From bar to boardroom: women in the drinks industry

Posted 2 February, 2023

Image: Gunner Cocktails

Dannie McDonald first entered the drinks industry as manager of a popular village pub. Since then, she has worked across a number of different sectors, as MD/CEO to several leading retail, finance, and lifestyle brands. In 2020, she took her next step in the food and drink industry when she joined Gunner Cocktails, a luxury drinks brand which, like Dannie, has moved away from the bar by transporting the traditional Gunner Cocktail into premixed cans.

Image: Dannie McDonald

With only 25 per cent of executive roles held by women, despite an equal gender distribution across entry level jobs, the food and drink industry is by no means immune to the gender imbalance ubiquitous across the corporate world. As a woman who has found success in this environment, Dannie recognises the importance of championing diversity within the drinks sector through unbiased recruitment and greater flexibility.

Despite recent initiatives to challenge gender imbalance, the endurance of a wide gender pay gap in the drinks sector – currently lying at 10.6 per cent – testifies to the ongoing impact on women of barriers to professional progression.1 Often unconscious, gender bias remains a potent force across women’s careers, driven by prejudiced recruitment processes, outdated childcare expectations, and unsuitable working conditions.

Inequality begins at the very first stages of a career, during the hiring process. With women 30 per cent less likely to be called for a job interview than their male counterparts who possess similar qualities, the evident bias present in the recruitment system cannot go unchallenged if the drinks sector is to achieve greater equality.2 One factor hindering female applicants from the start of the hiring process is the use of gender-biased language in job advertisements, with 52 per cent of the UK’s adverts including terms such as “competitive” and “confident” that hold a greater appeal for men than for women.3 While women may not consider themselves in these terms, this by no means reflects their true capabilities; skill-based recruitment tests which simulate the actual processes of a job allow female applicants to demonstrate their ability while circumnavigating the need to engage with gender-biased terminology.

Men, women, and children

While employers should avoid discrimination when considering a candidate’s skillset, it is nonetheless important for companies to appreciate the different circumstances that exist for women and men. Businesses should recognise the differing childcare expectations placed on women and men. While 90 per cent of fathers return to full time work after having children, this is only the case for 40 per cent of mothers.4 However rooted it may be in historical family values, this stark divergence proves the enduring impact of parenthood on women’s careers today.

Although the rise of flexible working over recent years offers mothers greater scope for balancing work life with childcare, concerns have been raised that homeworking could have a detrimental impact on an individual’s professional advancement, with chief economist Catherine Mann citing the trend as a further threat to gender equality in business. To ensure that female employees can fully realise the benefits of the hybrid system, flexible working needs to be truly flexible, without inducing criticism or prejudice.

The drink of kings?

This gender imbalance seen at the top of the drinks industry trickles proverbially down throughout the sector and can be found even amongst consumers, with 55 per cent of men in England drinking alcohol at least once a week, as compared with only 41 per cent of women.5 While this is partially due to historical factors, ongoing marketing plays an equally impactful role in the disparity, with male-targeted adverts more prevalent than gender-neutral or female-targeted advertising. Indeed, a study of the Instagram posts from the world’s leading whisky brands revealed that male representation exceeds female representation by 228 per cent.6

The equal inclusion of women and men in advertising campaigns will not be enough to reverse this trend; drinks companies must diversify the activities and events with which their products are associated. At Gunner, for example, although the cocktail is closely tied to sport, it ensures that its marketing excludes no audience which would otherwise enjoy their beverages.

Although the past few decades have seen the drinks industry make large steps towards gender equality, more remains to be done if the production and consumption of alcohol is to become truly balanced. In order to move past the broad inequality currently ingrained in the industry, the drinks sector now needs to tackle the subtle factors contributing to this gender divide.

What has changed for women since you started your career?

When I began my career in the industry, people were already taking about overt gender discrimination. Now, however, people are able to discuss unconscious bias – and that’s a huge change. We’ve moved from fighting blatant discrimination to finding ourselves at a stage when we can step back and consider what factors we might we be failing to consider, and what might be having an effect without our noticing it.

How do you view inclusivity?

Inclusivity means realising that everybody deserves equal opportunities, but that not everybody can achieve them in the same way. To find equality in the workplace, companies need to accept that different people will require different tools to succeed. Traditionally, the tools made available are those which work best for men: this needs to change.

What advice would you give to leaders?

To any women leading in the drinks industry, I would say appreciate talent, both their own and that of their employees. Reflecting on talent and potential rather than circumstance or achievement will help to pull down some of those barriers present for women in business.

What should the beverage sector be doing to attract more women?

Companies should carefully consider their recruitment process – think about how they word their advertisements, think about their candidate pools – in particular the degree subjects from which they are hiring – and think about how much flexibility they are offering to future employees.