Tea Prices in Morocco Expected to Surge Following New Safety Standards

There is no doubt that the new measures of the National Office of Food Safety (ONSSA) against contaminated tea are causing consumers to fear a shortage and a surge in prices. And for good reason!

"This standard will take time to be implemented. It will take several years before the entire chain complies with the rules. We don’t decide that overnight. The ONSSA will have to either cancel or postpone the entry into force of these restrictions." These are the words of a tea professional, reported by TelQuel. This source fears the inconveniences that the implementation of the measures in question could generate.

The application of the new ONSSA standards, the same source points out, is reflected as far as the tea leaf cultivation in China. "Indeed, 99% of the tea consumed in Morocco comes from China and Morocco represents the first export market for Chinese tea, capturing each year 21% of the 365,000 tons of tea exported by the Middle Kingdom," it observes. "During two congresses, held in the presence of the biggest Chinese industrialists in the sector, the importers tried to renegotiate their imports, because the latter are made on the harvests of the three previous years," a source in the sector told TelQuel.

But this is without counting on the intransigence of the Chinese: "If you are not satisfied with our standards, go find them elsewhere!" they had moreover retorted to the Moroccan importers. In other words, according to the latter, the Chinese producers are demanding prices well above what is currently applied. "What they are asking us as a price goes beyond what is practiced in Europe. The price of the finished product meeting the new standards will inevitably experience a substantial price increase and it is the consumer who will suffer the most," explains the TelQuel source.

Therefore, it is to be feared that prices will rise when importers exhaust their stocks and, especially, when the country reaches a peak in consumption during Eid al-Adha, which will strain the reserves, warns an anonymous importer.