Overview
- The Observer reported on 15 November 2026 that lorries delivered bulk bags marked K+S to Maldon Salt’s Longwick Farm and that reporters saw multiple loads over two days.
- Reporters say the German rock salt is added in a traditional "salt-on-salt" process that helps form and enrich brine from Blackwater Estuary water before the company flakes the salt.
- Maldon Salt updated its website after being contacted and says its method is longstanding, its products meet food and labelling law, and consumers are not being misled.
- Essex trading standards, the Food Standards Agency and DEFRA inspected the site in November 2019, took samples and concluded no further action was required, and trading standards says there is no legal test to define "sea salt".
- Chemistry experts note that dissolved salts cannot be told apart by origin, local residents want clearer disclosure of inputs, and the reporting could prompt renewed calls for greater transparency or regulatory clarity on provenance and labelling.