Meet Our Team
The Black Mountains Smokery team has a core staff of just 6 who work on-site, and others who do very important jobs from afar. The team then more than doubles in our busy autumn months. For Christmas 2024 we peaked at over 20 temporary worker bees helping customers over the phone and in our smokery shop and working double-time to dispatch over 3,000 parcels in December. We are very grateful to our wonderful local community and lovely friends who find us so many bright-eyed gappies and students for our seasonal recruitment (Find out more here).
Click here to Meet our fab Christmas 2024 BMS Team. A big thank you to you all, please – do come back this year!
And now to meet our all-important core team of BMS people:

Corinne is our dedicated production manager who keeps the team running smoothly. Her calm attitude and strong production know-how are a real asset in our busy, seasonal business. Always organised and practical, Corinne has helped streamline our processes and supports her team with training and guidance.

Alex joined us back in August 2020 as a full-time production assistant through a youth employment scheme. Since then, he’s grown into a key member of the production team. After starting under Corinne’s guidance, he quickly proved himself to be dependable, skilled, and still holds the title of fastest salmon slicer! We’re proud to have him as part of our close-knit team.
Ben has been a great full-time addition to our production staff since he joined in September 2023. He is particularly handy with fast packing and has become skilled in the art of salmon slicing. He hails from just down the road in Abergavenny and enjoys supporting Chelsea Football Club, and playing a few games of pool in the pub with his mates!
Having balanced his time between two seasonal businesses, marquees in the summer & the smokery in the autumn, Hugh, our son, moved on to pastures green in January 2024. He is sorely missed! For many years he has been an integral part of BMS; he was a machine when it came to slicing salmon, and an all-important Mr. Fix-It whenever we needed him. We hope he may not be able to resist getting out and about to one or two fairs and events with us in the future!
Our daughter Hetta has graduated from her time at BMS and has retrained as an investment manager in the city. However, she often takes the time to help out from afar with recipes and photography, social media suggestions, and generally poke her parents in the right direction!
Marcus is our dream neighbour, but he also is much more than that! He is a fellow Welsh country enthusiast, found always either cooking up a storm, up a hill enjoying the outdoors or going above and beyond to help us rural folk with our tech problems. He gives us his genius IT support and is always on call as our office superhero whenever any tech goes squiffy. He’s also a qualified chef and private caterer so he gladly acts as quality control when any food needs testing! Here’s a picture of his dog Fizzy as, despite his many talents and sparkling reputation, Marcus is a bit camera shy!
Emma is our digital marketing go-to. If ever there is a job too complicated or too onerous for us in the office, we ping an email over to Emma and she sorts it in seconds! She works for InSynch, who have been assisting our business and website for years and we cannot thank her enough for keeping our marketing modern and a true reflection of our ethos! We’re eager to have her down to the Smokery when we can, to give her a proper tour and tasting.
Kate has been our trusty bookkeeper for a few years now. She started working for us in between gardening jobs. Her numbers now keep her so busy we fear she has little time for green fingers! She is also a whizz with financial presentations. She’s a local gal and a key part of the extended BMS family.
Jo & Jonathan started Black Mountains Smokery in 1996. The smokery has grown a lot since then but remains a family-run local business with the same principles it started with.
Together, they are quite the team and it’s only because they’ve done so well that they need all the extra hands!
Thank you for your email. I realised when I unpacked the box for recycling that I had not thanked you for the gorgeous little pots of jelly – perfect with the duck breasts. It’s lovely to receive such personalised and generous customer service. Happy Christmas to you and your colleagues. My Best Wishes. Elizabeth M – December 2023