Fired up by smoking (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Fired up by smoking

3:54pm Monday 14th February 2011 in Food & Wine By Helen Mead

Stella Crowson could not have chosen a more beautiful spot for her business. Set amid the stunning scenery of Blubberhouses Moor, Mackenzies Yorkshire Smokehouse is a magnet for tourists visiting the Yorkshire Dales.

Because there, they can sample some of the finest home-produced food in the country, as well as take in the spectacular views.

The award-winning smokehouse, in Nidderdale, uses traditional methods of curing and smoking fish, poultry, game and cheese. Only pure oak is burned in the process to bring out the best natural flavours.

After leaving school, Bradford-born Stella went to work in her late father’s engineering business before moving into food-related industries.

“I love food,” she says, “I always have, I feel it is in my veins.”

Stella’s mother and grandmother are Italian, which perhaps accounts for her passion for all things culinary.

She indulged that love with cordon bleu and patisserie courses in London, but family commitments meant she did not immediately embark on a career in the sector.

When her daughter Lauren, now 18, reached school age, Stella decided she would like to channel her energies into a business. “I heard about the smokehouse being on the market and mentioned it to my husband. I thought ‘Robert will help me a couple of days a week’,” she recalls of her plans to enlist the services of her property developer partner. Looking back on that, she laughs: “Now, 17-days-a-week later, we are here.”

They bought the business after the death of the founder Peter Mackenzie, who set up the company in 1985.

“Peter set it up because he couldn’t get hold of decent smoked salmon, so he started a production unit in the basement of a restaurant in Harrogate.

“A friend of his was visiting Fortnum and Mason in London for a blind tasting session, and Mackenzie sent down a sample. His won.”

But Peter didn’t have approved premises, so relocated to Wood Nook Farm in Blubberhouses and rented a small unit. From there, he produced smoked salmon for Fortnum and Mason and a few other customers.

When Peter died Stella bought the business from his stepson, who did not wish to take it further.

Stella did not know anything about smoking, but “I saw it as a business opportunity using food,” she says. “We wanted to keep the name that people recognise, and build upon it.”

In 13 years the couple have built the business from a “low key affair” to the thriving, multi-million pound concern it is today. Its profile and reputation is such that the company has featured extensively in the media, including an appearance on Channel 4’s Big British Food Map.

They developed the two-and-a-half acre site, upgrading and refitting the premises.

“It was hugely neglected when we bought it,” says Stella. “We put everything we could give into it.”

Their efforts paid off – the food and curing business is booming.

Stella says: “We dry-cure products in the traditional manner. Raw salmon is dry-salted. It sits in salt and goes through the curing process for quite a long time depending on its size. It is a bespoke process.”

Once washed it sits in large stainless steel kilns where it is dried and smoked. “We have some of the most sophisticated kilns in Europe,” says Stella. “Our secret is to chill the smoke onto the salmon – it is an unusual, and very healthy, process.”

She adds: “It is also very clinical – it is not as many imagine, with products hanging in a room thick with smoke. Temperatures are very precise and controlled to give a stable product.”

Dry curing draws out moisture, resulting in a more concentrated flavour.

The firm’s hot-smoked products include oak-roasted or kiln-roasted salmon. “We started out with smoked salmon, smoked cheese and smoked ham as core products. Now we are one of the biggest smoked meat producers in the country,” says Stella, “Meats are our biggest sellers. We produce the finest dry cured bacon and hams using the best pork from within the region.”

As far back as the 1920s, the site was home to the producers of traditional dry-cured York Ham. “Things have come full circle,” says Stella.

They have a staff of 23 – a big leap from the early days when the company was manned by just Stella and Robert.

When they took over, Stella announced to Robert, who is originally from Horsforth, that she wanted to develop a restaurant. “He said no – he couldn’t see himself working 8am until midnight every day,” she says. But that did not put her off.

“I persevered,” she says. “It took more than four years to get planning permission, but it was worth it, and Robert supported me all along.”

A shop followed, and, more recently, a state-of-the-art butchery department.

“We have an amazing set of customers who come and see us regularly,” says Stella.

They make every effort to source products from as close to the smoke house as possible. “We have extremely high standards,” says Stella, “We buy pork from various parts of Yorkshire, chicken from east Yorkshire, and trout from Nidderdale.”

Trout is oak-roasted or flavoured with lemon and thyme.

Mackenzies supply clients across the country including, in Yorkshire, the Devonshire Arms hotel in Bolton Abbey and Rudding Park hotel in Harrogate.

Stella bubbles with pride over what she and Robert, and their team of hardworking staff, have achieved. “We have developed Mackenzies to be a Yorkshire brand. We love Yorkshire – it is what we are,” she says.

• Mackenzies Yorkshire Smokehouse, Units 1-6, Wood Nook Farm, Hardisty Hill, Blubberhouses. Tel. (01943) 880369 or visit yorkshiresmokehouse.co.uk