Our Argan Oil and Damascus Rose Absolute have obtained Fairtrade's international certification. Purchasing this product can directly help the Moroccan female workers responsible for production and improve their backward living environment. Learn more...
3) Drying the pulp
All nuts to be processed are first dried in the sun for a period of time to release excess water, which helps separate the pulp from the nuts.
2) Storing nuts
After being harvested, the nuts are stored in a cool, dry place until needed, and can be kept for up to about 3 years.
Some larger producers or those with larger export volumes will purchase nuts directly from other female workers who only collect but do not process the nuts (producers under the Fair Trade principle will only purchase from them, not from certain middlemen who sell nuts) to ensure that there will be enough stock for refining nut oil in the future.
1) Collecting nuts
July to August is the main nut harvest period in Morocco. Most Moroccan women have their own nut trees. They collect the nuts that fall to the ground and sell them to producers by weight. However, since all nut trees are organically grown, the harvest volume is affected by natural factors such as weather, rainfall, and goat food intake. Producers with the Fairtrade system can play a role in this situation, and the price will not be affected by the harvest volume.
Some of the women who collect the nuts will continue the nut processing process directly in the manufacturer's factory, which makes them play a very important role in the entire nut oil extraction process.
Phase 1
4）Depulping 去除果肉
要獲得堅硬的堅果先要去除外層柔軟的果肉，去除果肉有3種方法：
4.1）現時大部分生產商都會以機器處理，比起部分仍然只是以人手方式處理快和方便很多；雖然機器能夠將大部分堅果與果肉分離，但仍會有小部分黏在一起，稍後仍要以人手方法確保果肉與堅果完全分離。
4.2) Manual pulping is usually done by some factories that want to speed up the production of nut oil and use it at the same time as the machine, or when the machine cannot pulp the nuts. Some backward factories have not purchased machines and mainly use this traditional method to remove the pulp.
4.3) Nuts are sweet and nutritious, and are the favorite food of Moroccan goats. However, since the hard nuts cannot be digested by goats, they will be vomited out or excreted through feces. There are still a small number of low-cost manufacturers who mainly use this most natural nut to make nut oil. Although it does save the step of removing the pulp, the nut oil produced does have a strange taste.
5) Crushing nuts
This is the most technical part of extracting nut oil. The female workers first put the hard nuts on the stone, and then skillfully hit the nuts with another stone. It is very important to control the force. Too much force will break the core of the nut. At the same time, you must be careful not to hit your fingers. I once demonstrated how to crack nuts in person. It is not as easy as you think. It is rare for a group of female workers to lightly say that each person can obtain 1-1.5kg of core per day on average, and every point is exchanged for labor.
Why don't they use machines for such a laborious step like removing the pulp? The person in charge said that they had tried to use machines to replace female workers, but the result was that some nuts could not be opened, and some even had their cores crushed, so in the end female workers still had to clean up the mess, which further proves that female workers are irreplaceable in the production of nut oil.
6) The last step of the first stage, the core is the most basic raw material for extracting nut oil, so we need to be more rigorous and subdivided into two steps just to process the core. Some smaller or low-cost manufacturers will exclude this one or two steps and directly use the core obtained from crushing the nuts, resulting in inferior nut oil full of impurities.
6.1) Sorting Kernels
Sort freshly harvested nut cores to instantly remove impurities and damaged cores.
6.2) Screening Kernels
All the sorted cores will be transported to the indoor bathroom. Intact cores are not necessarily suitable for nut oil extraction. Female workers with many years of experience still need to strictly select suitable cores to extract the finest organic virgin nut oil.
Phase 2
1) Extraction of nut oil After completing the entire process of obtaining the core, it comes to the second stage, a process in which nut oil is mainly extracted by machines.
1.1) Cool pressing
The kernels are machine pressed at room temperature to extract the nut oil. The importance of cold pressing is to not change the temperature of the kernel, ensuring that 100% of the nutrients are preserved in the nut oil. Some manufacturers heat the kernels to make extraction easier and faster, but this will greatly reduce the nutritional value of the nut oil, which is why we make sure the entire extraction process is produced under the highest procedures.
1.2) Virgin
Nut oil squeezed out by machine for the first time is the best quality and most nutritious variety. Some producers will repeatedly squeeze the byproduct pomace to obtain more nut oil, but of course the nutritional value and quality of the nut oil obtained are definitely not comparable to virgin nut oil. They will also mix in brighter virgin nut oil or even other cheap oils, and then launch them into the market at a lower price or even the same price.
PS: Edible nut oil is processed in the same way, except that the kernel is pre-roasted and then extracted.
2.1）Sedimentation 暫存與沈澱
冷壓處理下得到的堅果油會暫存在容量大約200L的容器內，讓堅果油中一些雜質自然沈澱到底部，大部分生產商只會暫存一至兩天，我們是少數會暫存4天，為的就是確保出口的堅果油無污染零雜質。
雖說那些沈澱物稍後會被隔離，但因為堅果油每部分均含有豐富營養，這些沈澱物通常會成為製造堅果油肥皂的主要材料，絕不浪費從堅果產出的一絲一毫。
2.2）Filtration 過濾
提煉堅果油的最後一個步驟，經過4日沈澱後雖然得出的堅果油已經變得更清澈，但仍然會含有一些細微不顯眼物質。我們會比大部分生產商多一次，以兩個更深層次的過濾得出最完美無瑕的堅果油。
第一次過濾先以布料過濾一次，後再以過濾紙過濾，最後便真正得到純淨零雜質的有機堅果油。
以上這些繁複步驟就是說明為何摩洛哥堅果油會是世上最昂貴，營養最高的一種精油，甚至被人們因其價值及金黃顏色稱為"Liquid Gold"液體黃金，每一滴堅果油也是十分珍貴。
The above complicated steps explain why Argan Oil is the most expensive and nutritious essential oil in the world. It is even called "Liquid Gold" because of its value and golden color. Every drop of Argan Oil is very precious.