Jack Daniel’s Ending Program Providing Scraps To Local Farmers

Tennessee-based Jack Daniel’s is terminating a decades-long program that provided the company’s corn byproduct “slop” to local cattle farmers at low or no cost, allowing the farmers to inexpensively feed their cattle.  According to Moneywise, 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.   Jack Daniel's said the “Cow Feeder Program” is to end March 31, as the company transitions to a new partnership with Michigan-based Three Rivers Energy, which will convert the waste into renewable fuel and fertilizer.

The change has left farmers in and around south-central Tennessee reeling, searching for ways they might continue to earn a living through raising cattle.  Livestock makes up 89% of the region's farm earnings.

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