La "pression à la main" (processus)

The "hand pressure" (process)

We are a union of hand-pressed argan oil cooperatives. It is one of the largest unions of women's argan oil producers in Morocco.

The fruit falls from the tree and is dried in the sun, then harvested by hand to undergo the crushing stage in order to remove the nut inside, which is called: the almond.

It is from the almond that we will make argan oil. A part of the almonds will be roasted over low heat to be used as cooking oil (in seasoning in salads or with a little rice and fish, in Morocco, it is used more in tagines):

The other part of the almonds will be cold pressed (in a traditional millstone). This work is arduous and requires long hours. Once we harvest the paste, we can extract oil from it.

We decided to maintain the hand-pressed artisanal production, because this strengthened local social structures (cooperatives) by increasing the standard of living of women and villagers.

Maintaining the tradition of hand-pressed production has paid off, as our products have received the highest award in Germany at the Biophach trade fair (organic food recommendation of the year) for several years, including several other awards, and are among the top 17 organic products worldwide. Argand'Or is also recognized as one of the most innovative companies in its sector.

Finally, the other thing that is important to us is that it is not about fair trade, for fair trade's sake, for us, it is the women themselves who set the production price. Otherwise, no pressure on people just on the fruit to obtain the fines.

Artisanal production

As the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) has noted, each method has a completely different impact on the value added and therefore on the income level of the member producers, but also on the social structures and sustainability of the argan forests. Since the Berber women still represent the leading specialists in argan oil today, Argand'Or oils are produced by these women using hand-pressing techniques. Once the fruits are harvested, they are dried on the flat roofs of clay houses. After manual pulping of the fruits, the resulting nuts are crushed by hand between two stones to extract the argan kernels. Damaged or even rotten fruits and kernels are immediately discarded, as they would impair the taste and quality of the oil.

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