How 800 Million Pounds of Himalayan Salt Are Mined Each Year | Big Business

himalayan salt doesn't actually come from the himalayas it's mined 186 miles away in pakistan thanks to its pink hue and supposed health benefits the salt has exploded in popularity since the late 2000s today it's turned into lamps statues and of course table salt but extracting the coveted salt means descending into dark caves then blasting and carrying heavy rock i don't have we went inside the mine turning this mountain into 400 000 tons of pink salt each year the kayode salt mine here in the punjab region of pakistan is the second largest salt mine in the world the pink salt comes from remnants of ancient seabeds that crystallized 600 million years ago legend has it it was actually alexander the great's horse that first discovered these salt rocks when it stopped to take a lick then under british rule salt mining ramped up in the 1870s today it's a popular tourist destination and a working mine producing the majority of the world's pink salt all the mining starts here at the train station this train takes miners deep into the mountain here tunnels stretch for 25 miles and it's always 64 degrees fahrenheit 300 miners work these dark chambers they've used many of the same mining tools for over a century foreign only half of the mountain salt is actually mined the rest is used for structural support so the chambers don't collapse tractors haul the mine salt out of the mountain each day miners excavate over a thousand tons of salt or about the weight of 157 elephants outside they search for blocks with the best shape and coloring to send to manufacturers once picked the blocks are loaded up on trucks either by hand or crane and sent across pakistan historically pakistan couldn't process this raw pink salt so much of it was exported to india cheaply india would treat the salt label it as made in india and sell it at a premium pakistan saw little of the profits npr reported that a ton of salt sold to india for 40 could fetch 300 in europe in 2019 a social media campaign calling for the end of salt exports to india went viral that same year the pakistani government banned all assault exports to india the goal returning the profits to pakistan 23 percent but some pakistani salt exporters suffered they didn't speak english and couldn't meet europe's tough import standards only about a dozen exporters saw an opportunity to sell products under pakistani labels directly to europe muhammad was one of them every month he purchases 300 tons of salt from the mine for his company himalayan decor international [Music] most of the work is done by hand but drills and saws have sped up the process in recent years over in karachi rm salt pakistan 12 to 15 kg ranges basically blocks are fed into the grinder and broken down into smaller grains workers bag and weigh a thousand of these pouches of pink salt every hour like mohammed's factory rm salt also makes lamps and other specialty products after the raw material we get we convert it with a different shape as per our order like you can see in the cutting machine he is cutting different sizes on this saw water prevents dust from flying up but on the grinders it's not possible which is why muhammad's staff wore masks even before the pandemic over at rm salt as you can see this facility we have installed a vacuum through which we can absorb the dust this is the order of usa one of our clients we are making these goods for them the moon shape and the hardship as well double drill washing processes the lamps are then coated with the gel to prevent humidity from interacting with the salt and then they're shrink wrapped arm salt ships 30 containers of products every month muhammad exports about 80 of his products primarily to western countries like the us uk and spain where demand has spiked in the last decade because of the alleged health benefits however it's such a very small percentage of the salt it makes up these minerals you are highly unlikely to get any real benefit or any trace of them in your regular serving of salt itself but nutritionally it's pretty much similar to regular salt it's also pretty similar tasting to sea salt but others claim himalayan salt has healing powers whether inhaled used in spa treatments or in lamp form there's a lot of different homeopathic remedies that can seem very very appealing but actually they're not grounded in evidence and it's these false health claims that have driven the price up himalayan salt can cost up to 20 times the price of normal table salt normally your price is but that money doesn't always make it back to the miners they take home less than 1 500 rupees a day not much more than the cost of this bag of himalayan sea salt at walmart and those salaries have stayed the same even though pakistan has severed its salty relationship with india and the pink salt is seeing growing luckily the mountain won't run out of salt anytime soon it's estimated only about 220 million tons of salt have been excavated here nothing compared to the nearly 6.7 billion tons left i

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 5,977,656

Rating: 4.7646866 out of 5

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, himalyan salt, salt mines, pakistan, salt lamps, salt mining

Id: h23rF0xrhTE

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Pleasant_Jim]

Lol Just watched this and was about to submit it.

[u/GeneralZiaulHaq]

Himalayan salt

Northern Punjab

[u/[deleted]]

I pretty much just add this to my food now instead of other salt. Gotta support those Pakistani exports haha

[u/dankmeee]

It says they aren't able to meet the demands of Europe and America because of language barrier. Why don't Pakistani diaspora see this as an opportunity and become super stockist or something?

[u/darth_budha]

OSHA people would have a heart attack watching this video.

[u/badbooster]

It’s sad that you can’t call it Pak Salt, else it would effect the sale.

[u/chairnmammeow]

lol at all the butthurt Indians in the comment section of that video.

[u/TeraFirangiBaap]

I've got a bottle of this Himalayan salt in my kitchen. Doesn't stay India anywhere on the label since its labelled as Product of Pakistan.

This is like Seattle Sourdough bread being made in Portland, OR haha