Graham Johnston turned his passion for cooking into a business in 2014 when he made his own smoked syrup. Two years later, Smoky Brae is the only food company in Scotland producing dried smoked ingredients that are stocked all over Scotland and has been exhibited at 10 Downing Street.
Name: Graham Johnston
Age: 38
Position: Manager
WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS CALLED?
SMOKY Brae
WHERE IS IT BASED?
Chapelton in South Lanarkshire.
WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?
I HAD no intention of setting up a business but I am very into food. In 2014 I was making a BBQ sauce and was looking for a smoked syrup to put in it so I started messing around with a smoked unit I had. I got in touch with Steven Lamb of River Cottage who is a smoking expert and he told me about smoking. I worked on the business for 14 months before officially launching it in October 2015 because smoking is a tricky thing to do and is hard to master.
I have a background in design. I went to art school in Aberdeen and then worked in product design and marketing for nine years.
I was working part-time until seven months ago when I decided to fully devote myself to the business. I do all the artwork and design of the products myself. I have always had a passion for food so it was a natural progression even though it was a completely new area to me.
HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?
WHAT I do is very unique and different and it has got a lot of attention because of that. There is a smokehouse in England but it is all for trade and it smokes on a larger scale.
I haven’t had too much competition. The downside is that people don’t really understand it. There are more food producers launching a smoked line in their product range. Not a lot of similar products exist because other smoked products tend to just be meat and fish.
In Scotland, a lot of the distilleries like to make smoked varieties of whisky but there’s no one focusing on smoked dried ingredients here.
It has allowed me to exploit that because we are the only business in Scotland doing it. Even down south there’s not many I know of. It’s a good position to be in.
WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?
I GO to a lot of consumer shows and at most of these about 90 per cent of the attendees are women above the age of 40 so we sell a lot of products to women buying gifts for their husbands. We smoke every ingredient individually for rubs and then we blend them together. A lot of our products are seen as specialist but the rubs are more universal and have mass appeal, people understand them better. It appeals to people who are slimming because it livens up food. The products are suitable for vegans, vegetarians and people who are gluten free so the produce does have mass appeal.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT RUNNING THE BUSINESS?
ONE of the highlights was in November last year when I got invited to 10 Downing Street through small business Saturday. I got a Great Taste Award for the smoked BBQ rub – they are the Oscars of the food industry. It has a huge impact on sales and having the sticker makes a difference. In 2016 we won a BBC Good Food Show Award. The consumer shows are also a highlight because it is great to speak to people directly about your products –we get invaluable feedback so you know what you should change.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS?
I SEE it growing and expanding. There’s going to be a big update in the next year because I’m hoping to get more premises and get a bigger production space. It would also be good to launch more gift sets – we are hoping to have five or six by the end of the year.
Producers have launched a smoked caramel sauce using my smoked sugars. I would like to grow a bigger online presence so I will be spending more money on the website over the next few years. It is mainly me and my wife who run the business. There was such a massive jump in sales in November to December last year. and we do take on people on a freelance basis at busy times. However, I’m looking on taking on someone full time.
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