When Londoner Alice Laing first visited her husband’s parents in their hometown on the east coast of Tasmania, she was blown away by the beauty of the Apple Isle’s coastline.
However, despite the state’s pristine seas and reputation for produce perfection, when the family sat down to eat, Alice was flabbergasted to see that her in-laws were using sea salt from England to season their meal.
“It seemed totally crazy!” she remembers. “Here, we were surrounded by some of the cleanest and most nutrient rich waters in the world, and we were using imported sea salt. That was when the idea for our business took root.”
It has been six years since that meal and in that time, a lot has happened. Alice and her husband Chris Manson have relocated to Tasmania, and have launched their company, Tasman Sea Salt — a business with sustainability and environmentally friendly processes at its core.
“We started from scratch,” explains Alice of their signature sea salt flakes and uniquely Tasmanian salt mixes.
“It was a real leap of faith. I come from a food and hospitality background and was always passionate about the industry. Tasmania has a reputation as a clean, pure, untouched environment - that really spoke to us. Because Chris and I always wanted our own business, we really believed this could work.”
Within six months of their first sale of locally-harvested sea salt, sales were twice as big as originally projected. In a state famous for its ever-growing reputation as the produce capital of Australia, Tasman Sea Salt was a standout product.
With solid legs underneath them, the company started exporting in earnest three years ago; to the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Vietnam. But when COVID-19 hit, exporting challenges naturally emerged, so Alice and Chris looked into developing their presence online, encouraged by their ever-increasing online sales over the past 12 months. Teaming up with Amazon Australia was a given.
“Amazon Australia is an amazing opportunity to meet and engage with a much wider audience, and directly get our brand in front of their customer base,” explains Alice. “Amazon Australia has grown so significantly in the last year, we cannot wait to go live with them over the next few weeks.”
Because an item like sea salt — even one as vibrant and unique as Tasman Sea Salt — is a staple pantry product, selling via Amazon.com.au makes a lot of sense for Alice and Chris.
Tasman Sea Salt will be hitting the ground running as part of Amazon Australia’s Launchpad program, joining an impressive lineup of innovative small businesses looking to accelerate their online journey.
“E-commerce is the way of the future, and getting on this bandwagon now, working closely with Amazon Australia, is the perfect time.”
Finally, with border closures and hotel quarantine quotas still a mainstay, Alice is encouraged that, should the world not be able to travel to Tasmania, our meals should, at the very least, be enhanced by the very best the island has to offer; pure, artisanal sea salt.
Tasman Sea Salt is one of the small local businesses featured on the Shop Tasmanian store: www.amazon.com.au/tasmania
