Björn Steinar Of Saltverk: Building One Of The World’s Most Unique Food Brands
Salt is one of the oldest ingredients in the world, yet the right process, story, and sense of place can make it feel completely new. How do you turn something so familiar into a brand people remember, seek out, and share?
For Björn Steinar Jónsson, the key lies in staying close to the source and letting the product’s origin shape every decision. Drawing from his experience as an Icelandic engineer and entrepreneur, he explains how Saltverk revived a centuries-old method by evaporating pristine Arctic seawater with geothermal energy, then built on that foundation with hand-harvested crystals, local botanicals, and full production transparency. His approach shows that a distinctive food brand is not created by adding more, but by protecting quality, craftsmanship, and a story customers can experience in the product.
On this episode of the Firebelly Social Show, Duncan Alney talks with Björn Steinar Jónsson, Founder and CEO of Saltverk, about building a globally distinctive food brand rooted in Icelandic tradition. They explore reviving geothermal saltmaking, protecting craftsmanship while scaling, and turning origin and transparency into brand strength. Björn also shares advice on trusting your instincts and leading through uncertainty.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [2:53] How Iceland’s geothermal energy and saltmaking history inspired the creation of Saltverk
- [7:00] Björn Steinar Jónsson on building the brand around Icelandic ingredients and identity
- [11:17] What full transparency looks like inside Saltverk’s open production facility
- [13:52] Björn’s plans to scale without industrializing production or compromising quality
- [15:49] How sampling and customer conversations create powerful word-of-mouth growth
- [18:18] Björn on positioning Saltverk as premium but accessible
- [29:28] Why founders do not need to have every answer
About Björn Steinar Jónsson:
Björn Steinar Jónsson is the Founder and CEO of Saltverk, an Icelandic food company focused on making sustainable food built upon Nordic food traditions. Under his leadership, Saltverk has expanded its range of flaky salts, produced using 100% renewable geothermal energy, while reaching customers across 180 markets. An engineer by training, Björn combines technical expertise with a deep appreciation for Icelandic nature and craftsmanship, guiding the company’s commitment to quality and sustainable growth.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Duncan Alney on LinkedIn
- Firebelly Marketing
- Björn Steinar Jónsson on LinkedIn
- Saltverk
- “Mark Bitterman On Human Scale” on the Firebelly Social Show
- Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes by Mark Bitterman
- Slippurinn: Recipes and Stories from Iceland by Gísli Matt and Nicholas Gill
Quotable Moments:
- “From day one, it’s also been full transparency. What you see is what you get.”
- “It’s not something that an engineer can put within an Excel sheet. It’s nature.”
- “Everything that can fail will fail. But that’s all right. We’re still going to make it a success.”
- “It is okay to not know something. It’s okay to, and it’s okay to essentially admit it.”
- “I think I’m definitely better at trusting my gut, trusting my instinct.”
Action Steps:
- Protect your core process as you scale: Preserving product quality and production integrity prevents growth from weakening what makes the brand distinctive.
- Build transparency into the customer experience: Showing how a product is made strengthens trust and makes the brand story more credible.
- Stay close to customers and partners: Direct conversations reveal how people experience the product and help the brand grow through genuine relationships.
- Work within nature’s constraints: Adapting to natural variations encourages patience, craftsmanship, and more thoughtful decisions than forcing industrial uniformity.
- Trust your instincts while staying curious: Accepting uncertainty and admitting what you do not know makes it easier to learn and overcome setbacks.
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