Olive oil: the broken trust of Moroccans?

This season, many Moroccan consumers have bought olives and pressed them themselves. This situation "has highlighted the fragility of the trust of Moroccans after the recent repeated episodes of fraud," say professionals in the sector.

"The phenomenon of the enthusiasm of citizens for the purchase of olives and their pressing themselves in the mills has spread widely this season, and this approach is preferred to avoid fraud or falsification," says Miloud Rammah, olive oil producer and farmer in Chichaoua. In a statement to Hespress, the professional explained that while some consumers were buying 5-liter cans of oil, they now prefer to press the olive oil themselves to guarantee the quality of the oil.

This new attitude of Moroccans "is a natural consequence of repeated fraud incidents, and on the other hand, a positive opportunity for mills to avoid taking responsibility for the quality of the product," he supports. And to continue: "This year, there is an abundance of the olive oil harvest, and it is expected that oil prices will drop considerably in the future. It is also expected that the price of olives will drop to less than 10 dirhams per kilogram from next February."

For his part, Abdelkrim Chafii, vice-president of the Moroccan Federation for Consumer Protection, acknowledged "the existence of fraud in the olive oil market," revealing that merchants "mix the remaining oil from last year with the new oil, and sell it at a low price between 60 and 70 dirhams, or reuse the residues of the olives already pressed, and mix them with pure refined oil, then re-press them to obtain an allegedly "traditional" oil that only has the color."

The official adds that "this pressing approach guarantees the obtaining of high quality and pure oil," stressing that his organization "encourages citizens to adopt the aforementioned approach, because in this case, there is no possibility of fraud."