Gender and Ethnicity Diversity
At Sông Cái Distillery, women not only play a pivotal role in our distillery but are inseparable from who we are as a company, brand, and community.
75% of our managerial positions are filled by women, and over 60% of our distillery staff are indigenous women from the communities we work to source botanicals.
Our name, Sông Cái means Mother River, a way of life, a unifying concept in Việt Nam. It is the main water source that nurtures whole communities, a spiritual compass, and is home for the people who live along it.
“Cái” in Vietnamese means female, and is used to indicate the biggest, the most important things – it can be đường cái - the main road, ngón tay cái – the thumb. This is rooted in Vietnamese traditional belief, a society that has a long agricultural history tied to nature worship and the power of women to create and nurture life.
We believe in fostering a workplace where women can excel in their careers while also nurturing their families.
Our focus on capacity building ensures that every team member has opportunities for professional growth, both internally and externally.
We also cover essential expenses such as housing, food, and travel, our aim is to maximize the financial well-being of our team members and their families.
Chị San - Our Production Team Lead and Canteen Manager
Lò Mùi San, or more affectionately known as ‘chị San’ (older sister San) has been with the company since nearly the beginning.
Chị San’s story is quite inspiring. She is from the Bat Xat District in the Lao Cai Province nestled in Vietnam’s mountainous Northwest region. She comes from a family of Dao rice farmers. In addition, her family also grows sa nhân tím (Wurfbainia villosa) in the forests surrounding her village. Given the remote nature of her village, many people including chị San were illiterate. Government literacy programs and other cultural and womens’ empowerment programs eventually gave her the confidence to seek opportunities to supplement her family’s agrarian dependent income. To this day her salary goes to support her two daughters through school.
She is one of the mainstays of Sông Cái Distillery’s distillery team. Arguably the strongest member on our team - easily lifting wood barrels by herself - she has also worked hard to graduate to managing our staff canteen. She manages the food budget and splits up cooking duty between staff members to ensure our team is well fed and taken care of. Her contributions to our production process span the entire breadth from labelling, to blending, to botanical sorting.
Changes are if you’ve had any of Sông Cái Distillery’s products, she’s had a direct part in the production.
We’re proud to have her on our team and celebrate her contribution.