From nondescript packaging with plain white labels, Salty Wahine Gourmet Hawaiian Sea Salts LLC has upped its game with sleek re-branding, plans for a store and a trip to the Summer Fancy Food Show industry exposition in New York.

“It’s just amazing. It’s the biggest food show in the world,” said founder and owner Laura Cristobal Andersland.

Since its inception in 2008, Salty Wahine has created more than a dozen Hawaiian salt-based seasonings as well as three flavored cane sugars. All were displayed in the Big Apple from a colorful booth that captured expo-goers with images of Kauai and its products.

“It drew everybody over,” she said.

Salty Wahine’s new aqua labeling gleams and bears a stylish logo comprising the silhouette of Andersland’s daughter Nicole Cristobal and a wave representing the ocean from where the Hawaiian sea salt is derived.

The seasonings are offered in three-packs of one-third-cup “mini-grinders,” or small bottles topped with grinders; individual, refillable half-cup grinder-top bottles and half-cup polybags as well as quart- and gallon-size bags. The sugars are sold in the bagged sizes. The base price for the half-cup polybags is $9 for the salts and $5 for the sugars.

At the Summer Fancy Foods Show, one of many major food companies lured to the booth was a representative of a major, U.S.-based, globally distributed food manufacturer. They talked with her “for a good half-hour” about possibilities, but we won’t name the company so as not to bachi any potential deal. Nothing has been signed yet, she said.

“I was just really in awe of all these companies making a big deal out of little old us,” she said. “They all really love anything Hawaiian” and expressed great enthusiasm for the seasonings’ vibrant colors and tropical flavors.

What was new to them also was exciting to the culinary team at Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa, which chose three Salty Wahine flavors to use at SHOR American Seafood Grill, which opened in 2011.

“The theme of SHOR restaurant is choice,” said Hyatt Executive Chef Sven Ullrich. Diners choose their protein, such as fish, shellfish or meat, as well as its seasoning and sauce.

SHOR’s locally sourced pork from Shinsato Farms “goes really well with the pineapple salt,” Ullrich said, adding that the Passion Fruit Chile Pepper salt is perfect for the fish of the day and other seafood selections.

“The salt by itself is great, but it’s the nuance of something else (in the Salty Wahine seasonings), and that’s what I like,” he said.

Many local companies make Hawaiian salt and Hawaiian salt-based seasonings, and each works to differentiate itself from the others.

Salty Wahine’s Hot Lava seasoning is “one of my pride and joys,” Cristobal Andersland said. The Hot Lava salt adds chili peppers and garlic to the company’s Black Lava salt, which is Hawaiian sea salt infused with hickory and activated charcoal. Its website notes that activated charcoal aids digestion and is beneficial for people with ulcers and acid reflux.

Those salts are “smoked for five days” as part of the process, she said. “We love it on popcorn. … We think really out of the box. We’re very far from traditional,” she said with a chuckle. Buyers needing guidance on using the products traditionally or otherwise can find recipes and inspiration on the Salty Wahine website and Facebook page.

Practically newlyweds, having married in December, Laura and Dave Cristobal Andersland can regularly be found at craft fairs and farmers markets on Kauai and other islands, and at mainland events where expats gather to satiate onos for home. The company is a regular at the Made in Hawaii Festival on Oahu, and thanks to friends, it also is at farmers markets at Ala Moana Center each Saturday and at Kailua Elementary School on Sundays.

Salty Wahine products are available in most, if not all, the visitor-oriented gift and sundry stores, but “also locally in a lot of mom-and-pop shops,” because she believes in trying to keep as much local business revenue in the islands as possible, she said. “That’s how we’re going to make it,” she said, referring to the broader Hawaii economy.

Salty Wahine signed a lease for its own retail store in Hana­pepe, Kauai, in May, with plans to open later this year.

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“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.