Food & Beverage

Food and drink companies must keep cost, food safety and the expectations of retail and foodservice customers in balance, often across several sites and shift patterns, and the leaders who achieve that balance well are rarely looking to move.

As specialist food and beverage headhunters, we contact these individuals directly and explain the business, its customers and its plans before asking them to consider a move. Our Food and Beverage practice forms part of our wider manufacturing executive search work, and it works alongside our FMCG and consumer goods leadership practice where brand and category experience is central to the brief. Food and beverage appointments within hotels, restaurants and leisure venues are handled by our Hospitality practice.

Food and Beverage leaders we appoint

Stone Executive appoints food and drink leaders to board roles, to the executive team and to senior technical and site positions. The type of leader required shifts with the company, since a family-owned bakery that supplies a single major retailer needs a different profile from a private equity-backed drinks brand preparing to sell overseas.

• Chief executives and managing directors
• Group operations directors and site general managers
• Technical, quality and food safety directors
• Supply chain, procurement and logistics directors
• Commercial, sales and marketing directors
• Finance directors
• New product development and innovation leaders
• Non-executive directors and chairs

Technical and quality leadership carries particular weight in this sector, because the technical director is accountable for food safety, legality and the standards against which retail customers audit each site. The BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety, which BRCGS states has been adopted by over 22,000 sites in more than 130 countries, is accepted by leading global brands and retailers. Commercial appointments draw on our commercial and sales leadership practice, particularly where a candidate must manage major retail and foodservice accounts. We also support boards seeking non-executive appointments with food and drink experience.

Food and Beverage markets we cover

Our Food and Beverage practice is active in food manufacturing, drinks, tea and coffee, ingredients and flavours, and the supply chain that connects them. Production methods, customers and the sources of experienced leaders vary considerably between these markets, so every food executive search begins with the market in which the new leader will work.

Food manufacturing

We cover ambient, chilled and frozen food, bakery, meat and dairy, prepared meals and confectionery, working with branded and private-label producers alike. The leaders in these companies tend to run high-volume production for large retailers, where service levels, waste and margin receive close attention.

Drinks

Our drinks industry executive search covers brewers, distillers, wine businesses and soft drinks producers. Senior drinks appointments often bring together brand stewardship with export, duty and route-to-market experience across the on-trade and the off-trade.

Tea, coffee, ingredients and flavours

Tea and coffee businesses are also part of our work, along with the makers of ingredients and flavours who supply food and drink manufacturers. Many of these companies sell business to business, which means technical sales, application expertise and long-standing customer relationships shape the leadership profile required.

Food supply chain and equipment

Our searches across the food supply chain take in processing, packing and distribution, together with the equipment manufacturers serving food producers. Our briefs have included a managing director search for a long-established manufacturer of food processing equipment, a role with full profit and loss responsibility reporting to the chair, in a field that sits close to our capital equipment practice.

What is changing in Food and Beverage leadership

Food and Beverage leadership is shifting as manufacturers deal with rising production costs, new rules on how less healthy products can be advertised and new charges for the packaging they place on the market. Taken together, these developments make cost control, regulatory judgement and commercial agility central to many senior food and drink appointments.

According to the Food and Drink Federation, food and drink is the UK’s largest manufacturing industry, contributing £42bn to the economy and providing employment for nearly half a million people. The Federation’s 2026 regional report describes 2025 as a challenging year, with rising production costs and continuing global supply chain shocks restricting investment and innovation.

Since 5 January 2026, adverts for less healthy food and drink have been banned on television before 9pm and online at all times. For manufacturers in the categories affected, this puts more focus on reformulation, product development and marketing leadership.

The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 require large producers to pay a disposal fee towards the cost of collecting and managing household packaging waste. As a result, packaging design and packaging data now form a clear part of the remit of finance, procurement and technical leaders.

Why specialist Food and Beverage search matters

Specialist search in Food and Beverage matters because the leaders who fit a particular brief have usually gained their experience in one category and one type of production. Judging which of those backgrounds will carry over to the client’s site requires a working knowledge of how food and drink businesses run.

Our food industry executive search work begins with the businesses in which suitable leaders are already succeeding, which often means competitors in the same category or producers in an adjacent category with similar processes and customers. A technical director in chilled food, for example, may be well placed to step into frozen or prepared meals, since the hygiene controls and retail customers are much the same.

Our Food and Beverage executive search process

We run each Food and Beverage executive search as a retained process, led by a partner from start to finish, and each brief reflects how food businesses work, with sites running multiple shifts and customer audits throughout the year. Once the brief is agreed, most of these searches are completed within four to eight weeks.

Operational and technical appointments depend on the detail of the site. The lines, the shift pattern and the current audit position all shape the role, and experienced candidates expect an accurate account of each before they consider a move.

For site leadership roles, the assessment looks at how candidates have led teams over several shifts, nights and weekends included, and at their record on labour retention and training. Technical director candidates should be able to show how they handled a food safety incident or a difficult retailer audit, and what they changed after it.

Every candidate on the shortlist is presented with a written profile covering their site, category and customer experience. We then handle interviews, referencing and the offer, and stay in touch during the notice period. For a technical director, that notice period may also need planning around the audit calendar of the site they are leaving.

FAQs

For a confidential discussion about a food or drink leadership appointment, please call our team on 0333 800 1560.