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Food & Home Entertaining

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EATING LOCALLY<br />

n the little town of<br />

Velddrif, you’ll find an<br />

enterprise that’s taking<br />

South African salt production<br />

to a new level. Solar, handharvested<br />

sea salt is an<br />

environmentally friendly<br />

product with a low carbon<br />

footprint. And it’s a whole lot<br />

healthier than the insipid, iodised<br />

salt that comes out of most shakers.<br />

Khoisan Trading Company was<br />

founded by husband-and-wife team,<br />

Yntze and Joan Schrauwen, who<br />

settled on the Berg River in 1991 and<br />

were looking to set up an exciting<br />

enterprise in their new home. Yntze<br />

became interested in producing salt<br />

in the ideal conditions found on this<br />

stretch of coast. He sourced investors<br />

and established the Velddrif Salt Works<br />

on a nearby farm. Yntze began<br />

pumping sea water from an aquifer (an<br />

underground layer of permeable waterbearing<br />

rock) into drying pans and was<br />

soon producing high-quality salt.<br />

In 1994, Yntze and Joan started<br />

Khoisan, a separate trading company<br />

that would diversify the product and<br />

sell it to a range of outlets. They built<br />

smaller pans for the hand-harvesting<br />

of unreined, unwashed, non-iodised<br />

salt. This unprocessed salt retains its<br />

natural minerals and trace elements,<br />

and doesn’t contain artiicial additives<br />

or anticaking agents.<br />

The little business has gone from<br />

strength to strength, becoming an<br />

important employer in Velddrif. The<br />

Schrauwen’s daughter, Britt Geach,<br />

is the creative director of Khoisan.<br />

I met her at their factory and shop in<br />

Velddrif. A tall blonde with a Khoisan<br />

cap perched on a head of unruly hair,<br />

she was all-welcoming, exuding warmth<br />

and enthusiasm for the family business.<br />

Britt showed me some of the products,<br />

ranging from bath salts and gardeners’<br />

gold dust (gypsum) to soap and body<br />

cleanser. But, pride of place went to the<br />

various edible salts, ranging in lavours<br />

from tomato-and-olive to spicy-grill.<br />

“Sea salt has become the fashionable<br />

thing in the gourmet-chic world,” said Britt.<br />

“It’s a key ingredient used by top chefs,<br />

often dusted over a dish at the last minute<br />

to give diners the pleasure of the slight<br />

crackle and then the delicious melting.”<br />

I placed a few grains on my tongue.<br />

There was a distinct mineral taste and<br />

a roundness of lavour. The crystals<br />

prickled my tongue, then dissolved<br />

28 JUNE 2016

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