For 45 years, Cattleman Terry Holt has started his mornings-in his truck in the same way, to the distillery of Jack Daniel in Lynchburg, Tennessee riding and making whiskey on the remaining puree.
That slop, a thick, nutrient -rich mix of corn and grain, has been a quiet but vital link between the world's best -selling whiskey and the local farms around it. For decades it kept the food costs low, cattle healthy and waste outside landfills.
“I spent 355 days working on 45,” Holt told Local Outlet News Channel 5 [1]. “I don't miss a day dragging my slatter. It's so important to me.” That daily trip will end soon. From next spring, Jack Daniel's will stop his cow feed program, so that the free or cheap access to the distiller grain is cut off on which hundreds of local farmers depend.
Jack Daniels says that his waste will now be diverted Three Rivers EnergyA renewable energy company that converts the material into biogas and fertilizer.
For the distillery it is a profit of sustainability – a victory that matches business teams to reduce emissions and reduce the use of landfills. Jack Daniel's produces no less than 500,000 liters of grain per day, and transforming into energy makes an environmental and business feeling.
But for Holt and his neighbors, that change is not only awkward, it is potentially catastrophic. Of the 500,000 gallons, farmers currently drag around 300,000 gallons away – the same 300,000 gallons planned to be again assigned to three river energy.
Without that steady nutritional stock, farmers are confronted with higher costs and stricter margins at a time when drought and inflation are already deeply cut.
“I only know this will destroy us,” said Holt.
According to the USDA, almost 90% of the farms in Moore County are livestock farms [2]. For many, the COW Feeder program was not a bonus, it was a backbone. The slop of the distillery was protein -rich and abundant, so that small farms could feed their herds without paying towering commercial feed prices.
Now, with feed costs that have already been raised nationally, almost 10-20% has been stimulating since 2021 [3] Losing this free range will make small operators the most difficult.
Some local farmers have already started selling herds or listing their country. Others fear that their companies will not survive in next year.
Holt, who once worked at Jack Daniel before retiring himself full -time, says that the decision feels personally. It is as if the company that has built its brand on the values of Tennessee in a small city turns its back its own roots.
“Jack Daniel grew up with the people here,” he said. “You used those images to grow, and now you want to take that image and leave it.”
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The company, owned by Brown-Forman in Louisville, says that the move was not suddenly and not heartless. In a statement, Jack Daniel's said that farmers started to inform about the change in 2022 and spent “years of careful consideration” evaluating options.
They suggest that they realize that the change is important. “We remain dedicated to our neighbors while we adapt to this new era.”
The company states that the shift is essential to achieve worldwide environmental goals and its ability to maintain whiskey internationally.
The new anaerobic fermented facility built by Three Rivers Energy will help the distillery meet sustainability and emission standards, while generating renewable energy from waste that would otherwise be unused.
Jack Daniel says it protects its future in the long term, even if that means that it is related to a local tradition that the brand has defined for decades.
The move illustrates a growing tension in the countryside of America: goals for sustainability of companies versus local survival.
From midwestern ethanol producers to Californian dairy factories, similar transitions unfold as companies try to earn with their waste or emissions, so that the long -term community relationships are often moved in the process.
And although Moore County's economy has been around for the distillery, which attracts tourists from all over the world, that loyalty does not pay the feed account.
Jack Daniel's decision can be financially and environmentally friendly from a company position, but it is the locals who ask about what 'neighbor' means in an era of global sustainability goals.
Holt and his colleague farmers do not ask for hand -outs, only for the distillery to remember the people who helped grow.
“I pray that what words I use today will touch the hearts of someone outside,” he said, “because I tell you, it will absolutely destroy our little city.”
For Moore County this is not just a fight for animal feed. It is a lesson in what happens when a success story of a hometown has outgrown its roots – and the people who helped to rise pay the price.
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