Achill Island Sea Salt

Achill Island Sea Salt was founded with the ethos of harnessing our local resources to create a sustainable product. We aim for sustainability in all operations, efficient use of renewable and non-renewable resources and to act with a social and moral character. Sustainability is embodied within our company culture. We strive to continuously improve the way in which we operate to ensure that we act as responsible stewards of the environment and the community. Our vision is to develop a long-term sustainable industry on Achill Island and promote the area as a unique food experience destination. We wish to contribute to the local economy by creating long-term employment on the island. There are now two full time family employees working for the business. Both have returned to Achill to further develop Achill Island Sea Salt and create a sustainable livelihood in Mayo.

Achill Island Sea Salt is based in a Gaeltacht region. The Irish language is important to this company, and as advocates of the language we promote our product in a bi-lingual manner through all aspects of the business. Our aim is to preserve and support the development of the Gaeltacht regions by helping the development of sustainable industries through the medium of the Irish language.

Achill Island Sea Salt is currently in the process of opening a new visitor centre at the production facility. The purpose of this will be to educate our customers on our sustainable sea salt production process and to add to Achill Island’s tourism industry. We hope that the opening of our new visitor centre will allow Achill Island Sea Salt to promote the area as a food tourism destination and are working with both local and national tourism boards to aid this process. By allowing our customers to visit our facility, we will ensure that we offer total transparency in all our operations.

Education has been a key aspect of Achill Island Sea Salt’s mission and the company is committed to informing our customers on the health benefits to of using sea salt. We want to encourage consumers to practice home cooking and to use a sea salt to season their food rather than opting for high sodium processed foods. Our recipe section on our website was developed with the intention to inspire our customers to create healthy dishes using Achill Island Sea Salt. We actively engage with our online community to source new healthy and innovative recipes and cooking methods using sea salt.

Achill Island Sea Salt is produced using one ingredient - the ocean. As the issue of single-use plastics becomes more prevalent in our everyday lives and ending up in our oceans, in 2018 the company decided to move away from plastic packaging and become part of the solution, not the problem. While there were many challenges faced by the company in transitioning from plastic such as increased packaging costs, and transportation costs due to the increase weight of the glass. However after in-depth market research revealed that consumers are now seeking plastic free products. It was also important that the product can be easily seen in the package, thus implementing the packaging change was seen as necessary to remain relevant and competitive within the market. The company are also in the process of becoming a Bord Bia certified Origin Green Member. The glass jars are a component of Achill Island Sea Salt’s Origin Green Plan in order to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner. Furthermore, this initiative will allow for the implementation of more sustainable and environmentally friendly production methods at the sea salt production facility.

Our commitment to seeing Achill Island Sea Salt grow has been driven by passion, determination and resilience. Maintaining strong relationships with our customers, suppliers and business partners has been a key aspect for the development of Achill Island Sea Salt and will continue to play an important role for future long-term sustainability of the business.

Case Study published in 2018