It starts a few hundred feet beneath the ground in Malden, West Virginia, 345 to be exact.

This is where J.Q. Dickinson Salt Works drills for their ancient ocean brine resulting in a salt like nothing else on the market. Co-owner Nancy Bruns along with her brother Lewis are seventh generation descendants of the original Dickinson family who first drilled for the same water source in 1817. In 2013, Nancy decided it was time to revive the tradition and bring salt making back to land.

I asked Nancy about how the coal industry often dominates national headlines about West Virginia. "We have a lot of opportunities here, beautiful land and hard working people. We just need to shift the dialogue. At some point you have to say ok, we’re not going to wait for it to come back and move on.” You can find their salt being used by Thomas Keller at The French Laundry to Sean Brock's Husk.

After being pumped into external drums, the brine is pumped into sunhouses to evaporate by the sun. Temperatures reach up to 150° F dictating work here to be completed before noon.

J.Q. Dickinson Salt Works co-owner Nancy Bruns. “This brought together my love of food and my family heritage into a new industry."

Sam Stone preparing the pump that transfers the brine from the initial sunhouse to the Grainary where the crystallization takes place. "It can go from from being pumped out of the ground to someone’s dinner table in just a few weeks."

Fresh brine pumped into a waiting bed.

Raymond Weggman lifts up the tarp lining to transfer brine to the Grainary.

Raymond has only worked here for a few months but loves it so far. "Growing up in this area, a lot of people around here don’t have jobs, finding something that’s good, that’s stable, and has opportunity to grow is rare.”

The crystals will be sorted into three different sizes, cleaned, and packaged to be shipped around the world.

I asked Raymond about how his eating habits have changed since working here. "Because of the mineral content, it has so much more in it. If I’m at the house I’m not going to use regular salt…I don’t even think we have it honestly."

"I was watching chefs wanting to source as locally as possible and understand how their food was being made and treated. That’s why I felt we had a market for doing it the way we’re doing it” - Nancy Bruns

Sam cleans each batch of salt with tweezers. Each batch is double checked before packaging. "Working here has made me realize that it’s enjoyable to put time into food opposed to just running through somewhere and picking up food.”