Traditionally, British cuisine, and above all, English cuisine, enjoys a well-deserved "international unprestige." But top Spanish chefs have brought Maldon Crystal's product to a wider public

Traditionally, British cuisine, and above all, English cuisine, enjoys a well-deserved "international unprestige." The term was coined by the recently deceased Spanish poet Ángel González, but also forms part of popular belief. This stereotype stands in stark contrast with the way that the creativity of Spain's great chefs has led their country's cuisine to reach unprecedented levels of culinary fame in recent times.

However, there is a cord binding these Spanish superstars and British gastronomy. Big names in Spanish cooking, starting with the most famous of them all, Ferran Adrià, are speaking wonders about Maldon Crystal Salt, a company based in Essex, east of London near the mouth of the River Thames.

Maldon Crystal Salt is a small family-run British company, in its fourth generation. The company earns EUR 10 million a year with only two products, having started to sell organic peppercorns last December. They produce their salt using a traditional craftsman's technique that dates back to 1882: the harvesting of exquisite crystals that are only obtained when the climate conditions allow a thin layer of flat crystallised salt to be deposited on top of salt water.

"Crystallised salt adds a very special flavour," says Adrià, who uses the ingredient in many of his recipes... and at no small cost: a 250 gram bag costs EUR 6.

Clive Osborne has been at the head of Maldon Salt since 1998. Together he works with his wife and children, accounting for much of a surprisingly small 14-person team. Osborne is not a typical businessman, and neither is his company. "We export 70 percent of what we produce. But we have never spent money on promotion, nor have we looked for international distributors. The internationalisation of the product simply happened," he admits.

Affable, fun and with the look of a merchant you can trust, Osborne puts his head in his hands when you ask him whether he would hire executives for the company, as has been done by some of the bigger, family-owned Spanish businesses.

"No way. We don't want executives. It may sound strange, but we are more like craftsmen than businessmen, and we want to keep being very much a family-run business," he says.

The traditional way Maldon Salt is made, and its dependence on certain meteorological conditions for production, has served to spice up interest in this kitchen staple. And the demand is there. The Michelin Guide chefs have spread the name around the world, and Spain is not an exception: Adrià, or the popular TV chef and personality Karlos Arguiñano have been, among others, the ambassadors that have brought the product into the public eye. Spain is second-highest on the list of countries that import the English brand: 600,000 250-gram bags per year through its distributor Guzmán Gastronomía.

"It's funny: at the beginning we couldn't sell all the stock we imported. With the star chefs using it on TV, that doesn't happen anymore," explains Guillem Guerrero of Guzmán Gastronomía.

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