Pinchful Salt: Artisan Salts Elevating Every Dish – Exclusive Interview

When Summer hits, I LOVE having a premium salt at the ready. Whether it is to create a salt-rim for a zesty Margarita, seasoning for BBQ meats and fish or to create a delicious dressing for our fresh garden salads. If you are the same, then you have to check out the salt we had in the JOMO Club August monthly box. Plus, not all salt is equal as we learn in this interview with the Pinchful team.

Q: Welcome to the box of the Summer! We are so excited to have you involved. Can we start with an introduction to Pinchful?

Absolutely! We’re a salt company, that cares about your health as much as making your home cooking (and drinks) taste great. Most regular sea, rock and table salts are over 99% sodium chloride, which is the bit that your doctor tells you to keep an eye on or cut out completely. But for anyone who loves food and drink as much as us, we know that cutting down on salt means you also lose out on lots of big flavours that we all love. Our sun-dried, mineral-rich, all-natural sea salt is sourced from the Atacama salt pans in Chile. It’s 30% lower in sodium chloride AND its got a Great Taste award in the regular salt category. So you can keep pinching and enjoying those big flavours, while keeping your heart happy.

Q: Can you tell us about yourself?

My name’s Adam and I’m one of the co-founders of the company. I actually come from a design and brand background, with a studio that specialises in food and hospitality brands. I’ve previously co-founded Wildpress, the nature-supporting apple juice company - so I love building brands with a positive purpose.

Q: Can you tell us why the quality of our salt matters and what exactly the difference is?

Anyone who loves cooking, knows salt is one of the most important ingredients in the kitchen. It brings out flavours you didn’t know were there, builds layers, excitement and harmony in your dishes, and adds those finishing ‘pops’ and ‘crunches’ when used like a garnish. Some salts are bright and zesty (like ours), others are more earthy and savoury, some are fine, some are flaked, and some have more of a gritty texture - so flavour and texture is a factor. When you’re boiling some pasta or spuds, making a sauce or roasting a chicken, these finer details are often lost. So enjoy your delicious fancy salts (as we do!), but for your everyday cooking why not use something that is a bit better for you and your family, but still tastes great.

Q: Can you tell us about the sodium element to salt and why you wanted to tackle this issue? 

So you wouldn’t be crazy to think salt and sodium are the same thing. Other regular cooking salts are 99%+ sodium chloride so they basically are. However in rare cases, a salt can naturally have higher percentage of other minerals. In our case that’s potassium chloride (with traces of calcium, copper and magnesium), which flowed down streams from the Andes and collected in our ancient sea beds. Then over thousands of years these sea beds dried out, leaving fine sodium crystals with potassium at their core. This is what give our salt the bright, zesty flavour without the metallic note and also means it’s micro-plastic free.

Q: What is your favourite way this Summer to enjoy Pinchful and in what setting?

The fine grain are great on a Margarita rim, but honestly just in our everyday cooking at home. Perfect for mid-week meals and weekend get-togethers.

Q: Have you ever used Pinchful for something unique we might not normally think of?

I’ve tinkered with some flavoured salts for cocktail rims. Dehydrated pickle salt for a Bloody Mary was good, or a dehydrated pineapple and jalapeño salt for a Marg or Paloma.

Q: Can you share your perfect Summer’s day?

With my wife and our 9 month old at home near Oxford. Sun shining, maybe a local market trip with a midday pub stop. ‘Picky bits’ for lunch, cricket in the background. The dream.