--- title: Microplastics Keep Turning Up in Sea Salt. Oryx Desert Salt Is Making the Case for Desert Salt. description: Microplastics Keep Turning Up in Sea Salt. Oryx Desert Salt Is Making the Case for Desert Salt. canonical: https://time.com/branded-content/-partner-name-/microplastics-keep-turning-up-in-sea-salt-oryx-desert-salt-is-making-the-case-for-desert-salt-/ article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-09-04T18:15:59.799Z article:modified_time: 2026-09-02T18:48:44.178Z article:section: Branded Contributor Content og:title: Microplastics Keep Turning Up in Sea Salt. Oryx Desert Salt Is Making the Case for Desert Salt. og:description: Microplastics Keep Turning Up in Sea Salt. 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Oryx Desert Salt Is Making the Case for Desert Salt. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40931cfae2cfa07c/6a986a213b8dfcc41ad04ef3/ChatGPT_Image_Sep_2_2026_02_24_55_PM.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y14.56 ---  # Microplastics Keep Turning Up in Sea Salt. Oryx Desert Salt Is Making the Case for Desert Salt. > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  Image Credit: Oryx Desert Salt Image Credit: Oryx Desert Salt Sea salt has spent decades as the virtuous mainstream supermarket staple in the salt aisle—the natural, minimally processed alternative to industrial table salt. Then researchers started testing it, and the results have been offering shoppers another way to think about the familiar pantry product. A peer-reviewed study examining salt brands from more than a dozen countries found microplastics present in the overwhelming majority of sea salt samples tested, a finding echoed by follow-up research and widely reported by publications including _National Geographic_ and _The Guardian_. The mechanism behind the contamination is straightforward: Salt made by evaporating seawater concentrates whatever is already present in that water, and the modern ocean carries microplastic fragments too small to filter out during processing, along with industrial runoff, agricultural chemicals, and pharmaceutical residue. That finding has pushed a small but growing number of producers, researchers, and everyday consumers toward a question that would have seemed unnecessary a generation ago: whether the sea is still the right place to get salt from. #### **A Category Without a Household Name Yet** Most shoppers can name three kinds of salt without much thought: table salt, sea salt, and the pink Himalayan variety that turned a mineral into a full retail category of its own. A South African company,[ Oryx Desert Salt](https://oryxdesertsalt.com/), has spent the past fifteen years making the case for a fourth option, one defined by geography rather than color or availability. Beneath the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa sits an underground salt deposit estimated at 55 million tons, fed by ancient subterranean streams running through Dwyka rock formations roughly 280 million years old. The nearest town sits 175 miles away. Brine is drawn to the surface and left to crystallize in the open air over roughly four weeks in the summer harvest season, dried by the extreme African sun rather than processed industrially in ovens, with nothing bleached and no artificial additives or preservatives. Microplastics travel through air, road dust, and clothing fiber, which can make it difficult for producers to guarantee that a product remains entirely untouched from the desert to a warehouse shelf. What the company can point to is the starting point itself, a location with essentially no industrial or agricultural activity for well over a hundred miles in any direction. The concern extends past the salt crystal itself. Most salt grinders on the market use a plastic grinding mechanism, which means plastic is ground directly into food with every twist as it wears away. Oryx Desert Salt uses a ceramic mechanism instead, designed to be refilled rather than thrown away once empty.  Image Credit: Oryx Desert Salt #### **From the Dining Table to National Retail Shelves** The company’s founder,[ Samantha Skyring](https://www.instagram.com/samantha.skyring/), started Oryx Desert Salt in 2011 as a self-funded venture. She sold her house in Johannesburg and used the proceeds to buy 34 tons of Kalahari salt, roughly the weight of eleven elephants, packing the first grinders by hand on her dining table. There was no investor deck and no marketing budget behind the launch, just farmers markets and a handful of independent delis, health shops, and restaurant tables. In 2013, a partnership was formed, along with 12 years of mentorship and investment from Evolve Capital. When the pandemic hit in 2020, 60 percent of the company’s revenue disappeared within weeks. Skyring’s response was to narrow her focus rather than diversify, putting most of her energy into one goal: getting Oryx Desert Salt in front of the Whole Foods Market category buyer. That persistence led to a national listing at Whole Foods Market in September 2021. Since then, the brand has expanded into more than 23 countries. It now supplies Whole Foods Market locations, alongside placement in World Market stores. In 2024, Skyring was named South Africa’s Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year. According to the company, it now employs around 35 people (mostly women) and donates a percentage of every sale to the ǂKhomani San and Mier communities near its source, as well as to a regenerative land initiative called Project Biome. #### **A Shift Reaching Beyond Marketing** The growing visibility of desert salt as a distinct category tracks with a wider pattern in how consumers evaluate packaged food. Salt, treated for decades as an interchangeable commodity, is beginning to face the scrutiny long applied to olive oil and coffee, and Samantha Skyring has built much of her company’s public messaging around encouraging that scrutiny rather than avoiding it. The scrutiny is also reaching researchers and regulators, not just marketers looking for an angle. Studies conducted since the original 2018 findings have continued to detect microplastics across a wide range of sea salt brands sold globally, and an EcoWatch summary republished by the World Economic Forum reported widespread microplastic contamination in salt samples from 21 countries.  Image Credit: Oryx Desert Salt #### **What Comes Next for the Category?** For now, desert salt has emerged as one option for addressing a fairly specific concern: an ingredient category built around geographic origin and sourcing transparency, inside a food industry that has traditionally marketed salt around price, texture, and taste rather than provenance. As more shoppers start asking where their sea salt actually comes from, that origin story is becoming part of the pitch itself, not an afterthought. The[ Oryx Desert Salt grinders and refill boxes](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ORYX&i=wholefoods) are available through Amazon’s Whole Foods storefront for anyone who wants to compare the product against what is already in their pantry. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/branded-content/-partner-name-/microplastics-keep-turning-up-in-sea-salt-oryx-desert-salt-is-making-the-case-for-desert-salt-/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/branded-content/-partner-name-/microplastics-keep-turning-up-in-sea-salt-oryx-desert-salt-is-making-the-case-for-desert-salt-/"},"headline":"Microplastics Keep Turning Up in Sea Salt. Oryx Desert Salt Is Making the Case for Desert Salt.","datePublished":"2026-09-04T18:15:59.799Z","dateModified":"2026-09-02T18:48:44.178Z","description":"Microplastics Keep Turning Up in Sea Salt. 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