A drive through Western Anatolia will delight you with beautiful sights: green or yellow cat eyes staring at you while they walk on the heavy stonewalls, the spots of pine green trees and dry grass growing on the light brown earth, the boats floating in the turquoise water of the Aegean Sea. Within these fields of trees lie the grids of sea water ponds which produce salt, one of the most precious minerals that enabled us to thrive.

Salt is probably one of the most important and least appreciated minerals that humans interact with everyday. It is essential to our health that we consume salt, it prevents countless accidents on the cold and icy highways in winter and it tastes undeniably delicious on our morning boiled eggs and fresh tomatoes. In fact, salt is considered one of the most indispensable materials of the chemical industry. Other industries that require salt include petroleum and additives, glass, paper, rubber, textiles, dyes and waste and water treatment. This means that not one camera could have ever been invented without salt!

Solar or sea salt production is the oldest and least expensive technology available and it needs specific weather conditions to work. Where the evaporation rate exceeds the precipitation rate – or dry and warm places like the Mediterranean – the sun and wind will evaporate the water on shallow sea water ponds, producing a concentrated brine. The brine is then placed in a crystallizing pond, where the salt begins to crystallize. Once the salt crust has been formed, the excess water is eliminated to finally extract the raw salt. The rocks of raw salt are then taken to a processing plant, where they are washed, dried, milled, dosed, sized and packed, all according to the recipe each plant has developed.