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 2023 we peaked at 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 2023 BMS Team. A big thank you to you all,  good luck on your next adventures – and please – do come back next year!

And now to meet our all-important core team of BMS people:

Corinne 200

Corinne has become our fabulous and resilient mainstay manager leading our production team.  We welcomed her back after her quarantine with delight. Her cool-headedness and proficiency in production came as a great relief!  She is bright and bubbly, organised and calm, and has brought many changes to streamline our processes.

Meet The Team- Alex 200

Alex joined us in August 2020 to become our full-time production assistant on a youth employment scheme. He has assimilated wonderfully into the production team after Corinne took him under her wing. He’s quickly become a reliable hand and he’s possibly even the fastest salmon slicer! He’s a local boy and both of his parents work in the company next door to us. It feels great to be so close-knit!

Ben Phelps 1200x1200

Ben is a great new full-time addition to our production staff and he’s been very busy over the last few months learning the ropes in the Smokery. 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!

Hugh 200

Having balanced his time between two seasonal businesses, marquees in the summer & the smokery in the autumn, Hugh, our son, is now running our Christmas warehouse.  You may have noticed, however, that he hasn’t been able to resist getting out and about to fairs and events! For many years he has been an integral part of BMS; he’s a machine when it comes to slicing salmon, and an all-important Mr. Fix-It whenever we have needed him. He will be sorely missed when he moves to pastures green in January 2024.

Hetta 200

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!

Millie

Millie has joined our office team. A Crickhowell girl, she has recently returned from a year of travelling around Australia. She likes reading and having time to walk in The Black Mountains with her family and friends. She will helping us with our digital marketing and social media management, as well as being a friendly voice on the end of the phone. Please be gentle with her while she finds her feet!

Fizzy for Marcus 200

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 Staff 200

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 2021 200

Kate has been our trusty bookkeeper for a few years now. She started working for us in between gardening jobs. Now we keep her so busy we fear there isn’t much time for green fingers! She’s a local gal and a part of the extended BMS family. She’s been working from home during the COVID period. We can’t wait to have her back on Fridays for a good old catch up in the office!

Jonathan & Jo

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