Gillian Murray helped steer the growth of C&C Group into a distributor with a national footprint covering 99% of the UK. Now, as its commercial procurement director, and newly appointed Wine & Spirit Trade Association board member, she speaks to Jo Gilbert about the future

Acting as the bridge between a company’s buying department and its wider commercial strategy is a tall order in any large business. The role goes far beyond purchasing and extends into shaping what the company buys, how it buys and who it partners with, to secure growth and profitability while meeting customer needs at the highest level.

But as commercial procurement director at C&C Group – the FTSE 250 business which has Matthew Clark, Bibendum (including Bibendum Off Trade), Tennent’s Direct, Tennent’s Northern Ireland, Walker & Wodehouse and Bulmers Ireland as its route to market brands – Gillian Murray oversees one of the UK’s most complex and impressive distribution models, which is notable for its growth trajectory over the past 10 years

Trainee buyer to procurement chief

Fresh out of university in 2001 with an economics degree, Murray began as a trainee buyer. Over the next two decades she rose through the ranks, first as head of procurement for Scotland, then taking on Northern Ireland. Following C&C’s game-changing acquisition of Matthew Clark and Bibendum in 2018, she relocated to Bristol to become part of the integration project. This notable stint, she explains, “was really to get into the DNA of those brands and understand the different facets”.

After a sabbatical away from procurement to lead sales in Scotland, bringing Matthew Clark and Tennent’s under one umbrella, she returned to her true calling in March 2024. “Sometimes you pinch yourself, because we are the biggest wholesaler in GB and Ireland. To have responsibility for the procurement team really is a privilege. Sometimes, it feels like I’ve worked for about six different businesses,” she adds, reflecting on her 24- year journey with the group, including Wallaces Express, which was purchased by C&C in 2014.

Building a national platform

Murray is, of course, uniquely well-placed to comment on the evolution of the business that oversaw a key turning point in C&C’s leadership position back in 2018. C&C swooped in during a turbulent period for UK drinks during the first half of that year and offered, in Murray’s words, “a steady ship”, as the Conviviality juggernaut teetered on the edge of extinction, threatening to take brands such as Matthew Clark and Bibendum with it.

Off ering safe harbour to those brands gave C&C a full national footprint, covering 99% of the UK population for next day-delivery. Wine has also become far more strategically important since 2018.

“Where we operated in Scotland and Ireland, we always sold wine, but it wasn’t national. We were a brewer that sold wine as well,” Murray says.

The scale in 2025 is striking. C&C operates two well-invested manufacturing sites, employs nearly 2,800 people across the UK and Ireland, and delivers more than 700,000 orders a year. The business’s huge reach and remit, supplying every channel from independent merchants to national hospitality chains, puts it alongside LWC Drinks and Bestway as one of the country’s wholesale heavyweights.

However, it uniquely combines its distribution with ownership of major brands such as Tennent’s (Scotland’s number one lager), Bulmers in Ireland (sold internationally as Magners), Orchard Pig and Menabrea.

As Murray puts it: “We’re a wholesaler, we’re a brand owner, we’re a brewer. We work across the off and on-trade, across GB and Ireland, and we’ve got the international business. It’s about looking at everything from all the different angles.

Organised for growth

Today, the business has benefited from the integration of those brands, which cemented C&C’s transformation from a regional player into a truly national drinks distributor with 25 depots. “We didn’t have that reach before,” Murray says.

C&C cannily operates a centralised model with one executive team overseeing procurement, operations, marketing, technology and finance. Within that single procurement team, specialists “eat, sleep and breathe their categories. They integrate with the sales team and they meet with customers”, Murray explains.

This joined-up approach, she observes, was a key learning from Conviviality’s collapse: “We have the expertise, and our teams really do understand the ranging that’s needed for each customer proposition.”

Having a holistic view has also helped with the task of navigating regulatory frameworks – which she is now well-placed to help shape via her new role as a Wine & Spirit Trade Association board member.

Duty reform for wine was particularly challenging, with upfront investment needed to inform C&C’s global supply chain for 1 February. “We now know that 40% of our wines change abv every year, so we can really manage that now,” Murray shares.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) also required huge effort. As the final rates weren’t published until after it went live, C&C had to move at pace to interpret the information and manage both the direct and indirect costs.

Innovation to the fore

As a counterpoint to regulatory headaches, one of the key focus areas for the team is innovation. Murray says that one of the disappointing things about the current climate “is a lot of companies are cutting back on innovation. That’s a very short-term lens. We need to be thinking longer term, because that’s the way you can grow.”

Several categories are driving momentum, notably low & no alcohol, where evolution has been rapid over the past five years. Premiumisation from wine-producing countries such as New Zealand and France is also gathering pace, alongside growth in RTDs and cocktails.

C&C’s in-house insights team has been instrumental in spotting these shifts. “If you look back to 2018, we were one of the first to call out orange wine. At the time people said, ‘What are you talking about?’ But now it’s everywhere.”

Meanwhile, the group’s owned brands continue to play a central role. Tennent’s remains “an iconic brand… it’s always finding a way to engage,” Murray notes, citing the brand’s playful activations such as Oasis gig tie-ins and pint-sized bucket hats, alongside a Magners rebrand.

Despite the challenges, Murray is energised by the pace of change. Her appointment to the WSTA board earlier this year reflects her growing voice in policy debates, particularly when it comes to the wholesale point of view, where there was “a bit of a gap”.

With a newly refreshed WSTA board, which includes the likes of Freixenet Copestick MD Robin Copestick and Sainsbury’s category director for grocery drinks Sophie Hogg, C&C is now poised to accelerate collaboration both inside and outside the trade.

After 24 years of continuous service in this highly influential corner of the industry, she remains upbeat about the future: “There’s never been a period when things stand still. The pace at which it moves is always exciting – exhausting sometimes, but exciting. Everybody wants to be the best, and the increased competitiveness can only be a good thing.”