Acclaimed Moroccan Producer Aspires to a More Sustainable Future

Summary

Noor Fès is a unique olive oil pro­ducer in Morocco, aim­ing to dou­ble its pro­duc­tion capac­ity by expand­ing its olive tree acreage. The com­pany focuses on qual­ity, sus­tain­abil­ity, and con­sumer edu­ca­tion, earn­ing recog­ni­tion for its native Moroccan Picholine olive oil at inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions.

Despite its posi­tion as the world’s eighth-largest olive oil pro­ducer, Morocco is mainly com­prised of small-scale olive farms, few of which oper­ate ded­i­cated olive mills.

This makes the award-win­ning pro­ducer Noor Fès quite unusual, with 70,000 olive trees spread over 320 hectares at the south­ern end of the Rif Mountains.

“Our goal is to reach 600 hectares, which will allow us to dou­ble our olive oil pro­duc­tion capac­ity in the com­ing years,” founder and owner Mohammed Dakir Berrada said. 

“Morocco is one of the largest pro­duc­ers of olive oil on Earth, but the way most peo­ple pro­duce it is very out­dated,” he and gen­eral man­ager Ghizlane Tazi told Olive Oil Times. ​“That’s why we have large mills across the coun­try that we call masra. All those small farm­ers har­vest their olives and then bring them to the mills, some­times very far away.”

Dakir Berrada and Tazi con­tend that many con­sumers in Morocco are accus­tomed to ​“lower-qual­ity olive oil” because many small farm­ers leave their olives at a sin­gle local mill.

“Once they get there, they often have to wait, because every­one har­vests at the same time, and there’s a queue,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

As a result, many olives are no longer fresh when finally milled, with a sub­stan­tial neg­a­tive impact on the qual­ity of the oil.

“What Noor Fès is doing in Morocco is quite new. And we are reach­ing out to farm­ers and con­sumers to talk about qual­ity, mech­a­niza­tion, sus­tain­abil­ity and tech­nol­ogy,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

The farm orga­nizes events and pro­grams to edu­cate con­sumers about olive oil qual­ity and pro­vide instruc­tion around har­vest­ing and milling best prac­tices.

The company’s bona fides in the realm of qual­ity were con­firmed by its fifth con­sec­u­tive Gold Award, earned for its native Moroccan Picholine mono­va­ri­etal, at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“This excel­lence is the result of our metic­u­lously selected fruit vari­ety, an extra vir­gin olive oil that is rich in aroma and truly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the qual­ity and char­ac­ter of our ter­roir,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

“We’re proud to see Noor Fès rec­og­nized on the inter­na­tional stage. It affirms not just the strength of our brand, but also the value of Moroccan crafts­man­ship,” Tazi added.

Dakir Berrada’s Noor Fès project came to life in 2019, build­ing on a much longer expe­ri­ence in olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“We chose Moroccan Picholine because it’s per­fectly adapted to our ter­roir. We didn’t want to intro­duce a for­eign vari­ety that might com­pro­mise the authen­tic­ity of our prod­uct,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

“This olive thrives nat­u­rally in our envi­ron­ment, offer­ing resilience to local con­di­tions and pro­duc­ing an olive oil with a uniquely fruity and deli­cious fla­vor at the same time,” Dakir Berrada added. ​“It wasn’t just a patri­otic choice, it’s also an agro­nomic and sen­sory one. It checks every box.” 

The name Noor Fès means ​“Light of Fès,” where light is con­ceived as a metaphor for vital­ity and well-being.

That mes­sage is also reflected in the design of their dark green ceramic bot­tles, which aim to blend moder­nity and tra­di­tion.

“Our pack­ag­ing is inspired by Moroccan art and her­itage,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi explained. ​“From the gold-embell­ished cal­lig­ra­phy evok­ing the radi­ant sun­rises of Fès to the intri­cate pat­terns pay­ing homage to tra­di­tional Zellige mosaics, every detail is a trib­ute to our roots.”

According to the two pro­duc­ers, sus­tain­abil­ity is at the very core of the company’s oper­a­tions.

“Our farm­ing phi­los­o­phy is rooted in regen­er­a­tive and bio­di­verse agri­cul­ture; we pro­tect the soil by using crushed prun­ing debris as nat­ural fer­til­izer and bio­mass,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

“We also use organic prac­tices to respect nat­ural ecosys­tems and avoid pol­lut­ing sub­stances. This ensures envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble pro­duc­tion and long-term sus­tain­abil­ity,” they added.

A cru­cial aspect of this approach is water man­age­ment. ​“Water is one of our top con­cerns. We use advanced tech­nol­ogy to mon­i­tor soil mois­ture, tree tran­spi­ra­tion and evap­o­ra­tion,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

Devices, such as ten­siome­ters, den­drom­e­ters and a ded­i­cated weather sta­tion, help the com­pany mon­i­tor orchard con­di­tions.

“We rely on local­ized, pre­ci­sion drip sys­tems that deliver exactly what each tree needs — no more, no less. We even irri­gate at night to reduce evap­o­ra­tion,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

The company’s state-of-the-art milling facil­ity also uses a min­i­mal amount of water. ​“The resid­ual water from olive wash­ing is set­tled and fil­tered before being safely returned to the envi­ron­ment or the ground­wa­ter,” they added.

Dry weather has affected Morocco in recent years, with sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences for agri­cul­ture. Noor Fès is also fac­ing the chal­lenges brought by per­sis­tent drought.

“We expe­ri­enced a reduced har­vest due to adverse weather con­di­tions last sea­son,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said.

“The lack of rain in Morocco was a dis­as­ter. Climate change is now a global issue, and it is increas­ingly affect­ing olive pro­duc­tion,” they added.

According to the com­pany, the out­look for the com­ing olive sea­son is promis­ing. ​“As always, the main chal­lenge remains water avail­abil­ity,” Dakir Berrada and Tazi said. ​“Climate change is reshap­ing our envi­ron­ment, but it also pushes us to do bet­ter.” 

They added that their olive oil, pro­duced using ​“regen­er­a­tive and bio­di­verse sys­tems,” is part of their vision for a sus­tain­able future for Moroccan olive oil pro­duc­tion. 

To that end, the com­pany offers olive oil tast­ings and allows vis­i­tors to explore the mod­ern olive oil pro­duc­tion process.

“We are doing a lot of con­sumer edu­ca­tion: how to choose a good olive oil, how it should be pressed, how it should be stored, how it should be bot­tled, and more,” Berrada and Tazi con­cluded.