Only one company in Oregon harvests sea salt; here's how it's done

(AUGUST 5, 2022) Salt is an ancient cooking ingredient that is used everywhere in the world for flavoring and food preservation. However, despite the state's long coastline, only one company in Oregon makes sea salt. The company is Jacobsen Salt Company, and it makes salt from the ocean.

The company began to harvest salt from the Pacific Ocean at Netarts Bay in 2011. Netarts Bay is near Tillamook. The company makes both flake and kosher salts. Flake salt has larger grains. It is added to foods right before serving. Kosher salt has smaller grains. It is used in things like cooking and pickling. (The company also makes a fine sea salt -- very small grains -- for cooking, baking, and seasoning; this kind of salt comes from Italy.)

Making salt is a long process. "It all starts with our location, the pristine waters of Netarts Bay," says the company. Netarts Bay is "a relatively shallow estuary that is home to millions of oysters and other bivalves, which help filter the seawater. This helps create water that is high in salinity and low in turbidity, which has also been essentially pre-filtered before it reaches our saltworks."

Even so, the company pumps seawater from Netarts Bay and filters the water again. Then the water is boiled to remove minerals. The water is then moved to evaporation pans where it is heated to create the salt.

"Making salt is an art form, much like cooking," says the company on its website. "Our flaky sea salt is a result of constant heating, filtering, and cleaning our brine. When everything is just right, flake salt crystals begin to form on the brine surface. Once they grow into their natural pyramidal structures, the crystals become too heavy and float gently to the bottom, creating an effect in our salt pans that resembles gentle snowfall."

The process takes a couple of weeks. Workers scoop out the salt from the bottom of the pans. Then the salt is dried, and the grains are sorted by size. The final product is packaged and sold to customers.