Chief Salty Strategist

Heidi Feldman.

I'm a geek, all-in foodie and a farmer. I traded in a Fortune 100 tech career for dirt under my nails, tending farm animals and enjoying salt on my lips be it from dip net scalloping or harvesting salt crystals. 

I co-founded Down Island Farm to grow gorgeous ground crops but when the ground proved too big a challenge I pivoted to reviving one of the Island’s oldest products; sea salt. 

Curt and I share a fierce love for all things local and sustainable — from the food on our plates to the solar-powered magic that turns Vineyard seawater into briny, beautiful flakes.

My entrepreneurial spark comes from a mighty lineage: a big-thinking dad, her mom Joan’s steady wisdom, and two powerhouse sisters — Sharon Rowe of ECOBAGS™ and Ellen Ornato of The Bolder Company™. And, of course, Curtis: builder of dreams, shaper of salt, and the love of my life since 1984.

Under-the-Radar Mastermind

Curtis Friedman

To every extrovert there is its opposite. That pretty much describes Heidi's and my personalities. 

We grew up just 20 minutes apart in CT — me on a family farm, she in the suburbs — yet worlds away. We are lucky for college years in Boston as that is where our worlds eventually collided.

My path was photography to architecture before I found carpentry. I owned Factotum in Boston for many years but when we moved to the island I joined South Mountain Company. Now an owner, I have incredible colleagues and customers plus products - houses - to be proud of.

I am also the backbone of Down Island Farm. I moved our barn from a Land Bank property, designed and built the bespoke solar evaporator (aka Evap 1), engineered the saltwater collection system, and just completed - never really done - the design and renovations to our Down Island Farm homestead to include a dedicated sea-salt headquarters.

And yes — I am also the culinary mind behind MV Sea Salt’s Oak Smoked blend. With Heidi as chief taster, I perfected the flavor that made peanut butter + smoked sea salt a thing people now rave about.

Heidi and I could never have envisioned we'd be making a culinary food product using sustainable methods but that is the beauty of living that is, one never knows where one will land. 

Recipe for Martha’s Vineyard Sea Salt:

Start with one small farm on the beautiful little island of Martha’s Vineyard then combine:

  • one tech consultant-turned-entrepreneurial farmer
  • one master carpenter raised on a farm and with a vision
    a whole lot of devotion to local, renewable resource, fresh food produced sustainably
  • proximity to the wild Atlantic Ocean
  • trace minerals
  • a fateful binge on a bag of Cape Cod® Sea Salt & Vinegar Potato chips =

the authentic taste of Martha’s Vineyard wherever you are in the world. 

Our Story

  • Martha’s Vineyard Sea Salt is husband and wife team Heidi and Curtis. The couple first discovered Martha’s Vineyard, a 87.4 square-mile island off the coast of Cape Cod, through the eyes of 10 friends and then joined those friends on a vacation in Oak Bluffs the summer of 1990.

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    >> It was love at first sight. <<

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    For the next 10 years, Heidi and Curt returned with those same 10 friends in July, spending lazy vacation days beaching, clamming, cooking outrageously good food, and seeking out all that the abundant natural surroundings had to offer. Curtis had a motorcycle back then so they ventured out to the Island’s every nook and cranny.

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    In 1993, Heidi and Curtis married in Boston but celebrated with a January on the island honeymoon – yes, January – on the Vineyard.

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    >> They found the island off-season even more beautiful. <<

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    The following year, they came back to celebrate Valentine’s Day. They just could not get enough of this place.

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    In 2001, Heidi and Curtis threw caution (mostly their family and friends thought they were nuts) to the wind and moved to the Vineyard. Somehow they found an affordable 9.63 acres in Tisbury.

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    Two years later, they established Down Island Farm with dreams of growing produce, but what soil existed was all clay. That’s when they heard from other farmers why they passed on the same land. “Oh, well” they thought, “there’s got to be something we can farm from this property.” After a bunch of research, they got creative, producing edible flowers and later Shiitake mushrooms in the abundant Oak trees.

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    >> Yes, edible flowers & mushrooms. <<

  • Farming is tough work, though, and edible flowers and Shiitake can only pay so many bills. Curtis and Heidi continued on with their day jobs but dedicated significant energy to cultivating a farming existence. Just when the Shiitake mushrooms were selling well their Oak forest was inundated with three separate moth larvae invasions that devastated the tree population thus putting an end to the ‘shroom dream.

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    Undaunted, Curt and Heidi dreamed and schemed about ways that they could farm full-time – grow hops for local beer? Sugar beets or potatoes for local vodka? Each crop seemed cool but unsustainable.

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    One day, in between tech clients, Heidi sat in her car hoover-ing (her own words) a bag of Cape Cod Sea ® Salt & Vinegar potato chips for lunch.

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    >> A light bulb went off in Heidi’s head. <<

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    She turned the bag over and looked at the ingredient list. Rather than local sea salt, all that was listed was a generic “sea salt”. Heidi ran into Alley’s General Store and checked for other locally harvested sea salt on the shelf but found none.

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    >> Heidi smiled. <<

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    That night, Heidi & Curtis began a new adventure involving, science, physics, all kinds of business-y things and, yes doubt and doubters. It took three years but MV Sea Salt became a reality in 2013.

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    It takes a lot of sustainable solar energy, salt water, sunshine and elbow grease to produce Martha’s Vineyard Sea Salt.

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    >>Taste is memory. <<

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    Heidi & Curt are proud to offer a deliciously briny, earth and sea friendly memory evoking experience of Martha's Vineyard.
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