The Journey of Natural Salt: From Mined to Refined
When you sprinkle salt on sidewalks or refill your water softener, you may wonder: how did these salt minerals make it here? In this blog, Gunther Salt Company shares how natural salt deposits undergo a salt refining process and make their way into your hands.
Extraction
Our rock salt products begin their journey deep in the salt mines of Louisiana. The seas that once covered the area evaporated millennia ago, leaving vast crystalline deposits behind. These deposits have since formed the 128 known salt domes in the state.
Today, these domes are utilized to harvest rock salt. Miners typically utilize a “room and pillar method” where "rooms" of salt are removed via drilling and controlled blasting — leaving "pillars" of unmined material to support the dome’s structure. Once the salt minerals are freed, each portion is taken to the surface for processing.
For our solar salt products, extraction takes place hundreds of miles away in Utah. There, brine from the Great Salt Lake is funneled into shallow, divided pools. Over time, the water evaporates — revealing natural salt crystals. These crystals are then harvested by machinery, washed, and dried to remove impurities.
Processing
After harvesting, the salt is then passed through screens to sort it by size, creating different grades for various uses. Coarse and medium salt is sold primarily for water softening and, for customers located nearby, ice melting. Fine solar salt is sold for use in feed-mixing and saltwater swimming pools.
Transportation
After being separated into size-appropriate bins, bulk solar salt orders from Utah are shipped off to distributors via trucks or railcars. Manufacturers take measures to protect cargo from moisture and contamination during transit, utilizing protective linings in the railcars.
Louisiana rock salt and imported natural salt products follow similar paths. Imports are shipped across the sea and transloaded into barges at the port of New Orleans. There, both international and Louisiana-based products are loaded onto barges that head up the Mississippi River.
Once barges and railcars arrive at the St. Louis terminals, salt is loaded onto trucks and taken to bulk storage a short distance away.
Packaging & Distribution
Gunther Salt Company stores all salt minerals in three salt domes and a bulk storage building at our 15-acre facility in St. Louis. There, we package rock salt, solar salt, and feed-mixing salt via one of our three packaging lines.
Our bulk or packaged products are delivered within 400 miles of our facility — including those in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee, and a few other states. However, customer pickups are always welcome.
All deliveries are expedited within 1-5 business days and delivered within each client’s requested date and time frame. At Gunther Salt, short lead times for delivery are always a priority.
Ordering Natural Salt Products
Each Gunther Salt product is the result of a meticulous collaboration between natural salt producers and our team. Though the salt refining process is somewhat extensive, we pledge to always deliver our salt products in a timely manner and maintain a consistent inventory throughout the year.
You can count on us to fulfill your salt needs. For more information on our products and processes, contact Gunther Salt Company at 314-241-7075 or sales@gunthersalt.com.
