Providing strategic leadership for Besmoke to turn innovation into commercial momentum.
McCrae gave us strength of direction, aligning the whole business under one clear brand and strategy.
Partnering with McCrae has enabled us to lead our marketplace and grow the business the way we’d envisioned it.”.
A trusted partnership to align vision, direction, and delivery
Besmoke is a category-defining smoke innovator, pioneering filtration technology that removes harmful compounds from smoke while preserving delicate flavour — long before regulation required it.
When regulatory change reshaped the industry, the opportunity for growth was significant. However, internal confusion around brand messaging and a complex product range was limiting sales confidence, impacting morale, and slowing commercial momentum. The business needed clear strategic leadership to simplify complexity, align teams, and turn world-leading innovation into sustained commercial performance.
McCrae Partnership acted as an extension of the leadership team — providing clarity, challenge, and decisive strategic direction to help the business move forward with confidence across brand, product, team, and go-to-market strategy.
The Brand
Besmoke is a UK-based food ingredients business combining scientific rigour with creative experimentation. Its proprietary PureTech® filtration technology removes carcinogens and PAHs from smoke while retaining flavour integrity, positioning the brand at the forefront of clean, future-ready smoke solutions.
Founded by entrepreneur Huw Griffiths, Besmoke serves customers across the global food supply chain, from development chefs and retailers to large-scale food manufacturers, driven by a belief that the category must evolve.
The Challenge
By the end of 2022, Besmoke had world-class science and an extensive product portfolio of over 250 options. However, complexity within the range and lack of clarity in the brand proposition were undermining confidence across the sales team and wider business.
The challenge was to simplify and structure the offer, clearly articulate Besmoke’s relevance and differentiation, and align leadership, marketing, and commercial teams around a shared direction, enabling confident decision-making and consistent execution at a pivotal moment of change.
The Impact
Working as an embedded strategic partner, McCrae Partnership provided leadership, structure, and momentum at a critical stage in Besmoke’s growth. Through deep research, operational immersion, and honest challenge, we helped the business gain clarity from the inside out.
Starting with brand and product strategy, we aligned leadership vision, simplified the product portfolio, and created clear narratives that connected innovation directly to customer value.
The result was a more confident, aligned organisation, with clearer priorities, stronger sales tools, and a renewed ability to convert innovation into commercial momentum, delivering year-on-year double-digit growth.
“When innovation becomes easy to understand, it becomes easier to sell.”
From leadership clarity to commercial execution
- Creative positioning that reflects Besmoke’s true innovation
- Simplified, strategically structured product portfolio
- Clear narratives and sales tools that easily convey and connect innovation to customer value
- Internal alignment across sales, marketing and operations plans
- Ongoing strategic direction across annual planning, creative marketing campaigns across each customer base, long-term growth, and full execution