Moroccan Café Owners Deny Allegations of Coffee Contamination

Café and restaurant owners are angry. The source of this anger is a written question addressed by the RNI parliamentary group to the Minister of the Interior, Abdelouafi Laftit, in which they would be accused of poisoning their customers with coffee mixed with chemical substances. In a statement signed by Noureddine El Harraq, president of the National Federation of Café and Restaurant Owners in Morocco (ANPCRM), they reject these accusations of fraudulent business practices. "All the coffee lots received by all the cafés in the Kingdom are packaged in sealed bags and are distributed by 7 or 8 recognized companies that account for 90% of the market," the Federation specified, recalling that these companies all have the authorization of the National Office of Food Safety (ONSSA).

Café owners decline any responsibility for the alleged marketing of coffee mixed with foreign substances. They also recall that the Office’s mission is to ensure the food safety of food products from raw materials to the final consumer. They in turn accused ONSSA of having committed a "professional offense" that engages its legal responsibility by "turning a blind eye" to this fraud. "Besides, cafés do not have analysis laboratories to carry out tests on coffee beans," the Federation ironizes. For it, the question asked by deputy Fatine El Ghali "is absurd and the result of the political mediocrity generated by the latest electoral context. She would have done better to worry about safeguarding the purchasing power of professionals, and that of Moroccan citizens in general."

The federation then invites the RNI elected official to question the Minister of the Interior about the spread of the informal sector (73%), but also about the dizzying rise in fuel prices that has led to the soaring prices of raw materials used by cafés and restaurants. "This 300% increase in basic commodities has caused the bankruptcy of many units and contributed to swelling the unemployment rate, which has now reached 13.5%," the federation warns, noting that this figure "takes Morocco back to 1995, the year when the late King Hassan II announced that the country was on the verge of a heart attack."