"It's not a smoke house you're running here; it's Love Island!"

Around Valentine’s Day, a distinctive narrative is always pushed around love and romance. While it’s nice to celebrate, it’s no secret the reason is mostly due to the commercial nature of the holiday, which often involves dining in expensive restaurants, staying in hotels and increased sales of bouquets, greeting cards and chocolates.

For hospitality professionals, this equals a welcome boost in mid-winter sales. But for anyone who’s been in a relationship for any length of time, the “love-bombing” nature of Valentine’s Day is generally far from the reality of a true and meaningful partnership.

No one, perhaps, understands this better than couples who share both a life and a business.

Running a business isn’t for every couple, but each couple is different. While some enjoy romantic Valentine’s Day dinners out, others might prefer to create the food eaten during those dinners.

Caroline Workman and Frank Hederman fall into the latter group. They own and operate the award-winning Hederman Smoke House in Belvelly, Co Cork. Here, they produce a variety of smoked products, but are best known for their iconic Hederman smoked salmon.

Frank has been smoking wild and organic Irish salmon for over 42 years, and Caroline came on the scene 20 years into the business. Together, they have built a line of artisanal luxury products and a resilient rural food business despite facing many challenges through the decades.

“We’ve progressed over the years,” Frank says. “Working within different farmers markets, then opening in the English Market and now, we have built our tasting rooms here at Belvelly [near Cobh] where we now run private tours. This new development was project managed by my wife, Caroline.

“I love being in the tasting room; seeing the transformation of that space from what it was to what it is now. When we bring in the tours, we talk about what it used to be like.”

Traditional smoke house

Hederman’s is one of just a handful of traditional timber smoke houses found in the world. In fact, the timber room where they smoke their fish has been seasoned for the past 35 years of production and is so rare, it is protected by European law. Frank started out, however, using what he refers to as a “glorified wardrobe” to smoke his fish back in the early 1980s.

“I’ll give you a context of what it was like [back then],” he recalls. “We’re looking at the early 80s. Inflation was at 20% and the country was on its knees. In two years, Cork city went into meltdown as major businesses closed, and thousands of jobs were lost. You only had a couple of restaurants, no speciality shops, no farmers markets. But we were naive and young, so we just drove it on.

“Back then, no one would tell you anything,” he continues.

“The guy who taught me how to fillet a salmon used a loaf of bread as an example. But we’re not talking rocket science; we’re talking keeping smoke in a given space. We started hanging the fish to smoke it, because I felt we’d get a better finish on the product. To this day, we still hang the fish.”

Frank built the business by hitting the road and making connections with customers. He sold his fish to the two main restaurants within the region, at the time, in Cork city and Midleton (and would continue to sell his fish to them for 30 years).

Meanwhile, Caroline was living in her native Northern Ireland. Originally from Co Down, she lived in Belfast and worked in marketing and branding with artisan food producers. She also wrote about food and travel for a number of publications in the United Kingdom. She had an interest in the Slow Food movement, which is how she and Frank met.

“At the time [the early 2000s], Slow Food was very active,” she explains. “Frank was exhibiting at the [annual Slow Food festival] Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, in Turin.

“I was there to write about food and see what was happening with the Irish producers. That’s where I met him – actually, we met at the luggage carousel on the way home.”

Coming together

The pair married in 2005 and Caroline made the move to east Cork, where she soon found her niche within the smoke house.

“At that time, there were only three of them working here and Frank was doing markets all over the country,” she says.

“I see this business in a similar way to a farm business. It needs looking after 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There was no one here in an administrative role. I jumped in to support Frank and help develop the business, as well as make it run more efficiently.”

Bringing her skillset to the table meant the two would not just be sharing a life, but a career – and one they were both extremely passionate about. However much they loved their work, they recognised the need for some kind of separation between the smoke house and home life.

“Frank said we would create a line across the yard, and when we cross it we wouldn’t talk about work – but that doesn’t really happen,” Caroline says, laughing. “And to be fair, we think in a similar way. You have your arguments, like any couple, but where we’re in agreement is around the ethos of the business; it’s something that comes very naturally and instinctively to us.”

“The best part of the working day is drinking coffee in my dressing gown and throwing ideas around,” Frank adds. “The concept solidifies and we enhance it and we both bring our own interpretations to it.”

The business has changed over the years, from local sales to a strong focus on export and then the post-Brexit and COVID-19 years, where domestic sales once again gained dominance.

The best part of the working day is drinking coffee in my dressing gown and throwing ideas around

Their product line has diversified to include smoked wild Irish eel, mackerel, butter and spices in addition to prepared products like smoked fish pâtés, pies or their smoked mussels in mustard vinaigrette.

Despite these changes, their commitment to Irish provenance and traditional methods has remained constant. Their new tasting room has brought an experiential element to the business – and one which they both really enjoy.

“The biggest change recently has been the development of the tasting room, smoke yard and walled garden which people can book for small group tours and private lunches,” Caroline says. “The smoke house has always been a magnet for international food-lovers, now we’ve made it that bit more attractive.”

Community

Frank and Caroline have not just built a life and business together, but an entire community. Frank’s older children, Alexandra, Keshia and Laurence, currently live abroad but have all worked in the business and Frank and Caroline’s daughter, Beatrice, works weekly at their stall at the Midleton Farmers Market.

Caroline and Frank employ between eight and 14 people depending on the time of year. It’s not always appropriate to refer to a working team as “one big family”, but in their case - it wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate.

“We had two marriages between four members of staff in the same year,” Caroline says, smiling. “As the postman said [at the time], ‘It’s not a smoke house you’re running here; it’s Love Island’.”

See frankhederman.com

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