For years, sea salt dominated conversations around specialty cooking ingredients. But recently, another category has started attracting attention among chefs, home cooks, and consumers increasingly interested in ingredient sourcing and sustainability: desert salt.
One of the brands helping drive that shift is Oryx Desert Salt, founded by entrepreneur Samantha Skyring. Today, the company’s products are sold internationally and stocked in retailers including Whole Foods Market, but the story behind the brand began far from grocery shelves or commercial kitchens.
It started in the deserts of Southern Africa.
From a Desert Journey to Oryx Desert Salt
In 2000, Skyring completed a seven-day walk through the Namib Desert to the Skeleton Coast. During the journey, two desert oryx crossed directly into her path and stopped in front of her, a moment that later stayed with her strongly enough to inspire the company’s name and symbol.
Skyring later learned that oryx can sometimes survive long periods without drinking water, but they cannot live without access to salt, a detail that stayed with her long after the journey ended.
Years later, during a difficult rebuilding period in her personal life, a colleague introduced her to a remote underground salt aquifer in the Kalahari Desert.
That introduction eventually became the foundation for Oryx Desert Salt.
Skyring launched the company in 2007 from a small wooden structure in her garden while raising a young child on her own. The early years were practical and slow-moving: packing grinders by hand, selling products at local markets, and gradually building relationships with chefs, retailers, and consumers interested in ingredient quality and transparency.
Today, Oryx Desert Salt ships to more than 23 countries and employs more than 45 people.
Inside the Underground Aquifer Behind Oryx Desert Salt
Unlike sea salt, which is produced from evaporated ocean water, Oryx Desert Salt comes from a remote underground brine aquifer beneath the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa.
According to the company, underground rivers flow through ancient Dwyka rock formations estimated to be between 250 and 300 million years old, continuously replenishing the aquifer below. The oversaturated brine is pumped to the surface and naturally crystallizes over the course of one lunar cycle.
The salt pan itself sits approximately 250 kilometers from the nearest town.
For many consumers, the appeal lies not only in the remoteness of the source, but also in the simplicity of the process. Oryx Desert Salt is naturally sun-dried, unrefined, and free from anti-caking agents or additives commonly found in conventional table salt.
Chefs and home cooks often describe it as having a softer flavor and texture that works well across everyday cooking.
Why Ingredient Transparency Matters More Than Ever
Consumer interest in ingredient sourcing has grown significantly over the last decade. More shoppers now want to know where products come from, how they are processed, and whether they align with broader sustainability values.
For Skyring, Oryx Desert Salt was never intended to become an exclusive luxury product. Instead, the company has focused on making desert salt more visible and accessible in everyday kitchens.
That philosophy can also be seen in the company’s refill system.
Rather than treating grinders as disposable kitchen items, Oryx uses long-lasting ceramic grinder mechanisms designed for repeated use. According to the company, each grinder can typically be refilled 20 times or more.
The company estimates that its refill model helped save more than 1.2 million grinder bottles from landfill in 2025 alone.
For many consumers, that practicality has become just as important as the product itself.
The Rise of Desert Salt in Everyday Kitchens
As the company has expanded internationally, Skyring has increasingly positioned Oryx Desert Salt not simply as a brand, but as part of a broader effort to establish desert salt as its own category within the food industry.
That distinction matters.
Oryx Desert Salt is positioned as premium and quality-focused, but the company has consistently avoided framing the product as elitist or inaccessible. Instead, the emphasis remains on everyday cooking, sustainability, and ingredient transparency.
The company also supports organizations connected to conservation and cultural preservation in the Kalahari region, including Project Biome and Transfrontier Parks Destinations.
For Skyring, the long-term goal has remained consistent from the beginning: build a product rooted in source integrity, practical use, and long-term sustainability rather than short-term trends.
What’s Next for Samantha Skyring and Oryx Desert Salt
As consumer interest in sourcing and sustainability continues to grow, desert salt is beginning to move beyond specialty food spaces and into more mainstream kitchens.
Oryx Desert Salt has become one of the brands most closely associated with that shift.
And while the company has grown substantially since its early days of hand-packing grinders in a garden shed, much of the original philosophy remains unchanged: thoughtful sourcing, refillable packaging, and a slower, more grounded approach to building a global food brand.
You can find Oryx Desert Salt grinders and refill boxes at Whole Foods Market stores nationwide across the USA. Designed with long-lasting ceramic grinder heads, each grinder can typically be refilled 20 times or more, supporting a lower-waste and more practical approach to everyday kitchen use.
