In Algeria, olive oil production aims for international excellence
In Mounir’s coffee bar on Belouizdad street, in the centre of Algeria’s capital, one can find what an ordinary cafe offers, i.e. drinks and cakes, but a new ingredient has appeared: olive oil.
A rectangular piece of paper reading “Good quality Jijel olive oil” is stuck on the refrigerator at the establishment’s entrance, to attract the attention of customers and passers-by.
“We are from Jijel [east of Algiers], one of the regions known for their olive oil production, and we market the products from our fields,” Mounir told Middle East Eye.
“Our point of sale is now known. People trust us and prefer to buy olive oil from farmers rather than industrial olive oil. You never know what is in these bottles,” he added.
At the cafe, Mounir sells the season’s output, but olive oil is marketed throughout the year.
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“My brother, in Ain Naadja [a suburb of Algiers], is constantly solicited. At his place, you can find oils from previous years,” he said.
In M’Chedallah, a town near Bouira, 120 kilometres east of Algiers, Abdelkrim, a 32-year-old sales executive, spends his weekends working in his family’s olive fields.
“I love this tree,” he said to explain his passion for the olive tree and oil.
“We only had 200 trees at the end of the black decade as it was risky to look after the fields during that period,” Abdelkrim said in reference to the civil war of the 1990s.
“We, as grandsons, took over after my grandfather died in 2004. We built a pond and a well, and planted new trees. We now have 920 olive trees.”
Training for ‘good practices’
The processes of cultivation and extraction of olive oil are considered a ritual for certain populations, to the extent that in December 2023, UNESCO added the rituals, festivals and other social practices marking the beginning and end of the olive harvest in Turkey to the Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
In Algeria too, oil production is not limited to picking the fruit and pressing it. It is part of a tradition which connects people with the land and sees the participation of all the members of a family.
“It is very important for us that the whole family participates,” Celia, a young student from Tizi-Ouzou, Kabylia, based in Algiers, told MEE.
“It is a way for loved ones, who live in different parts of the country, and even abroad, to get together.”
According to the student, “each member of the family makes sure to organise themselves in order to participate in even just part of the process.”
🇩🇿Algérie: Alger se positionne à la 7e place à l’échelle mondiale dans le domaine de la production de l’huile d’olive, a indiqué, le ministre de l’Agriculture et du Développement rural, a la Conférence nationale de développement et de protection de la filière oléicole pic.twitter.com/g3XXXykvXm
— IRES - Research (@IresResearch) September 15, 2023
Translation: “Algeria: Algiers ranks 7th worldwide in the field of olive oil production, said the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development at the National Conference for the Development and Protection of the Olive Oil Industry.”
“The harvest period generally begins in mid-September and can sometimes last until mid-January,” Abdelkrim explained.
“The whole family contributes to this work. There is great wisdom behind these practices that bring the family together and resolve conflicts.”
The olive oil market, once a monopoly of farmers, has for several decades been taken over by industrialists who have declared war on ancestral extraction practices and the traditional culture of consumption.
According to them, the old methods cause olive oil to lose its nutritional properties and do not produce virgin or extra virgin oil, which is better for consumption.
With a view to breaking with “bad production practices”, training sessions are held in the country under the sponsorship of the International Olive Council (IOC), an intergovernmental organisation of states that produce olives or olive products.
During one of these workshops held at Lella Meriem organic farm in Misserghrin, west of Oran, Samira Lachkham Sifi, a Tunisian expert in olive oil sensory analysis with the IOC, told around 20 participants the steps to follow to obtain extra-virgin or virgin olive oil.
‘The culture of olive oil consumption in Algeria is difficult to change, but it is a challenge that we have promised ourselves to take up’
- Nabil Arezki, olive oil company Numidia
And how to avoid ordinary olive oil or lampante oil (with high acidity levels and poor organoleptic characteristics).
“To tell the difference between the various types of olive oil, we have to put aside our nostalgia and free ourselves from the taste of the oil we grew up with,” Lachkham Sifi said.
If the oil specialist insisted on this point, it is because extra-virgin olive oil is more bitter, which may displease consumers of common oil, as it is generally milder in taste.
For Lachkham Sifi, nothing should be done randomly and all steps should follow precise rules. “Production that does not respect standards cannot make quality oil,” she stressed.
“The majority of oils consumed in Algeria are lampante,” Nabil Arezki, a technical-commercial executive for the olive oil company Numidia, a subsidiary of the agri-food group Ifri, told MEE.
“We still have this culture of buying oils from mills and with packaging that does not meet standards. The culture of olive oil consumption in Algeria is difficult to change, but it is a challenge that we have promised ourselves to take up.”
Numidia produces an average of 200,000 litres per year, a large part of which is intended for the local market, Arezki said.
“We export approximately 50,000 litres to Europe, Canada and the United States, among other countries.”
Promoting Algerian oil internationally
More and more, Algerians buy their olive oil from supermarkets. “Why wait for a neighbour or relative to bring us olive oil when we can get it ourselves?” Samira, a mother from Algiers, told MEE.
Asma, a young employee in a communications agency in the capital, also prefers to buy her olive oil in supermarkets, but for other reasons.
“I buy extra-virgin oil. We often forget that the olive is a fruit and that it is the way it is prepared that allows the preservation of its nutrients,” she told MEE.
Beyond its nutritional benefits, olive oil helps promote Algerian production internationally. This is the case for the Baghlia brand, produced by the Kiared olive oil mill.
Commercialised since 1997, Baghlia has an impressive track record of 45 international awards. It won 10 golden medals in 2024 alone.
Baghlia oil receives so many awards around the world because its producers, whose orchards are located in the Oran region – the oil factory is in Boumerdes, 60 km from Algiers – have broken with ancestral methods.
“To obtain extra-virgin oil, the period between picking the olive and pressing it must not exceed 24 hours. For virgin oil, we can go up to 48 hours. The longer the extraction is delayed, the more the olive’s acidity level increases,” Mohamed Kiared, one of the company’s managers, told MEE.
In this case, the producer explained, the olive oil may taste good, but its nutritional value has diminished.
According to Kiared, other parameters must be respected.
“Traditionally produced olive oil is often in contact with air, which is harmful. The liquid must be stored in stainless steel tanks, protected from contact with air and light,” he noted.
The threat of global warming
While Kabylia, the mountainous coastal region in the north, is the best known for the production of olive oil in the country, the Algerian oleiculture map has evolved significantly in recent years.
Olive trees are now planted in other regions of the interior and south of the country.
“We often say ‘Kabyle oil’ instead of olive oil. But we do not consider that it is also produced in Biskra, 400 kilometres southeast of Algiers, and in Dejlfa, 300 kilometres south of the capital,” Ayoub, a farmer from Oran, told MEE.
“Many people are also unaware that the olive tree is present in the west of the country, particularly in Oran and Tlemcen, where it has thrived for decades,” he added.
While more and more producers are trying to promote Algerian olive oil to the forefront of the international market, the dynamic is threatened by global warming.
Wildfires notably devastate thousands of hectares of vegetation every summer in Algeria and olive trees are often at the heart of the flames.
Although his fields have not been impacted by forest fires, Abdelkrim, the olive enthusiast from M’Chedallah, fears the spectre of another enemy: drought.
“The harvest has been declining for almost eight years due to drought,” he complained.
“We have a small dam that has not reached its full level for almost a decade, whereas previously, it was completely full as early as November...”
Translated from MEE French edition (original) and updated.
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