A rare sight in the F&B industry, these women innovators are proving that a lighter touch doesn't mean any less of an impact
The food and beverage business has always been viewed as a predominantly male domain, although a new crop of young female duos is promising to remake the industry in their own image.
From creating a condiments brand that parlays Japan's culture of fermentation to Millennials, to reinvigorating Taiwan's vegetarian movement, and even reinventing a centuries-old Chinese wine brand, these inspirational women are combining their Asian heritage with an international upbringing and a penchant for risk-taking to demonstrate that when it comes to innovation, two minds are better than one.
See also: Can traditional Chinese medicine support women’s health and be tasty? This entrepreneur says it can
Fukien Old Wine
A cocktail pop-up set to the thumping beats of a DJ on the pool level of Soho House Hong Kong might not be the first image that comes to mind when it comes to a 181-year-old Chinese cooking wine, yet for Elaine Chen and Maia Mah, respectively the regional director and creative director of Fukien Old Wine, it’s exactly this sort of cognitive dissonance that they relish.
“We’re headquartered in China with a pretty big sales and marketing team that’s all led by men,” says Chen, whose father bought the then-state-owned distillery of the Fukien Old Wine Group in 1993. “[The head office has] always been very fixed on the chain of command—they don’t really adapt to how society has changed over the past few years, whereas we’re sharing with them a lot of new things that they probably never thought about before.” The cocktail event, which was held to coincide with International Women’s Day, “was crazy for them”, she recalls. “They were actually super impressed, which I was shocked about.”
Both third-culture kids—Chen was brought up in New Zealand where her education consisted of “running around barefoot”, while Mah attended an international school in the northern Chinese city of Qingdao—the pair first met in secondary school in Hong Kong, and later reconnected in the city several years after entering the workforce.
Upon returning to Hong Kong from a job in a Beijing-based startup, Chen noticed the lack of diversity in the market for cooking wines when compared to the mainland and figured that Fukien Old Wine—a huangjiu-based cooking wine that is fermented with a starter of more than 60 Chinese medicinal herbs and already an established staple in the pantries of Fujianese and Hakka communities around the world—could be a welcome addition to Hong Kong’s grocery shelves. She pitched the idea of a Hong Kong expansion to her father, whose enthusiasm outpaced her own—she was quickly tasked with spearheading a rebrand for Hong Kong consumers, as well as opening two stores in tandem.