases of beer that have gone past their expiration date,” the Wall Street Journal’s Jennifer Maloney reported Sunday.
The move comes weeks after the publication reported that Bud Light was providing a free case of beer for all employees of wholesalers. Anheuser-Busch-owned companies — beyond Bud Light and Budweiser — have seen significant declines in sales this year compared to last amid the Mulvaney boycott, which began in April.
Mulvaney posted a video to social media on April 1 in which Mulvaney opened a can of the light beer before stating, “This month I celebrated my Day 365 of womanhood.” Mulvaney went on to show off a Bud Light can that bore his likeness in the post, accompanied by the caption “#budlightpartner.”
The company caught significant backlash over the partnership, which included another social media post in February, and sparked a boycott of the brand and other Anheuser-Busch products.
Bud Light sales plummeted 24.6 percent in the week of May 7-13 compared to the same period in 2022, the New York Post reported Monday, citing Nielsen IQ data analyzed by Bump Williams Consulting. This is even worse than the 23.6 percent drop for the week of April 23-29. Budweiser was down 9.7 percent, and Anheuser-Busch-owned Michelob Ultra and Natural Light saw a 2.9 percent and 2.8 percent dip, respectively, between May 7-13.
Williams told the New York Post that the company is “sick,” adding it has “now infected other healthy brands with the InBev portfolio and that’s a bigger problem in my mind.”
What is more, rivals like Coors Light and Miller Light saw increases in market shares last month, while sales of Pabst Blue Ribbon climbed more than 20 percent compared to last year for multiple weeks in a row, according to Bump Williams Consulting’s analysis.