PRODUCING
SALT SINCE 1969
From supporting the chemical industry, to keeping the roads safe and even producing medical grade salt, we work hard to service a multitude of industries in the UK and beyond.
A BASIC NEED
Without salt we wouldn’t be able to carry out the most basic of bodily functions, preserve food stuff or treat various ailments. As the main dietary resource of sodium it is very much a lifeline for both humans and animals.
HOW IS IT MADE?
From our Warmingham Brinefields in Cheshire, to the purification process, evaporation, drying and grading stages there’s plenty of work that goes into producing the highest quality salt.
THE BRINEFIELDS
Located near our Middlewich production facility, our Warmingham Brinefields contain extensive salt reserves. At a depth of 180m to 500m below the surface, salt deposited over 300 million years ago – when Cheshire was in the tropics – sits in between layers of rock.
The salt is extracted using sustainable solution mining techniques, whereby the salt is converted to brine which is then pumped across to the main salt plant. Many of British Salt’s old production cavities are in use for storing natural gas, providing the UK with gas storage used to help balance gas supplies.
PURIFICATION & EVAPORATION
Once the brine is pumped to the main plant it goes through a multiple stage purification process through a series of settlement tanks and reaction vessels. The purified brine then undergoes a final filtration before being passed into the first of six evaporation vessels.
DRYING, GRADING AND STORAGE
The UV salt is then mixed with hot air inside fluidised dryers. The smallest salt crystals are extracted from the air in the dryers and transferred to the compaction plant. The remaining dried salt is then graded through a series of screens, which separates the salt crystals based on their particle size to form Fine 50, Fine 60 and Tanker Fine and Tanker Coarse products.
The remaining salt crystals are packaged as standard Pure Dried Vacuum (PDV) salt.
COMPACTED PRODUCTS AND PACKAGING
The smallest salt crystals and salt dust are transferred to a compaction plant where the material is compacted into our water softening range or into block salt. Once the product is ready for market, it’s then packaged on site at British Salt’s Middlewich plant.
British Salt’s plant has two high speed packlines.