Why French Fleur De Sel Salt Is So Expensive

In just a few hours, these salt crystals will disappear. They are fleur-de-sel crystals, unique to salt marshes like this one in Batsur-Mer, Western France. Cédric has to harvest the fleur-de-sel now, or it will sink to the bottom of the pond, ruining the properties that make it unique. Fleur-de-sel is a salt that dissolves slowly, so its taste lingers in the mouth. That's part of why it sells for 230 times more than table salt domestically, and for up to $420 per kilogram outside French borders. But just about every step of the process to get this salt is difficult. Before harvesting, the wind has to be perfect. And during the harvest, salt producers like Cédric need to be ready to collect the precious salt at any moment, or they won't make a profit. Even if they seize the right moment, the salt has to dry for an entire year before it can be sold. So is it always worth it to produce fleur-de-sel? And why is it so expensive? Cédric is a paludier, what salt harvesters are known as in Bades-sur-Mer. Here, the close proximity to the sea allows salt producers to easily divert water to shallow ponds dug in blue clay. Unlike table salt, which is typically mined from underground, fleur-de-sel comes to the surface of the pond naturally. It's seawater that is slowly evaporating in the summer heat. The paludiers are a passion, a job that you can't do if you don't like the soil you're working on, because you spend a lot of time working on it. You get up very early in the morning, you get up early in the morning, you get up very early in the morning, because you spend a lot of time working on it. Fleur-de-sel literally translates to flower of salt, but there are no flowers in it. Its name is a play on words with the French verb effleurer, which means coming up to the surface So my flower will be all black. And I'm not sure that a black salt flower will please people. Once it forms, the harvest window is very short. Anything like sudden rain or algae stuck in the water system could ruin the salt at any time. This natural harvest method means that the salt has a high moisture content. When a salt crystal is high in moisture, it doesn't contain just water. And inside this crystal, we have moisture. And here we have potassium chloride, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride. To lower the moisture but preserve the nutrients inside the salt crystals, Cedric cannot speed up the drying process. He needs to let it dry slowly for an entire year before it's ready to be sold. This is what sets Fleur de Sel apart from table salt. This is what sets Fleur de Sel apart from table salt, which contains little to no moisture, but also has a high moisture content. This is what sets Fleur de Sel apart from table salt, which contains little to no moisture, but also from other wet salts that are dried naturally but have been harvested differently. Cedric wanted to be even more specific, so he started to classify his salts based on the different winds blowing here. This had never been done before. The predominant winds here blow from the west and northwest. I really like the crunchy side of the salt. The west winds are sea winds, so they are more humid. And when the grain is formed, it is bigger, because the atmospheric pressures are also less strong. While the east winds are the earth winds, they are warmer, sharper, and so the crystal is thinner when it is formed. There will be two different Fleurs de Sel. Here we have Fleur de Sel from the south wind, with the grain very, very thin, extremely thin. And here we have Fleur de Sel from the west wind, with a grain that is bigger, with more cork, a much crunchier side. You see, we won't hear this one when it falls. There will be almost no noise, because it is extremely thin. While this one, with the grain that is bigger, we will hear it when it falls. In France, Cedric's custom salt can sell for over 10 times as much as other types of Fleur de Sel. Abroad, it can reach $420 per kilogram. Fleur de Sel is a niche product, because a lot of people have preconceived ideas about salt. A lot of people say that salt is not good for your health, when it is not the salt that is not good for your health. It is the bad salt that is not good for your health. But people today, if they compare it to industrial salt, it will not be the same price at all, because it is not the same activity at all, it is not the same salt at all. So we can't compare them at all. His most expensive Fleur de Sel is this one, nicknamed Snow. A 100-gram box sells for €23. Cedric created it by studying the salinity levels in the pond, combined with a very rare wind. In other years, we will produce between 200 and 400 kilos, on the whole production. So it's really very small in terms of quantity. It will be about a third more expensive, compared to the rarity of the product. It looks like snowballs. In fact, salt is much more compact. As it is much thinner, when it dries, it will agglomerate, the grains will agglomerate between them. It is much more powerful than tar. And you have a lot more length. There, I'm going to feel the crystal in my mouth, I'm going to have the crunchy side, under the tooth, that I wouldn't have at all with the Fleur de Sel Snow. The snow will melt when we cook, while the west wind will bite under the tooth. Cedric wasn't born into this job. He started harvesting salt as a hobby, with friends, 20 years ago. At the time, he had an office job in Paris. It's a radical change. I have a company in the field of human resources, in the Paris region, and tomorrow morning, you become a farmer. It's a change that is organized, that is anticipated. And this time of preparation, it was also a time of learning. And at some point, you feel ready, you go, and you say, OK, stop. I stop getting on the train, I stay there, and I start harvesting salt seriously. Today, he works with another paludier on 62 salt ponds, and he collaborates with 10 other companies on over 100 ponds. Some paludiers have taught me, step by step, over time. They are people who have given me their know-how. And it's something very, very noble. What's important is that we have a real added value in what we do and the way we do it. Fleur de sel is actually a by-product of another type of salt, coarse salt. Under the fleur de sel, as you can see here, there is coarse salt, which crystallized directly on the clay. In the pond, it's a symphony between the two. You see, I'm giving them water to put a little more water inside. You shouldn't work directly on the clay, otherwise I'm going to take the clay off completely. You shouldn't overload it in terms of volume. If you overload it, the salt won't crystallize. Sivrik can only harvest coarse salt in the morning, before fleur de sel forms, or just after harvesting it, in the late afternoon. These movements are too harsh for fleur de sel and would instantly destroy it. There's a color difference because the coarse salt crystallizes directly on the clay, while the fleur de sel crystallizes on the surface of the water. It won't be directly in contact with the clay. For a paludier, coarse salt takes up most of the time at work, and also most of the harvest. For every 10 kilos of coarse salt, there is only one kilogram of fleur de sel. Still, because of the hand-harvest method, this coarse salt remains seven times as expensive as table salt. But Sivrik didn't want to stop at the winds with his salt. He now plays with moisture to develop new flavors. His most successful creation was this one, smelt salt. Sivrik uses a mix of west and east wind salts that have already dried for one year. The salt smokes for 12 hours. It won't change the texture. The texture will stay the same. It's the moisture that will absorb and then diffuse. Can I say something? It smells like smoke, like wood. There are two smells of smoke. There's the smokey side, with the fleur de sel, because it's the one that's smoked with the fleur de sel, and there's a barrel that's made of fleur de sel that will diffuse the wood smell. It mixes with a lot of things. It will give a smoky side. With meat, it will give a barbecue side. You can put it on a chocolate mousse. You can try it, see what you like, what you don't like. I love it on fresh cheese. Fresh cheese, smoked fleur de sel, just a drizzle of oil. I think it's very, very beautiful. He's now collaborating with chefs to create custom salts. For me, it's... There's a real personal satisfaction. It's a reconnection with your environment. Something that makes sense. It makes sense to be a paludier. Every day, we're going to produce something that will embody itself in reality. And if we do our job well, what we're going to produce will have a good use. And beyond that, it's an ancestral work. We're here to transmit. Today, we're doing it. Tomorrow, it will be someone else. And the day after tomorrow,