Who: Ben Jacobsen
What: Jacobsen Salt
Where: North Oregon Coast
Salt is so basic, elemental, and simple. It's one of the one of the oldest local foods, having been harvested by sea–faring people for thousands of years. You could argue that it is the one cooking ingredient with the strongest sense of place, locality, history and importance. Salt is essential. Ben Jacobsen believes everyone deserves hand-harvested sea salt, so he gathers buckets of brine from the blustery Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon (about 80 miles from Portland) and transforms them into glorious white crystals.
Ben learned to appreciate finishing salts while living in Norway and Copenhagen for several years. Upon returning to the Pacific Northwest he was struck by the burgeoning creativity within the Portland food scene and the collective emphasis on using locally- made produce and ingredients whenever possible. There was something amiss however; no one was making the baseline substance that touched each and every morsel of food. Ben began tinkering with salt by traveling to the nearby coastline, determining the sweet spots for salinity, minerality and taste and testing over 25 different locations. He walked in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, who attempted to harvest salt from the chilly Oregon waters over 200 years ago.
Ben's three year experimentation phase led to the only hand harvested salt company in the Pacific Northwest. He now has too many orders, and his salt claims a diverse group of fans. There are the Michelin Star-rated chefs who use his salt exclusively; the purveyors of chocolate chip cookies (a revelation if you've never tried this standard flavor dusted with sea salt!), ice creams, chocolates, bagels and cocktails; as well as shops specializing in handmade, beautiful goods and home cooks who've come around to quality salts. Ben is now a few weeks away from moving into a production space of over 2,000 feet after working in a crowded cooperative commercial kitchen in downtown Portland for the past year. It's a good problem to have - Ben and his team are working around the clock to keep pace with the demand for his traditionally created, pure salt crystals. For an essential I unabashedly took for granted, it was illuminating and humbling to witness the simplicity of the harvest (buckets of water and the ocean!) and the obsessive, tender care put into each batch.
The process of making salt starts with a once a week visit to a special coastal spot (I accompanied Ben to Netarts Bay) and carrying buckets or hand pumping 275 gallons of sea water into plastic drums (which weigh about 400 pounds), cooking the brine down on six burners in massive pots, and moving the reduced salt water to evaporation pans. After another 12 or so hours, Jacobsen gathers the formed salt crystals with a large mesh spoon, spreads the salt onto drying pans and bags it up. A 4–ounce bag will set you back about $10.
The Test Kitchen
Ben and his small team have been working within a 300 square foot spot at a communal commercial kitchen, KitchenKru, in downtown Portland for the past year. Several other producers use this space to create baked goods, hot sauces, and cured meats. The energy is palpable upon setting your foot in the door; all the small businesses support and push each other to be their very best. It's a very popular place, but Ben's needs have outgrown the square footage. Jacobsen Salt is currently in the process of signing a lease on a workshop closer to the coast where visitors can see the salty brine being cooked down and dried into salt as well as take part in tastings. Perhaps we'll get to tour that space in a few months!
The Secret Sauce
The secret is that there is no secret with Ben Jacobsen's salts. The guy exudes passion, determination, and commitment to this unique niche he's fulfilling within the northwest food scene. His pride of place, love of the ocean, and respect for daily pleasures — to be enjoyed with a sprinkle of real good salt— keep him going despite the long hours and stress of being a small business owner. Ben wears his heart on his sleeve and is relentless in his enthusiasm for quality salt. His flake finishing sea salt has won me over and taken up residence in my daily salt jar. Nothing beats it for minerality, fresh ocean taste, clean mouthfeel and delicate texture.
The Business Plan
Jacobsen Salt hit the ground running with a multipronged strategy. They host tastings at local grocery stores and markets, educate cooks and chefs on the nuances of the product so they know what they're cooking with, and co-host events like the recent Feast kick off party in New York City (Feast is an upcoming Portland food festival). Ben also has a Kickstarter campaign going on now to help fund his new, larger facility. His business goal is to create more jobs on the Oregon coast, streamline production to a more localized space, and meet the demands for his product. And catch up on sleep one day!
The Community
The relationships Ben has formed have been pivotal to his success. He's partnered with an array of local Portland chefs who adore his salt; this means a great deal to Ben. Many Portland artisans season their products with Jacobsen Salt and from there, his customer base and fans begin to see his tell–tale, chic, mint–green labeled bag everywhere. Portland is a city with dedicated eaters and appreciators of the most handmade, sustainably sourced, story-driven foods. (Have you seen Portlandia? The chicken scene is dead on!) We are the perfect city for Ben to have dabbled with an idea in then subsequently informed the culinary landscape with the most critical, baseline taste. Sprinkle by sprinkle, flake by flake.
6 Quick Questions for Ben Jacobsen
Favorite online resources for your kitchen?
Hmm... Honestly, I'm pretty basic when it comes to my kitchen. Farmers' markets, my parent's garden (they have a ton of stuff) for produce and eggs. I love the store Canoe, and they have a bunch of tabletop items. Portland Fruit Tree Project is a brilliant site and organization you can access to figure out where and what to harvest in your area.
The one thing you can't live without?
Good hugs!
If you could spend a day with anyone, who would it be and why?
Anthony Bourdain. How could I not?! Good, real food, great drinks. I can just imagine the stories that guy has.
What's in your Google reader?
• The Kitchn
• NPR Food
• Eater
• Portland Monthly Eat Beat
If you won a million dollars, what would you do with it?
Establish a production facility on the Oregon Coast. Create jobs and help kickstart the coastal economy.
What's your favorite thing to sprinkle salt on?
Keep it simple. Bread and butter. A fresh slice of watermelon. Fried eggs and toast.
Thanks, Ben!
• Visit Ben's Kickstarter Campaign: Jacobsen Salt Kickstarter
• Check out Ben's Site: Jacobsen Salt
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Uhm, isn't there more to it than just boiling down sea water??? Sounds like in addition to getting a bowl full of salt, you're also concentrating down all the impurities and "gunk". Some of it is good and tasty, but i'm sure lots of it is pretty gross.
I will preface by saying that yes, of course, I cook with and eat salt and I know where it comes from. With that out of the way, in that past few years I have been sort of torn about people who make a living purely on natural resources. There are plenty of them and of course it's necessary for them to exist but lately I've been thinking it's kind of weird (for lack of a better word). I used to think of them in the same realm as any other producers but they really don't produce anything. For example - fishermen. They don't feed fish to make them grow. They don't treat a fish if it's injured. Nature produces the fish, for free, and then they catch them and sell them for profit. Same with salt harvesting. It's even different than farmers who grow food and animals who wouldn't exist (at that particular area) if it weren't for their investment. I am not saying I won't eat salt or will go catch my own fish and I know there's value and cost associated with "harvesting" it but I do think they are a very unique set of "producers."
Anyway great story about Jacobson. I am going to go check out his site now.
i don't see this as weird. it's a guy who decided to fill a niche market, and is apparently doing well at it. kudos to him. we are, after all, supposedly a nation of industry. :)
I think it's great he's found a way to do this successfully. That being said, I would have a problem doing the same with water from the Great Salt Lake which is half an hour a way. There are so many chemicals and mercury and things, how would I know what I was selling my clients? And how would I get out all the midge flies and brine shrimp? Ick. I will just keep using my purchased products so I can lie to myself about what I am eating. :)
I love using flavored salts, and I'm pleased that Ben Jacobsen has created a business for himself that fills a consumer need. But I have to say---it's ALL sea salt. The difference is the eon of time in which the other "sea" salt beds were formed. One could easily make the case that mined "sea" salt from ancient salt beds is better because the waters from which it was slowly distilled were not as polluted as the ocean water of today. "Fresh" sea salt is marketing.
Hurrah for Jacobsen Salt! I bought a small bag of his salt a few months ago on a whim and it's now my absolute favorite finishing salt. Besides the fact that this salt is locally harvested and produced, I'm smitten with the product itself. Jacobsen Salt has a fantastic flake and crunch, isn't moist like many other sea salts, and has a beautiful crystalline color. In terms of taste, all I can say is that it tastes pure. Not smoky, not harsh, not flavored in any way besides pure salt. I love this stuff and love it even more now that I know he's trying to expand and create jobs out at the coast. Thanks for this profile!
Sygyzy, all value is produced through human effort, and ultimately, everything made by humans is made out of stuff we didn't "make" ourselves. Let's say you are, hmm, a white-collar worker, and you produce work through your computer. But you didn't built your computer or your software, did you? It's all relative.
I can't be the only one wondering what Sygyzy does for a living, that allows him/her to be so "torn" about people producing a foodstuff for a living.
I'm with Sygyzy on this one.
Its weird. Feels a little like stealing from a nature. I know its not a logical thought, definitely an emotional feeling, but i agree with the previous comment. There's a big difference between having a dairy cow that you care for and from whom you "harvest" milk... vs just going out and literally taking fish out of the water, with no thought to replenishing the fish stocks, etc.
I agree with Sygyzy, my nagging thought at this article was "wow, he's just snagging up sea water without any regulations at all and boiling and selling it." Is there more to it because I didn't see it in the text. But yes it is the same as plucking and (potentially over-) fishing from the sea. Which I find unsettling as well, because fishermen do nothing to serve their source, repay it, grow it, however you want to phrase it. I don't like it. Loggers should plant trees, fishermen should give back to their source, and this entrepreneur should be conscious of the fact that he is "pumping 275 gallons of sea water" out of the sea...no small white bucket carried by hand barefoot. And good lord I hope you skipped something about a filtration process, that's a little gross, debris and pollutants do not boil or strain out.
Kimberlyrose - I don't care what you do for a living that causes you to make comments I don't disagree with, what does that have to do with anything. People can have consciences and emotional reactions without having dedicated their lives to starving children or whatever would satisfy you.
Are we really living in a society where people think subsisting on natural resources with limited processing is considered weird, gross, and theft? I wouldn't buy this salt probably, because I'm cheap, but I find it really surprising that people on here would find this unpleasant. It is sea salt. You gather it form the sea. Whether you have the capital to build an enormous processing plant or you do it by hand, the source and end result are practically the same. If you only want food that has been processed at a large production plant, that is fine for you, but the scorn for someone who would dare to gather bountiful resources on his own and process them without a large-scale operation behind him strikes me as incredibly sad.
Also, he wouldn't be able to make his products commercially available without having his production methods inspected and deemed up to current food safety standards, so at the very least it won't be any worse than other commercially available seasalts.
Also, the argument about a farmer raising a cow being less of a theft than this: it takes over 12,000 gallons to create 1lb of ground beef. Fresh, drinkable water is much scarcer resource than saltwater. Do you think the farmer combines hydrogen and oxygen to make the water? How is his consumption of tens of thousands of gallons of water less bad than this guy's few thousand?
I recrystallise my own salt (I am a chemist, so recrystallisation is second nature; and I live in the mountains so harvesting my own seawater would be awkward) - where I just take regular old table salt, boil it in minimum water and let it crystallise back out of solution. I end up with great flakes and chunks which do make a great difference.
Maybe I could sell this on with a markup?
Holler - you made the argument MUCH BETTER than I did :)