The food and drink industry is seeing a powerful shift as more women-led businesses rise to prominence. Initiatives like Buy Women Built are helping to amplify their voices, making it easier for consumers and buyers to identify and support women-led brands. This movement is not only empowering female entrepreneurs but also shaping a more diverse and inclusive industry landscape. Gillian Quek, CEO of Caboodle Pet Brands, highlighted how important this movement is:
“From our perspective at Caboodle, Buy Women Built is an incredibly important movement that was coming from the ground up. So, a consumer movement that was kite marking exactly which products are built by women founders”
The statistics are striking – The Grocer reported that research by NatWest, a partner of Buy Women Built, found that only 1% of all-female teams receive venture capital investment and if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men, £250bn of new value could be added to the UK economy. By supporting women-led brands through purchasing their products, consumers can directly help these entrepreneurs gain traction and attract further investment.
Polling among more than 2,000 consumers found that 51% would shop more female-founded brands if they were clearly signposted, and 64% believe buying from female-founded businesses helps promote diversity in the business world, with the same proportion saying they believed it was important to champion female-founded businesses to help inspire more women. Some 61% said they feel like they are directly supporting gender equality by purchasing from female-founded brands.
Gillian notes the growing impact of such initiatives:
“Buy Women Built is shining a spotlight on the founders, and places like Ocado now have an aisle dedicated to these products, which is a phenomenal achievement. Wholefoods and Planet Organic have also done the same, giving female-founded brands shelf space and visibility that was previously hard to come by.” For the brands involved, this level of recognition not only drives sales but also builds credibility and opens doors for further investment and collaboration.
If you’re thinking about joining the movement, the benefits are clear. As one founder shared from The UK Food and Drink Show:
“So, if a buyer comes to The UK Food and Drink Shows and they see a ‘Buy Women Built’ brand, if they get on board with this, their consumers will immediately see that there's a point of difference, which is very powerful. The first thing we noticed yesterday is that people immediately saw ‘Buy Women Built’, and they immediately came over because they were really interested in the messaging behind that.”
With over 2,000 brands already part of Buy Women Built, the movement continues to grow rapidly. From creating visible symbols on supermarket shelves to fostering inspiration among female founders, it is clear that women-led businesses are reshaping the future of the UK food and drink industry. As Gillian highlights, the advice from Sahar Hashemi, CEO of Buy Women Built, is simple but powerful ‘Leap, leap and the net will appear’. By supporting these initiatives, consumers and buyers alike can help transform the industry.
If you want to find out more about Buy Women Built, click here, or if you’d like to find out more about the National Convenience Show, click here.
