GROUPE SALINS

The Salins Group is the European leader in consumer salt products. It has obtained the Origine France Garantie label for its products for agriculture - animal licking stones from the Sodi brand - and water treatment - salts for water softeners from the Aqua, Résimax and Aquaswim brands).

History. The Salins Group has been perpetuating the ancestral know-how of salt workers since 1856. Salt is obtained naturally by extraction from the subsoil or seawater. Salins is the only European group to implement the three existing production technologies: solar salt, thermal and mining.

Brine, generally of marine origin, is concentrated by evaporation under the influence of the sun and wind in salt marshes.

Pumped into the sea, the water circulates either by simple gravity or by means of pumps, successively crossing developed ponds. It travels a long way before arriving, in the form of saturated brine, thanks to the effect of natural evaporation (sun and wind), at the salt tables on which the salt crystallizes and settles.

The underground salt deposits, formed by the deposition of ancient seas, are dissolved by injection of fresh water. The brine (highly concentrated salt water) thus obtained is brought to the surface to be evaporated under vacuum in large evaporators, at the bottom of which the salt crystallizes.

The so-called "rock salt" is extracted from underground salt mines in the form of blocks. The origin of these mines goes back thousands of years, when oceans evaporated, creating layers of salt that can be several metres thick.

The products. The Salins Group can supply salt in all its forms, raw or processed, and for all applications: food, agriculture, chemistry, snow removal, water treatment and other industrial activities.

Employment. 1,500 employees. Its main production sites are based in the Camargue in Aigues-Mortes for sea salt (possibility to visit the salt from March to November), Varangeville for mine salt and refined salt, Dax for refined salt and Batz-sur-mer for grey sea salt.