Our Unique Process
Here at Grenadine Wild Sea Salt, you’re buying our process from us as much as our product.
Our Sea Salt originates in the pristine, mineral-rich and pollutant free waters surrounding this island paradise that is Bequia. The artisanal process of solar evaporating salt dates back hundreds of years. Table salt and sea salt are both fundamentally made from salt taken from seawater, but that’s where the similarity ends. Table salt is highly ‘refined’ so that everything that is not sodium chloride is processed out for uniformity and mass production. The minute the seawater is boiled, and even some gourmet sea salt brands are, it can lose many of its potent benefits, as well as flavor and moisture content. Many refined salts are processed with anti-caking additives as well.
Our patented solar evaporation stills were designed by our founder, Jerry Simpson. You can read about his inspiration for the stills here. These stills allow us to provide the highest quality sea salt, free of any contaminants, while retaining the highest levels of healthy minerals, essential trace elements and rich flavors specific to these waters, as well as providing fresh drinking water for the community.
The process from start to finish takes about 6 days. The seawater is collected and delivered to our holding tanks, where it is then gravity fed into trays within the stills. About an inch and a half of water produces ‘briney’ crystals which are then scraped and transferred to drying screens in the two-step process, when the salt is harvested and taken into our clean room to be examined by hand for any imperfections before being bottled and sealed.
As our stills are covered by glass, the salt crystals are contaminant free, and the slower solar evaporation at a higher controlled temperature due to the box like structure produces a desirable mix of course, medium and smaller crystals, as well as the coveted ‘Fleur de Sel’ flakes which are mixed in every batch. This combination makes our salt remarkable in both texture and flavor.
Our blends are all sourced from locally grown ingredients that are indigenous to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which we then dehydrate and incorporate into our uniquely Caribbean flavors.
From Martha Stewart Living Magazine:
“Jerry Simpson's touchstone for artisanal sea salt was French fleur de sel, which is harvested from open-air evaporation ponds. That method wouldn't work in a climate of tropical downpours, so he devised a shallow evaporator pan tented with glass: the solar still.
"The sun is our only machine," he says. The first test batches came in sugar-white, with a mixture of glassy flakes that crystallized on the water's surface—the equivalent of fleur de sel—and crunchy grains that sank to the bottom. He sent samples to chef friends in New York, who were struck by its distinct taste. Our Food Editor at Large Shira Bocar describes it as "ancient," with pronounced minerality and hints of chlorophyll—qualities Watt attributes to trace elements in the water around Bequia's volcanic shores.”
Taste the difference.