About us

Dave gets full credit for us becoming salt makers, even though I'm the one with the food industry career. If we didn't happen to live five minutes from the longest expanse of coastal wilderness on the East Coast, it never would have happened. It's like living in the Champagne region of France and deciding to try champagne making - how can you resist when the very best ingredients are right at your fingertips? If you're not familiar with our area, the coastal wilderness I'm referring to is the Virginia Coast Reserve. It's a 130,000 acre swath of pristine Atlantic Ocean water, uninhabited barrier islands and marshes that we're lucky enough to have right here off the eastern coast of the Eastern Shore of VA.

I was intrigued with the idea but unsure if we could make a sea salt worthy of a great chef, which was the only quality of salt I'd want to sell. I had launched Mediterranean Sea Salt for McCormick & Co. so I knew the characteristics and sources of high quality sea salt but didn't know how to make them myself. And so it began.

We consumed every book and video we could find on salt making. Dave began to make batch after batch after batch of salt. We had a home based business license in the beginning and were in the back yard daily peering into large pots of steaming water. Inquisitive neighbors would meander by, smiling. 'Doing another crab boil?' they'd ask. 'No, making sea salt' we'd reply. They'd mosey off with quizzical expressions. Finally the day came where Dave brought a tray of salt in and asked me to take a look. What I saw shocked me. Big, beautiful, sparkling flakes of salt. Light as snowflakes. The taste was clean and briny with a sweet finish. I knew that if Dave could consistently replicate this quality that we had a business. He did and we do!

While our career paths didn't seem to have any logical intersection, we couldn't be happier that they did. Dave was in the Coast Guard when we met and I was heading off to business school. After school I held corporate brand management roles in finance and then food. Who knew we'd land where we have - part of the great adventure of a life well lived.

Thanks for sharing this journey with us - we hope you enjoy using our sea salt as much as we enjoy making it for you.

Warm wishes,

David & Anna Lee