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Cervia sweet salt

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Discovering White Gold

A Slow Food Presidium since 2004, Cervia salt is now used in cooking and cosmetics

Cervia has, over the centuries, centred its socio-economic development
on the production of its precious salt.

Where is Cervia salt produced?

The precious white gold is produced in the 827-hectare Cervia Salt Works, 1,600 metres from the sea.

The average composition of the product in the 1 kg package is as follows:

sodium chloride g. 97.5
humidity g. 2.0
sulphates mg. 250,0
calcium mg. 60,0
magnesium mg. 60,0
potassium mg. 40,0
strontium mg. 3,0
manganese mg. 0.2
zinc mg. 0.15
fluorides mg. 0.15
lithium mg. 0.03
copper mg. 0.03

The Salina Nature Reserve represents the southern gateway to the Po Delta Regional Park.
An environment of extraordinary beauty and charm, populated by rare species such as pink flamingos, black-winged stilts, avocets and dozens of other protected species. An excellent starting point for nature lovers and birdwatchers.

Do you know why Cervia salt is sweet?

Cervia salt is recognised as a special, 'sweet' salt due to the purity of its sodium chloride and the absence of other, more bitter salts normally contained in seawater.

Thanks to its unique peculiarities linked to its location, microclimate, the characteristics of the water of the Adriatic Sea, the historical method of salt harvesting known as 'multi-harvesting' and the method still in use today known as 'by differentiated basins', thanks to the combined action of the sun and wind, the numerous salts of seawater are separated to obtain sodium chloride as pure as possible and become Cervia's Sweet Salt.

Various types of Salt

Salt of Cervia

Sea salt collected and packaged according to the traditional method.

Simply washed and centrifuged, it retains all the richness of the trace elements present in seawater.

The natural moisture content (2%) is typical of whole sea salt.

Cervia salt with herbs

Sea salt with herbs from Romagna, organically grown and skilfully dosed.

Sweet salt from the Camillone saltworks

Produced according to the traditional thousand-year-old method,
so-called multiple collection, with daily 'caving' of salt from the basins.

Salfiore Salt

The most prized variety of Cervia salt. It is a medium-fine salt that is often also called 'salt of the Pope' because since ancient times, and the tradition continues to this day, the first harvest is brought as a gift to the Holy Father.

Cervia Salt enhances
other gastronomic excellences

Sweet Salt Cheeses from Cervia

Sale dolce - ricotta - Ph. Pixabay

Traditional cheese is combined with the sweetness of Cervia salt. Creaminess and flavour are exalted in products such as: squacquerone di Romagna DOP, Casatella fresh cheese and soft and for lovers of a freshly matured product, the Caciotta with Sweet Salt.
A harmony of delicate flavours, fresh to the taste and with a sweet aftertaste on the palate.

Sweet Salt Chocolate

Tavoletta al Sale Dolce di Cervia - Ph. Cioccolateria Gardini

For dessert lovers, there is no missing several sweet treats at Sweet Salt of Cervia.
From Acervi, pyramid-shaped chocolate biscuits with Cervia salt inside, to salted caramel and not to forget the Sweet Salt chocolate bars.
Products that bring out two completely opposite flavours, the savouriness of salt enriching the taste of chocolate.

How Cervia Salt is collected

Salina, special salt harvest

The cavadura phase

Cavadura is the collection of salt.
Sea water is let in through the tributary canal, which is located in Milano Marittima, at the height of the first crossbar and is circulated in the canals that run through the entire Cervia area. From passage to passage, the sea water is allowed to drain away, and, through the action of the wind and sun, evaporate and concentrate to the point where salt is formed.
When harvested, the salt is wet and very heavy. Its typical colour, pink, comes from the presence in the salt ponds of dunaliella algae, rich in lycopene and beta-carotene. The water reaches the basins through a kilometre-long network of channels. Seawater enters the salt works through a system of sluice gates and sluice gates from the canal in the centre of Milano Marittima. While from the canal that runs along the shaft of the canal port, next to the Salt Warehouses, where salt was once stored, and to the San Michele tower, which watched over the precious white gold, the waters of the salt pans come out. This is why it is called an emissary canal.

Processing steps

The special feature of this product is that it is a whole salt, i.e. a salt that has only undergone physical and mechanical processing:

sorting
washing with water of high saline concentration
water separation to a maximum moisture content of 2%.

The salt produced in the salt pans is a fine quality raw salt, in fact its properties remain intact as it receives neither additives nor correctives.

The type of processing it undergoes maintains the natural characteristics of its marine origin.

This care and attention to the product has made Cervia Salt the best out of a sample of salts marketed nationwide.

A very ancient history

The origin of the Cervia salt pans is very ancient, most probably Greek.
Salt, called 'white gold' was once of symbolic value as a product that was used as currency (hence the term 'salarium'), for food preservation and for various types of processing (leather, glass, ceramics).

The origins of Cervia's salt pans are lost in antiquity, some linking them to the Etruscan presence, others to Greek colonisation, citing, in support of this thesis, Cervia's old toponym, Ficocle, of certain Greek origin. What is certain, however, is that already in Roman times, salt production in these areas was flourishing and a source of rich trade. In the Middle Ages, Cervia's salt was fundamental to the economy of the whole of Romagna, the Marca Anconitana and parts of Lombardy. And it continued to occupy, little by little, ever larger basins. The growth of the basins is such that, in 1698, the ancient town of Cervia, by then undermined by the waters, had to be 'dismantled' and rebuilt from scratch two kilometres away. More recently, another key date in the history of the salt pans is 1950. That year, the ownership of the salt pans passed to the State Monopolies and, at the same time, the management decided to transform the approximately two hundred salt pans, with multiple harvesting, into a single large body of water, where harvesting could be carried out only once and with mechanical means, according to the so-called 'French' method. With the handover, the 827 hectares of the Cervia salt pans were entrusted to the management of the Parco della Salina di Cervia company.

The management company still maintains a basin where salt is harvested according to the old artisanal system: the Camillone salt works.
Harvesting used to take place every day: the salt farmer would divide his basin, the latter in turn being divided into five small sections, obtaining the salt after several evaporation steps.
Every day he would collect the contents of one sector and, in five days, he would exhaust all the salt. This prevented the formation of the more 'bitter' salts that take longer to crystallise. This is the reason for the excellent quality of Cervia salt, which is sweeter and ideal for salting cheeses and cured meats.

One of the most delicious dishes is the salt chocolate, a true culinary delicacy.

A salt with superior characteristics, because it is obtained from mother water that never exceeds 28.5 degrees Baumé (a measure of the salt density of water).

The company Parco della Salina di Cervia Srl manages the plant, produces, distributes and takes care of the sale of salt-pan products, wines from the Poderi delle Saline, pinewood honey and hand-printed cloths made according to ancient techniques.

Today, the resumption of its production makes it possible to valorise it as a typical and traditional good and to rediscover its food use.

Why give Cervia salt as a gift?

Giving salt has an auspicious meaning. It means wishing luck and prosperity.

The ancient Romans offered it to guests as a sign of friendship and used it to pay soldiers' wages.
Words like 'salary' and 'health' are in fact derived from the word 'salt'.