Morocco Gold Celebrates World Environment Day 2021
This June, many of us will come together to mark World Environment Day 2021. At Morocco Gold, we can take a moment to celebrate the unique and rich environment of Morocco in which our olives are grown in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.
Morocco Gold is produced with love, knowledge and an artistry passed from generation to generation to create this rare Extra Virgin olive oil of exceptional quality. And the environment in which our precious olives are grown is where the magic begins!
Why Moroccan Extra Virgin Olive Oil Is The Best In The World
Morocco is a gateway to Africa, and a country of dizzying diversity. Here you’ll find epic mountain ranges, ancient cities, sweeping deserts – and warm hospitality.
From Saharan dunes to the peaks of the High Atlas, Morocco could have been tailor-made for travellers. Lyrical landscapes carpet this slice of North Africa like the richly coloured and patterned rugs you’ll lust after in local cooperatives. The mountains – not just the famous High Atlas but also the Rif and suntanned ranges leading to Saharan oases – offer simple, breath-taking pleasures: night skies glistening in the thin air, and views over a fluffy cloudbank from the Tizi n’Test pass. On lower ground, there are rugged coastlines, waterfalls and caves in forested hills, and the mighty desert.
Morocco has been producing high quality extra virgin olive oil for millenia, from the time of the Romans. The existence of centenary trees and traditional presses (maasras), testify to the antiquity of olive oil production. Indeed, olive oil has long been considered a noble food by the local population.
The benign climate makes Morocco a ‘Garden Of Eden’ on the doorstep of Europe and the ideal location for olive cultivation with mild winters and warm, dry summers. The soils in the main olive-growing regions are rich and deep, and generally have an equal balance of clay and coarse sands.
What Do We Know About Extra Olive Oil From Morocco?
However, despite now being the fourth largest producer of olive in the world, (Morocco harvested an estimated 2 million tons of olives in the most recent 2018/19 harvest), the quality of Moroccan olive oil is relatively little known outside of the country.
Researchers, using industry standards, published a report on the quality and purity of Moroccan olive oil in the journal Food Chemistry. They classified 94 percent of samples tested as extra virgin olive oil and only 6 percent as virgin olive oil.
Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil comes from groves in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The specific soil conditions of the Beni Mellal region, together with the mild winters and summers, caressed by hot winds from the Sahara, make ideal growing conditions for Morocco Gold olives.
Nurtured with love for generations, using only traditional, natural methods, Morocco Gold retains its distinctive flavour to offer the finest sensory experience.
What gives Moroccan Olive Oil The Edge For Taste?
Like most olive oil from the country, Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil comes from the Picholine Olive variety. Our olives are picked early in the harvesting season when the fruit is young. This gives Morocco Gold its distinctive green fruitiness, hints of sweet almonds, fresh turf and a hint of herbs. It has the distinctive ‘pepperiness’ of a fine extra virgin olive oil giving Morocco Gold a clean, well balanced finish that delivers an elevated gastronomic experience for food lovers.
According to the International Olive Council, Morocco produced 36,000 tons of olive oil. In 2019, they’re up to 145,000 tons and it continues to rise. And, as production has increased, so has the quality. In 2020 Morocco won three awards at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.
We are delighted to see Moroccan olive oil being recognised by the international community and look forward to playing our part in that ongoing success.
Sustainability And Environment Is Vitally Important For Morocco Gold
We at Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil are passionately committed to strengthening a sustainable UK-Morocco Business partnership. We recently became members of the Scottish African Business Association (SABA) to learn more about the tremendous business opportunities opening up between Scotland and Africa.
Morocco Gold exemplifies natural, sustainable agricultural methods. With new olive trees planted annually, this remarkable valley will be producing high quality extra virgin olive oil for centuries to come. This extensive tree planting is also good for the environment and sustainable in the long term.
A recent study by researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Minnesota demonstrated that foods which are considered to be healthy, such as whole-grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil, also have the lowest environmental impact. The researchers found that “while there is substantial variation in the health outcomes of different foods, foods associated with a larger reduction in disease risk for one health outcome are often associated with larger reductions in disease risk for other health outcomes. Likewise, foods with lower impacts on one metric of environmental harm tend to have lower impacts on others”.
Additionally, of the foods associated with improved health (whole grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil, and fish), all except fish have among the lowest environmental impacts.
This extensive research by Michael A Clark, Marco Springmann, Jason Hill, and David Tilman, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that eating healthier also means eating more sustainably and reveals a clear link between healthy food and environmental sustainability.
The Environment Has The Final Say In All We Do At Morocco Gold
Care of the environment is at the heart of the farming methods used to produce Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil. Even the left-over paste after pressing is turned into briquettes for domestic fuel in rural areas. This reduces cutting down trees for firewood and so prevents soil erosion.
Sustainability and care for the environment is then carried forward into our carefully designed bottle and packaging designs which are fully recyclable with no waste.
We are delighted to bring this ethically sourced and environmentally friendly, delicious tasting ‘superfood’ from this amazing new undiscovered source, which is why we believe that handpicked harvesting is the right way to extract our olives. Our extra virgin olive oil is high in antioxidants and polyphenols which continues to progressively increase with each harvest.
We are delighted to say that the 2021 Harvest of Morocco Gold contains the highest numbers of polyphenols yet seen in our extra virgin olive oil. This makes our olive oil sustainable and good for the environment.
