Quality & Safety
We’re here to deliver nature’s best: mineral-rich, flavor benefits, verified purity and safety in every lot, and open transparency in how we ensure it.
Sampling &
Testing Program
Our Salt Is From Nature, Not a Lab.
Our salt is harvested, not manufactured. It’s sun-dried, unrefined and rich in natural minerals and trace elements.
All full spectrum sea salts contain trace amounts of heavy metals. They’re naturally occurring in the earth’s environment. The key is to know how much is in a serving.
Understanding Units: PPB vs. mcg/serving
Lab tests show quantities in parts per billion (PPB). This figure is a ratio, not an absolute number, so it’s not a great way to understand how much exposure you’re getting in a food item. The best way to know is to translate it to micrograms (mcg) per serving.
Safety-Testing
Our testing program is one of the most statistically rigorous in the industry. We test every single lot to ensure that the salt in your package of Celtic Sea Salt® is accurately represented by our testing data. We test for trace mineral and element quantities in all of our sea salts, along with key indicators of purity and product integrity. Every batch is analyzed for:
- Mineral composition: sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium
- Naturally occurring trace elements
- Moisture content
- pH level
- Particle size distribution
- Heavy metals: lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, copper
- Microbiological safety: APC (aerobic plate count), yeast & mold, and coliforms
By also measuring sodium content, we can understand how much our salt is composed of minerals, trace elements, and moisture.
- Table salt is commonly 98%–100% sodium chloride, with up to 39% sodium.
- Our Light Grey Celtic® Sea Salt is often below 31% sodium (≈80% sodium chloride), meaning roughly 20% of every serving is naturally occurring minerals, trace elements, and moisture — the very qualities that give our salt its signature flavor, color, and nutritional character.
This full-spectrum testing ensures every lot of Celtic Sea Salt® reflects the mineral-rich complexity of nature while meeting rigorous safety and quality standards.
We Test Every Lot
We test every single lot – transparency is part of our brand promise. Over the past 12 months, our Light Grey Celtic® and Celtic Fine Ground™ salts averaged approximately 489 PPB in lead content which equates to 0.7mcg per serving.
Let’s Do the Math
A sweet potato may contain a lower ratio of lead per weight than salt, but we eat much larger servings. That’s why a single sweet potato has four times more lead per serving of sea salt.
Lead Per Serving in Common Foods
Here are common foods with more lead per serving (in micrograms) than Celtic Sea Salt (0.6846 mcg) based on the FDA Total Diet Study 2018-2020.
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Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Total Diet Study – Market Baskets
2018–2020 Average Concentration Findings, March 2024. Water data point is from EPA Lead and Copper Rule, 40 CFR §14