Reyes Beer Division, the nation’s largest wholesaler of beer, has laid off some of its 5,700-person workforce, a company spokesperson confirmed.
“Reyes Beer Division has made the incredibly difficult decision to temporarily reduce our workforce as a result of the unforeseen impact of COVID-19 on our business, customers and the communities we serve,” the company said in a statement.
Reyes operates wholesalers in California, Florida, South Carolina, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Its beer division sells more than 217 million cases to 84,000 retail accounts throughout its footprint.
It was unknown how many employees were affected by the job cuts.
“We deeply value our team members and are working to support affected employees in the interim, including paying out all accrued vacation/PTO along with extended employee health insurance benefits,” the spokesperson said.
In an internal memo to employees, Reyes Beer Division CEO Tom Day said the layoffs were due to a decrease in routes because of statewide on-premise closures. In pre-COVID times, Reyes’ 1,340 trucks covered 14 million miles each year, according to the company’s website.
“With nearly half of our customers closed, we had to take the unusual step this week of conducting a companywide reroute,” Day wrote. “With fewer customers, we now have fewer routes, and as a result, this also meant temporarily laying off a number of our employees. This was an incredibly difficult decision.”
Day added that “as business increases and normalizes, we will call employees back to work.” He noted that the company believes the layoff is “the last significant change we will need to take to stabilize the business.”
Since November, Reyes has made an acquisition in every month except February.
Last month, Reyes subsidiary Golden Brands struck a deal to acquire Bay Area Beverage of Richmond, California. In March, Golden Brands struck a deal to acquire Sacramento-based Saccani Distributing Company’s brand rights; the deal is expected to close on May 15.
In January, Reyes turned its attention to Southern California, where Reyes subsidiary Crest Beverage acquired Imperial-based Claypool Distributing. A month prior to that, in December 2019, Reyes acquired Bakersfield-based W.A. Thompson. In November, on the east coast, Reyes’ Premium Distributors of Virginia acquired Dixie Beverage in Winchester, Virginia.
However, most of the company’s attention has been focused on the Golden State. In just under two years, Reyes has made 10 acquisitions in California alone.
In addition to its massive network of beer wholesalers, Reyes Holdings contains three other business units: Great Lakes Coca-Cola Bottling, Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling and Martin Brower, a restaurant supplier that serves thousands of McDonald’s locations, among other restaurant chains. Reyes Holdings has more than 30,000 employees and operates in 45 states and 19 countries. It is the ninth-largest privately held company in the U.S. with annual sales of $33 billion.