BURGAW, NC (WWAY) — A woman in our area is transforming ocean waves at Wrightsville Beach into the world’s most fundamental culinary ingredient, salt.

“Well I’m definitely always have been more of a salty than sweet kind of person,” says Sea Love Sea Salt Company Owner Amanda Jacobs.

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Everyone’s taste palate is different, but for Jacobs maybe it was her love for salty food or the salty life that brought her to where she is now.

“A friend of ours was visiting when we first moved to the beach said you guys should really start doing out of your front yard and I said ‘Oh my goodness, I’m totally going to look into that’,” Jacobs said.

She said what started out as an experiment has no turned into her full-time job.

“We moved from having a nine pan backyard greenhouse to a ten by ten greenhouse, to now buying this property,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs has a 6-acre farm in Pender County which is where her solar greenhouse is, she uses it to make salt.

She first wades in the water to collect several five gallon buckets of water, roughly 250 gallons.

Jacobs says, “They test the water on Monday so we try to go after that and go during high tides, but not after it rains.”

She then takes the water to her farm, strains it to remove sand and sediment and covers the pans until it drys.

Jacobs says the process is called solar evaporation. During the winter it will take about 8 weeks until it can be harvested, but warmer weather will cut that time almost in half.

Sea Love Sea Salt Company has several flavors including pure salt, garlic, citrus, truffle, and their newest kind sriracha.

“We have been testing this for three months,” Jacobs says.

She says it was a request just like most of her flavor options.

She tells us restaurants, grocery stores, and people across the state keep the produce flying off the shelves.

“It only makes sense to season all of your local food with local sea salt,” Jacobs said.

The sky is the limit for Jacobs as she wants to take the company even further.

“I want to pair with a chocolatier and do like a salted chocolate bar,” Jacobs said. “We are also working on a cookbook. We are getting bees next month so salted honey is in the future.”

She says you can find Sea Love Sea Salt at Whole Foods in Wilmington, but can order on their website.