Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeanette Philips.
Hi Jeanette, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
It started with us following through with a dream of living near the beach. We love the outdoors, adventure, and water.
Sea Love Sea Salt Co. has been in business since 2015. When it come up for sale in 2021 my wife, Jeanette, and now/business partner jumped on the opportunity. As a couple of foodies and me with a career in purchasing and sales and a love to create things, we had been looking at buying a small business for some time and this was our moment.
When we first learned of solar evaporation to make salt, what struck us was the simplicity and creativity of the process. It requires you to slow down, have patience, and savor what is in front of you. We use sea water we gather from Wrightsville Beach, NC and transport it to our small farm in Burgaw, NC where we do the solar evaporation process in a couple of salt houses that capture as much sunlight and heat as possible. In the summer, the salt houses can exceed over 140 degrees in them. We are able to produce salt year-round. In the summer it takes just a couple of weeks, in the winter up to 6 weeks.
We recommend our sea salt to be a finishing salt. Flaky, larger crystals of salt that you pinch onto your food after you cook it, not while. One trait that makes our sea salt stand out from others is its flavor. Our salt has a very briny flavor to it, so a little goes a long way. We also make a very extensive offering of flavored sea salts. As like finishing salt, pairing another flavor profile to your food just before you eat it is another way to enhance your dish.
You can find Sea Love at many specialty food retail locations, gift shops, restaurants, cocktail bars, breweries, and other makers around the Cape Fear region and a few others throughout the state. We also sell our products online and at Famers and Makers Markets.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We have incredible customers! At just about every market we attend, a customer drops in to tell us what they used their salt on or will pop by with a friend and introduce them to us.
When we purchased the business, one of its struggles had been to make enough salt for the demand. To solve this, we built a second salt house. Between the new salt house and maximizing the down time between harvesting the salt we have been able to fulfill all orders and keep up with demand.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We make solar evaporated sea salt from water off of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. We use the natural process of solar evaporation to make a pure finishing salt. Finishing salts bring out the flavors in a dish. We are known for collaborating with other farmers to make flavored salts. We use local ingredients as much as possible. Our farm is located in Burgaw, North Carolina, and we offer tours of our salt houses and host events. We are also active in the non-profit community, supporting organizations such as the Plastic Ocean Project.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
You can find us at local farmers markets in Wilmington, North Carolina and in the retailers and restaurants listed on the stockist page on our website. We also have an online store and ship to anywhere in the United States. The growth of our company comes from our relationships with chefs, customers, brewers, bakers, and home cooks that use our salt.
Contact Info:
- Website: sealoveseasalt.com
- Instagram: @sealoveseasalt
Image Credits
@mallorybcash
