History of Cargill Salt
With the ability to sell over 18 million tons annually, Cargill Salt is the world’s largest marketer of salt products.
Cargill began shipping grain down the Mississippi River in the late 1940s, but finding cargo for the return trip proved to be a challenge. In 1955 Ray King, vice president of Cargill’s barge business, made the decision to buy a barge load of Louisiana rock salt as backhaul cargo. Although it took a year to sell that first load, Cargill’s salt business was launched.
The backhaul salt business grew steadily, and by 1960 Cargill management was convinced that rock salt was a good fit for the company and began looking for opportunities to become a salt producer. Cargill acquired mineral rights in Belle Isle, Louisiana, and began construction of a rock salt mine. The first barge of Belle Isle rock salt was loaded in December 1962.
Business grew rapidly, and over the years Cargill acquired a number of other salt production facilities -- rock salt mines, evaporated salt plants and solar salt operations -- in Kansas, New York, Louisiana, California, Oklahoma and Australia. In 1995, Cargill formed a joint venture to construct a solar salt facility in Venezuela. Cargill Salt doubled in size in April 1997 when it acquired the North American assets of Akzo Nobel Salt, Inc.
Today, Cargill Salt operates vacuum evaporated salt production facilities in New York, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Louisiana and California; rock salt mines in New York, Ohio and Louisiana; and solar evaporation facilities in Oklahoma, Utah, California, Venezuela and the Netherlands Antilles. In addition, Cargill Salt operates numerous salt terminals and storage facilities throughout North America.