For 45 years, cattleman Terry Holt has started his mornings the same way — climbing into his truck, driving to the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and loading up on the leftover mash from whiskey-making.
That slop, a thick, nutrient-rich blend of corn and grain, has been a quiet but vital link between the world’s best-selling whiskey and the local farms that surround it. For decades, it kept feed costs low, cattle healthy, and waste out of landfills.
“I’ve been at it 365 days multiplied by 45,” Holt told local outlet News Channel 5 [1]. “I don’t miss a day hauling my slop. It’s that important to me.” That daily trip will soon end. Starting next spring, Jack Daniel’s will halt its Cow Feeder Program, cutting off free or low-cost access to distillers’ grain that hundreds of local farmers depend on.
Jack Daniels says its waste will now be redirected to Three Rivers Energy, a renewable energy firm that will convert the material into biogas and fertilizer.
To the distillery, it’s a sustainability win — one that aligns with corporate pledges to cut emissions and reduce landfill use. Jack Daniel’s produces as much as 500,000 gallons of spent grain per day, and transforming it into energy makes environmental and business sense.
But for Holt and his neighbors, that change isn’t just inconvenient, it’s potentially catastrophic. Of the 500,000 gallons, farmers currently haul away approximately 300,000 gallons — the same 300,000 gallons planned to be reallocated to Three Rivers Energy.
Without that steady feed supply, farmers face higher costs and tighter margins at a time when drought and inflation have already cut deep.
“All I know is that’s gonna destroy us,” Holt said.
According to the USDA, nearly 90% of farms in Moore County are livestock operations [2]. For many, the Cow Feeder Program wasn’t a bonus, it was a backbone. The distillery’s slop was protein-rich and plentiful, allowing small farms to feed their herds without paying sky-high commercial feed prices.
Now, with feed costs already elevated nationwide, up nearly 10-20% since 2021 [3] losing this free supply will hit small operators the hardest.