Why don’t we sell organic salt?

May 2, 2018 7:13 am Published by Yzanne 5 Comments

We sell salt from the purest, cleanest seas in the world. We sell salt that’s entirely natural, handled and processed without any additional chemicals or additives. In short, we sell salt that’s as nature intended. And yet, it’s not labelled as organic. Why’s that?

Pure, clean and entirely natural – but not organic. Why?

Salt of the earth

Let’s start by taking a look at the various kinds of salt we sell at Naturally Good Food. We’ve got:

• Cornish seaweed salt: salt mixed with dulce nori and sea lettuce
• Herbamare herb salt: salt infused with herbs and vegetables
• Himalayan pink salt: thought by some to be the world’s purest, cleanest salt
• Maldon sea salt: from Maldon, Essex, on the Blackwater Estuary
• Trapani sea salt: harvested by hand in Sicily
• Cornish sea salt: from the seas of Cornwall
• Seasun sea salt: from Israel.

All these salts have something special about them. They’re nothing like the refined salts you’ll find on every pub table and chip-shop counter across the land: they’ve been chosen for their unique composition and ideal crystallisation. Each boasts a particular make-up and balance of minerals, with some naturally finer and others coarser. In general, they’ve been harvested by hand and then handled extremely gently, to retain their full complement of nutrients. Some, such as the Herbamare salt, have been infused with additional ingredients over the course of many months. They’re favoured by leading chefs and gourmets around the world, bringing out the flavour of food to perfection and adding vital minerals to our diets as they do so.

The best salt is harvested by hand

And yet – they’re not organic. Why’s that?

Why is salt not organic?

The simple answer is that there is no organic certification for salt. It therefore can’t be certified organic.

To be certified ‘organic’, a product has to be a living compound, with no prohibited substances or practices used during its growing process. Salt is mostly composed of sodium chloride, which is a non-living compound. It doesn’t live and it doesn’t grow: it therefore can’t be organic. And that’s true even if the additional elements in the salt (such as the herbs and vegetables in the Herbamare sea salt) are organic.

How can we trust it?

These salts may not be organic in name, but they certainly are in nature. Here’s a brief definition of ‘organic’ from the UK’s Soil Association:

‘Organic means working with nature, not against it. It means higher levels of animal welfare, lower levels of pesticides, no manufactured herbicides or artificial fertilisers and more environmentally sustainable management of the land and natural environment….Organic food comes from trusted sources. All organic farms and food companies are inspected at least once a year and the standards for organic food are laid down in European law.’

It’s clear to us that the salts we sell tick all these boxes. They work with nature and without the use of harmful chemicals, and they’re manufactured in an environmentally sustainable manner. They come from trusted companies, who set high standards. To put your own mind at rest, click on the links below to read the stories and examine the standards of the various brands:

• Cornish seaweed salt
• Herbamare
• Himalayan pink salt: from Profusion and The Salt Seller
• Maldon sea salt
• Trapani sea salt
• Cornish sea salt

Categorised in: Keep, Organic, Products

This post was written by Yzanne