Tunisian Producer Blends Tradition and Technology to Raise Olive Oil Quality

Summary

Les Montagnes du Nord, an olive oil pro­ducer in Tunisia, won a Silver Award at the 2026 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition for their Chetoui mono­va­ri­etal Cirta olive oil, which is the result of gen­er­a­tions of knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence. The com­pany, focus­ing on qual­ity and inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion, main­tains a ver­ti­cally inte­grated model, com­bin­ing tra­di­tional prac­tices with mod­ern tech­nol­ogy to pro­duce a con­sis­tent and high-qual­ity prod­uct.

Nestled in one of the green­est parts of Tunisia, in the moun­tain­ous north­ern region of Nebeur, one olive oil pro­ducer is bal­anc­ing tra­di­tion and inno­va­tion to raise the qual­ity of its oils. Les Montagnes du Nord, with its Chetoui mono­va­ri­etal Cirta olive oil, won a Silver Award at the 2026 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“Our olive oil is the result of accu­mu­lated knowl­edge and rich expe­ri­ence,” Imene Dachraoui, co-owner of the estate, told Olive Oil Times.

Dachraoui said the family’s 100 hectares of olive trees are the legacy of her grand­par­ents, who cul­ti­vated mainly Chetoui olives, along with smaller quan­ti­ties of Arbequina and Arbosana. ​“Olive grow­ing in our region has been passed down from my grand­par­ents to my par­ents, and now to us,” she said.

Chetoui, one of Tunisia’s flag­ship cul­ti­vars, is known for pro­duc­ing robust, high-polyphe­nol olive oils with pro­nounced bit­ter­ness and pun­gency, traits typ­i­cally asso­ci­ated with the country’s north­ern regions.

Located near El Kef, the his­toric city dom­i­nated by a well-known Ottoman fortress, Nebeur com­bines a long his­tory with an agri­cul­tural land­scape shaped by the Mellègue dam. The reser­voir sup­ports local farm­ing, includ­ing exten­sive olive groves and cereal crops, help­ing counter sea­sonal arid­ity. Compared with other parts of Tunisia, the area’s rel­a­tively abun­dant water resources con­tribute to high-qual­ity olive pro­duc­tion.

About 10,000 of the trees at Les Montagnes du Nord are irri­gated, a strate­gic choice to ensure more con­sis­tent yields and qual­ity under vari­able cli­matic con­di­tions.

Dachraoui said that when she and her brother took over the farm in 2019, they decided to focus exclu­sively on qual­ity, aim­ing to posi­tion their prod­uct not only in the domes­tic mar­ket but also inter­na­tion­ally, par­tic­u­larly in the United States and Japan.

“We want to intro­duce Tunisian olive oil to the world. We have some­thing unique, and we believe it deserves more recog­ni­tion,” she said. ​“Competitions help us gain con­fi­dence and push us to do bet­ter each year. They also help us present our coun­try and the rich­ness of our ter­ri­tory.”

Tunisia is one of the world’s largest olive oil pro­duc­ers, but its pres­ence in pre­mium inter­na­tional mar­kets remains lim­ited com­pared with tra­di­tional exporters such as Italy and Spain.

Les Montagnes du Nord is a cer­ti­fied organic pro­ducer. According to Dachraoui, the farm’s goal is to remain closely con­nected to the land and soil. ​“We do not use pes­ti­cides or chem­i­cals, and we respect the nat­ural rhythm of the land. This allows us to pro­duce a more authen­tic olive oil,” she said.

At the same time, the com­pany works to bal­ance tra­di­tional prac­tices with mod­ern tech­nol­ogy. The olives are har­vested by hand to pre­serve their integrity and qual­ity, while the estate also oper­ates its own con­tin­u­ous-phase olive oil mill equipped with advanced tech­nol­ogy.

“The result is a more con­sis­tent and higher-qual­ity prod­uct, ready to com­pete on the global stage,” Dachraoui said.

The approach is rooted in a ver­ti­cally inte­grated model in which cul­ti­va­tion, har­vest­ing, milling and bot­tling are all man­aged inter­nally, allow­ing close con­trol over every step of pro­duc­tion and greater trace­abil­ity of the final prod­uct.

After extrac­tion, the oil is stored in stain­less steel tanks and typ­i­cally sold within a few months to pre­serve fresh­ness and sen­sory integrity. Dachraoui said the com­pany avoids car­ry­ing stock for long.

“Within three or four months from pro­duc­tion every drop has already been sold. We do not keep any oil from the pre­vi­ous sea­son,” she said.

That strat­egy, com­mon among pro­duc­ers focused on qual­ity, helps pre­serve the oil’s organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics and ensures con­sumers receive a fresh prod­uct.

As part of the family’s new approach, the younger gen­er­a­tion also refined how the oil is pre­sented to the mar­ket, from bot­tle and label design to the brand name itself: Cirta.

Cirta refers to the ancient Numidian city that once stood at the heart of North Africa, evok­ing a shared regional her­itage that pre­dates mod­ern national bor­ders. ​“We wanted a name that is easy to pro­nounce and remem­ber, but also con­nected to our ori­gins,” Dachraoui said. ​“Cirta reflects that link with North Africa and our iden­tity.”

The visual iden­tity fol­lows a sim­i­lar logic. The bot­tle design com­bines green and gold tones, meant to evoke both the fer­tile land of Nebeur and, as Dachraoui put it, ​“the gold of olive oil.”

For Les Montagnes du Nord, the Silver Award marks both a val­i­da­tion of its approach and a step toward greater inter­na­tional vis­i­bil­ity. ​“I was very proud,” Dachraoui said. ​“Proud of myself, proud of my fam­ily, and proud to rep­re­sent Tunisian olive oil.”

“There is a lot of com­pe­ti­tion. The chal­lenge is to give the best of our­selves and to stay at a high level,” she con­cluded.