Quality Control starts with the control and analysis of the raw materials, followed by control procedures over the production, its packaging, loading and discharge, the warehousing, transportation and distribution. Baja Salt Group has people that specialize in the supervision of these procedures.

Baja Salt Group utilizes various laboratories and independent inspectors, to insure that our product achieves the specifications required. Computers and the principal laboratory at ESSA, are always inspecting and analyzing samples for effective and efficient control.

Pumping Stations
Water is taken from the lagoon and sent to the concentration areas through two pumping stations. Nature has given an advantage to the area whereby the water flows to the concentration ponds: in a natural manner getting denser as it flows.

Concentration and crystallization
Ocean salt water travels slowly through a system of concentration ponds, gradually increasing its density by way of evaporation caused by sun and wind. Finally it reaches the point of evaporation to make sodium chloride.
The saturated brine enters and moves through the salt ponds, leaving salt in its trail, forming a new layer on the floor of these prehistoric salt ponds. The crystallization of salt over these floors, allow ESSA to utilize large equipment to harvest the salt, with very high efficiencies.
Harvest
After being inundated for several months with brine, the pond that is selected to be harvested is isolated from the system and drained. Specially designed cutter blades remove the salt from the floor with impeccable precision, insuring that it is in no way damaged. The scarified salt is placed in rows forming a border; it is harvested and transported by truck to the wash plant in 360 ton lots.

Washing
Dart trucks discharge into the wash plant hoppers.
Salt is efficiently discharged from the unit through gates at the bottom of the 120 ton boxes of these Dart trucks.
ESSA’s new wash plant utilizes 2 techniques to wash salt: washing by submersion and washing by aspiration, in order to remove the majority of the impurities with minimum loss from dissolution.

Barge loading
Washed salt is loaded into 10,000 ton barges, and then transported to the storage and drainage installations, located 100 kilometers away.

Barge discharge and stockpiling
Immediately after docking at Cedros Island, the barges are discharged by way of an auto discharge system. The barge’s belt conveyors deposit the product on the island’s conveyors, which takes the salt to the designated stockpile area. These systems offer high flexibility for an optimum rotation of the inventory, assuring the high quality of the shipped salt.
Cedro has the capacity to stockpile 1.5 million tons of different types of salt.
A screening plant insures an efficient separation of the salt crystals during discharge.

Reclaiming salt from stockpiles and vessel loading
Salt that will be loaded, is reclaimed from the stockpiles by way of a reclaiming machine. A rotating arm cuts into the salt pile, loosening it so that it falls into the machine’s hoppers. Simultaneously, salt is transferred to a system of ship loading conveyors. Cedros Island has a natural draft at low tide of 18 meters, enabling it to receive 160,000 ton ships.
Salt is loaded into the ship’s holds by feeding the system using permanent ship loading conveyors, for a perfect distribution of the salt, called trimming.

Environment
The Ojo de Liebre lagoon is part of the so-called “Biscayne Biosphere Reserve”. “Every year, grey whales arrive to our lagoon to give birth to their calves. We are proud to form part of the preservation and promotion of this protected area”