One of the biggest challenges for home chefs arrives when they realize that perfect ribeye steak or those farm-fresh eggs aren’t going to season themselves. Though the ingredients may be top-tier, it takes a deft hand to make them properly sing in the kitchen. Anyone who has struggled with this particular culinary hurdle can breathe a bit easier knowing that a m. SALT is only a grocery store trip away.
In contrast to pre-made seasoning blends that are designed to complement specific proteins like steak or seafood, a m. SALT can be used with any meal, fully replacing the one-note table salt. This locally crafted product is the brainchild of Chefs Marco and Aubrey Niccoli, two industry veterans with years of catering and professional cooking under their belts. “The magic behind this salt is about bringing twelve ingredients that we curated together into one product,” Marco says. “Because it’s all in one, you don’t have to think about what you need to pull from your cupboard to make your food taste better.”
How Marco and Aubrey fell in love with cooking (and with each other)
Before founding a m. SALT together, Marco and Aubrey garnered plenty of local clout on their own. Marco grew up in Los Angeles, California, where his parents were both in the restaurant business. “I came from an Italian household, so this environment of love for cooking, food and gathering around the table started very young,” Marco says. “I knew from an early age that cooking was all I was going to do.”
Aubrey came to Utah from Seattle, Washington, to attend culinary school at Utah Valley University. She also hails from a large family that made cooking a priority, which is what initially drew her to culinary school. “I always loved cooking when I was little,” she says. “I loved the UVU culinary program — to this day, I’m still in contact with my amazing instructors.”
After Aubrey graduated from UVU, she started her career as a private chef. “She graduated top of her class, and they still talk about her to this day,” Marco says. “She had some really big clients right out of the gate.” As it turned out, Aubrey’s sister was married to Marco’s brother, which is how these two culinary powerhouses got together. “They connected us because we were both chefs and kind of kickstarted the relationship,” Aubrey says.
While Aubrey was gaining experience as a private chef, Marco was working as the executive chef for Culinary Crafts, one of Utah’s most prestigious catering companies. “I was the youngest executive chef in the state of Utah at age 22 and operated north of 500 events annually for them,” Marco says. During this time, Aubrey and Marco often sought each other out for guidance and assistance, which led to them starting their own business together. “After we got married, we started the company a m. Niccoli Catering,” Marco says.
The “a m.” brand and logo has been a part of the duo’s professional enterprises ever since. “Obviously it stands for Aubrey and Marco, but when we met, we both had two kids and the only time we got to really create together was after the kids went to bed,” Marco says. “So our entire love story and our celebration of our shared love of food was created early in the morning, in the a.m.”
Catering to their audience
After going into business together, Aubrey and Marco pursued several different opportunities. “We kind of dabbled in everything,” Marco says. “We ran the private catering business, wrote a cookbook together, opened a few restaurants — and then COVID-19 hit, and it was very eye-opening for us.” According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, employment in the leisure and hospitality industries dropped by nearly 49 percent during 2020, and Aubrey and Marco definitely felt the impact as private caterers. “Any events or large gatherings were done,” Aubrey says. “Things totally shut down.”
Like most industry professionals, Aubrey and Marco weighed their professional options during the height of the COVID pandemic. With social engagements and catering jobs dwindling, the pair was in need of a strategic new direction. After discussing their situation with friends and clients, a close friend brought up the idea of selling the signature salt that Aubrey and Marco had developed for their catering company. “For years, we made this product and we would give it away as Christmas gifts for our clients,” Marco says. “So we launched it on Instagram in 2020 and we moved about 2,000 units in the first 45 days.”
The product itself is the kind of culinary catchall that has turned it into a home cook’s secret weapon. It’s salt first and foremost, and therefore can be used any time a recipe or dish calls for salt as seasoning — which is a lot. The true power of a m. SALT comes from its proprietary blend of different ingredients that come together to create a salt that does so much more than perk up the taste buds. “It’s a kosher white flake salt and an Atlantic sea salt,” Marco says. “But the purpose of the product is bringing 12 curated ingredients into one product, and that’s our signature.”
“The biggest thing for us is removing that fear of cooking, and cooking comes down to seasoning. Once you remove that fear, people enjoy cooking and that’s the fun for us.”
— Marco Niccoli
It wasn’t long before the product started to gain momentum in culinary circles. “In the beginning, we were making the salt in our garage and packing it into mason jars — we definitely had very humble beginnings,” Aubrey recalls. “It’s a salt that everyone can use, and a lot of our customers are repeat customers because you can put it on anything and it makes it taste better.”
At this point in the a m. SALT journey, the product can be found on the shelves of local shops like Harmon’s, Hip & Humble, Mercantile Park City and Good Earth Markets. Aubrey and Marco have recently expanded into the national market by securing distribution with Kroger and Target stores. Coming into the new year, Aubrey and Marco have also set their sights on the restaurant industry to make the ready-made composition of a m. SALT a great solution to boost efficiency in the commercial kitchen. “We just landed a deal with Cisco and we think we could really thrive in the commercial space,” Marco says.
In order to understand the popularity of a m. SALT, it’s important to consider its utility. Salt has been a foundational component in food preparation and seasoning for centuries. Its ability to enhance the flavors, textures and longevity of food has made it a kitchen staple, and the a m. SALT brand has effectively built upon that foundation.“It’s crazy that for hundreds of years, no one has changed salt,” Marco says. “There are other spices and rubs out there that are popular, but no one is really doing what we’re trying to do.”
Expanding into baking and grilling
Though the Signature Salt blend is a m. SALT’s most popular product, Aubrey and Marco have expanded their product line over the years. The brand includes a Vanilla Baking Salt that can be used for various baked goods, while the Citrus Chili Salt adds an acidic and spicy kick that is right at home on the grill. The former incorporates vanilla bean into its salt blend, which makes it ideal for sprinkling on top of homemade cookies or into a cup of hot chocolate for a sweet-and-salty contrast. “The Citrus Chili Salt is really good on Mexican and Asian food, as well as seafood and chicken,” Marco says. “It’s not super spicy, but just adds a little kick.”
The a m. SALT brand has come a long way since 2020, and it’s provided Aubrey and Marco with a way to distill their years of culinary experience into a single product. Since it captures such a wide breadth of flavors in one jar, it also provides the home chef market with a surefire way to de-mystify the seasoning process. “The biggest thing for us is removing that fear of cooking, and cooking comes down to seasoning,” Marco says. “Once you remove that fear, people enjoy cooking and that’s the fun for us.”
Providing home chefs with a high-quality product also opens their repertoire to experimentation. “I think that it [a m. SALT] is still educating people on the basics,” Aubrey says. “You can literally use it in every application and see how it makes different ingredients taste.” Marco cites this benefit as one of the reasons the product makes a great gift. “We have just as many female customers as male customers,” he says. “We do tons of corporate gifting because it’s a safe bet for anyone who enjoys cooking.”
