Impact could devastate local farms
TABITHA EVANS MOORE
Lynchburg Times
It’s 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and already dozens of local farmers drive down rural backroads dutifully headed toward The Jack Daniel Distillery campus to fill their tanks with spent distiller’s grain otherwise known in Lynchburg as slop.
For almost as long as there’s been a distillery in Lynchburg, there’s been what’s become formally known as the Feeder Cow Program, in which local farmers haul off this byproduct of the whiskey making process to feed area cattle. It’s a symbiotic relationship that’s worked for decades, but on Monday afternoon Moore County farmers got the worst possible news: on March 31, 2026 the faucet of free feed runs dry.
Monday’s announcement bookends one the distillery originally made back in March 2022 – essentially giving local farmers over two year’s notice.
History of the Feeder Cow Program
Each day that Jack Daniel’s produces its world-famous Tennessee whiskey, they also produce around 500,000 gallons of spent distillers’ grain otherwise known as slop. Essentially, for every gallon of whiskey produced, they end up with 10 gallons of the stuff in a constant never ending flow.
Decades ago, they developed a win-win partnership with local cattle farmers, who received low-cost feed if they dredged up Slop Hill, as it’s known in Lynchburg, to haul it off twice a day. The distillery’s advertising team even made print ads boasting “some of the most content livestock in these parts” as recently as 2012.
Back in 2022, with industry booming, Jack Daniel’s, like many American distilleries, looked to ramp up production in anticipation of sustained demand and all that extra slop needed to go somewhere.
In peak production times, there weren’t always enough “slop hauler” to take it all away – especially during the summer months when cows graze or eat hay. The distillery sometimes needed to slow down production due to slop back up.
Enter 3 River Energy Partners and their anaerobic digester – a facility that takes spent distiller’s grains and converts it into two products: natural gas and fertilizer.
The distillery saw it as way to transform the Feeder Cow Program into an additional sort of win-win, while also allowing it to meet its sustainability goals. But it would require phasing out slop allotments once the digester came fully online. The digester needs 350,000 to 500,000 gallons of slop a day to function. Slop haulers take away around 200,000 gallons a day. The math didn’t work.
But the 106 “slop haulers” experienced it as a gut punch. Within hours of the announcement, social media buzzed with gossip, opinions, and questions about the move.
Four days later, after speaking with employees who also run local farms, the distillery compromised. The distillery would continue to offer slop to existing farmers at their current allotment until the proposed anaerobic digester came online in around 18 months. Then, allotments would be cut in half until JD II came online.
“The digester needs a minimum amount just to function, so once it comes online the total available stillage will decrease temporarily. Once JD II comes online, we’ll bring that level back up to about 70 percent of what it is today,” Combs stated at the time.
Program will end April 1
Back in 2022, based on the numbers and the forecasted growth, distillery officials anticipated enough spent distiller grains to supply 3 Rivers Energy Partners, continue to dry grain operations, and continue the Cow Feeder Program.
It’s a case of too much, and then not enough.
On Monday, Jack Daniel Senior Vice President General Manager Melvin Keebler admitted that the situation looks very different today than it did back in 2022, according to one local farmer we talked to who attended the meeting.
And he’s right. In the first quarter of Fiscal 2025, which ended on July 31, Brown-Forman reported a three percent net sales decrease overall, including declines in Jack Daniel Tennessee Whiskey with volume in the U.S. down around four percent in some markets, according to a Brown-Forman press release.
Nearly all industry experts agree the American whiskey market in general is shrinking for varied reasons. One, Gen Z and Millennials drink less overall and drink fewer distilled spirits. Two, those consumers who continue to drink alcohol have become more cost-conscious. Third, Brown-Forman has repeatedly cited tariffs/trade conflicts as a drag on growth, especially in big markets like the EU, UK, and Canada.
The Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg is the leading production site of the entire Brown-Forman portfolio, so any big market changes trickle down.
Local officials stated on Monday that the distilled spirits market is down overall and that while Jack Daniel’s is faring better than some competitors, it’s not growing at the levels they anticipated.
Back in 2022, Combs stated that he anticipated being at more than double capacity by the time the digester came online. At that time, the distillery ran 122 fermenters a week.
At Monday’s meeting, Master Distiller Chris Fletcher categorized he changes as “a difficult decision” and informed farmers that local production hovered at 2015 numbers with no plans to increase production for at least the next three years.
That decreased production and the contractual obligations to 3 Rivers Energy Partners will result in major changes to the “slop haulers” allotments as of October 1.
The distillery’s friends and family list – which includes current employees, retirees, and their family members – will continue to receive slop at their current levels at no cost.
Non-employee haulers will experience a 20 percent reduction based on their usage over the past six months.
On January 1, 2026, the commitments to 3 Rivers Energy Partners kick in and non-employee haulers will experience a 70 percent reduction in their allotment. This cut will take place in the middle of winter, when farmers traditionally use slop the most.
By April 1, the anaerobic digester will be fully online and ready to produce natural gas. Jack Daniel’s is contractually obligated to provide between 350,0000 and 500,000 of spent distiller’s grain to them according to Keebler, which will require all the current volume of slop – essentially ending the Cow Feeder Program for local farmers. There’s just not enough slop to go around.
At the meeting, distillery officials handed each farmer an individualized letter documenting their allocation through those milestones. They also stated that other cattle feed items like distillers dried grains (DDGs) would continue to be available to area farmers and increases in condensed distillers solubles (CDS) or syrup could be possible. Of course, those possibilities will continue to be dependent on production numbers.
Impact to the farming community
Lynchburg may be a whiskey town but it’s also a farming community. In 2021, a University of Tennessee report estimated Moore County’s total agricultural output at about $562 million. Of course, that includes all outputs including crops and livestock, but there’s no denying that free feed for local cattle farmers contributed to that bottom line.
The personal impact will be likely depend on the individual farmer and the type of cattle farming they practice. Some smaller operations with pastures and ample hay fields who only use slop as a supplement will likely weather the storm. Larger producers who run “feedlots” that depend on free slop almost exclusively will likely feel the squeeze as margin collapse. Transitioning to dry feed or hay may require equipment they can’t afford. To survive, they may be forced to sell off cattle, idle pens, or shut down completely.
“The people who don’t own their own cattle. There’s no way they can pay for feed and come out ahead,” one local farmer who raises around 500 head of cattle locally said.
Ultimately, the change could create a ripple effect that could nudge the local farm landscape back toward smaller, more pasture-based operations and away from larger feedlots who seem to always be under the watchful eye of the EPA due to increase E. coli levels in local streams and creeks – something Combs mentioned back in 2022.
“Yes, we’ve been under fairly significant pressure from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) for a while now due to the slop hauling program’s effect on local water quality,” he told The Times. “The main reason many of the streams here in Moore County get on the state’s contaminated list is due to E. coli from manure on feedlots.”
One farmer said that Moore County’s topography isn’t great for feedlot operations due to the rolling hills. He also wondered what might be next for Moore County agriculture.
“Moore County used to be filled with tobacco farms but all those all went away. Now a lot of these people who are feeding cattle will probably go away too because they can’t make any money at it without free slop. This county’s gonna get hurt.”
It the end, he recognized that Jack Daniel’s is a business and the phase out of the Cow Feeder Program is simply a business decision. But when we ask him if some local farmers will likely go out of business because of it, he gives a resounding, “yes.”
“Most of them have other jobs, but who I feel really sorry for are the younger guys who just got started,” he said.
Another local farmer, Bradley Dye, also serves on the Metro Council. He said that he and his parents have farmed in Moore County since 1953 and that he “ran slop” for his dad as a teenager.
“We haul slop. It’s how we pay our land taxes,” he said following Monday night’s meeting. “It’s how we have money to donate to fundraisers like the MCHS softball team. It’s a vital part of our livelihood and how we make a living.”
When we asked how he’ll fill that gap now that the Cow Feeder Program is going away, he admits it will be a struggle.
“I don’t necessarily want to say that I will have to sell the farm. But it will be a point to where we may need to build houses on the farm to pay some of the money that we borrowed on the farm to buy cattle.”
Selling off agricultural land in Moore County is an unintended trickle-down effect that more than one farmer mentioned to The Times following Monday’s meeting. Developers could swoop in to acquire A-1 land to develop subdivisions leading to increased strain on Moore County’s infrastructure.
“That makes our school system grow, makes our police officers grow, our EMS grow, our fire, which is volunteer, grow,” Dye said. “It’s just going to add up.
Both Dye and the other farmers we spoke to mentioned that raising cattle on slop made farming easier.
“The convenience of living here on slop … it was just a way of life,” he said. “Without it, I just feel like there’s going to be some changes in the community. In two years, the co-op could be gone.”
The Path Ahead
As Monday’s news settles in, some local push back will likely land on 3 Rivers Energy Partners. They’re already in some local crosshairs due to a September 2024 tank failure during testing that resulted in 2.2 million gallons of spilled lake water. Mayor Sloan Stewart characterized the scene after the explosion as resembling a natural disaster.
“It looks like a tornado came through,” Moore County Mayor Sloan Stewart stated. “It’s a muddy mess. One of the tanks is in the road and power lines are leaning.”
The force of the tank failure and water volume destroyed an on-site construction trailer and downed multiple trees in its path. Mud and debris remained across the roads for days.
“If there’d been slop in those tanks, it would have been an environmental disaster,” one local farmer told us. “It would have killed fish all the way to Lincoln County.”
At Monday’s night Metro Council meeting, Dye told his fellow council members that he’d received complaints about multiple semitrucks travelling down Good Branch Road – something the company vowed not to do previously.
Their August 2022 application for a land use exception addressed traffic safety concerns – stating that the operating staff of two and one weekly supply truck would be the only anticipated increase in traffic. Should trucking become necessary, they stated in the meeting that a distribution site could be established near Slop Hill where traffic patterns would be similar to existing slop haulers.
In the end, both Keebler and Fletcher repeatedly stressed their gratitude to local farmers for being an “integral part of the growth of Jack Daniel’s, stating, “We could not have done this without you.”
Keebler stated on Monday, that he would go back to 3 Rivers Energy Partners and ask if there were any wiggle room in the numbers, most farmers we spoke to didn’t seem optimistic about any changes moving forward.
For farmers here, slop wasn’t just free feed. It was tradition, convenience, and the lifeline that kept family farms afloat. Now, with the Cow Feeder Program set to disappear, Lynchburg’s agricultural landscape faces a reckoning. Whether the community adapts, resists, or slowly fades will shape the county as surely as whiskey has shaped it for generations.