Since 2004, we have been supporting a women's cooperative from the Arganeraie, enabling the Berber tribe to keep the entire value chain in their own hands, from harvesting to processing. The women are thus independent of factory owners and benefit from the entire local value chain. The production of argan oil in our cooperative is traditionally the exclusive work of the women of the Berber tribe, who use it to supplement their income. The cooperative is located in the heart of the Arganeraie, an area of about 8000 square kilometres, which has been a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 1998. Only in this area the gnarled argan trees still grow today.

The cooperative has committed itself to traditional production and respects the UNESCO rules on biosphere reserves and lives the traditional production as recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.

This means in practice that the protected argan trees are not touched. Only the free-living goats are allowed to climb the argan tree. Only the fruits that have fallen from the tree are harvested. The argan tree is neither shaken nor are the fruits picked directly from the tree. The harvest is still traditional manual work of the women of the Berber tribe.

After harvesting, the fruits are dried for 6 weeks and the pulp is removed by hand in the traditional way. In industrial production, this is done by machines, producing over 30% waste. The traditional loosening of the fruit is more resource-saving and secures valuable jobs in rural areas. The seeds are then sorted out by hand and gently cold-pressed. Here again the difference to the industrially produced argan oil becomes apparent, since (although both are cold pressed) the temperature is a few degrees Celsius lower in traditional cold pressing. The lower temperature is more gentle for the argan oil. This kind of pressing of argan oil is much more time-consuming than the production with the help of pressing machines optimized for performance. To obtain one liter of hand-pressed argan oil about one day of work is necessary.

After pressing argan oil is filtered and also at this point our argan oil is specially treated. The triple filtering and a particularly fine filter (12 times finer than in industrial production) results in a particularly high-quality argan oil and secures work and income for over 200 women in the cooperative. Only fruits and seeds collected by the women themselves are processed; thus, the origin can be traced exactly.

We not only take over the marketing of the high-quality argan oil, but also support the cooperative with know-how. Our agricultural engineers are regularly on site and advise the cooperative on all questions concerning the production of argan oil.

The production of our argan oil from the women's cooperative is clearly different from industrialized production. In this production the fruits from different sources are mixed, during the harvest partly vibratory machines are used, which is forbidden by law, and the pressing takes place in factories. As a result, a significant income of the Berber families is lost. This forces the Berber families to leave their traditional land and move to the cities to find work. The government has therefore encouraged the creation of cooperatives. Many cooperatives are now dependent and deliver their harvest exclusively to the factories and therefore lose a large part of the value added.

The correct way to get the gold of Morocco is to cooperate with a cooperative that still produces argan oil in the traditional way and carries out the complete value chain from harvesting to pressing itself. Because the production of the valuable argan oil has to continue to be a speciality of the Berber people.