Argan oil, the 35‐years‐of‐research product

Abstract

Argan oil is nowadays a major and internationally well‐established actor on the edible‐oil as well as cosmetic‐oil markets. Nevertheless, argan oil fame is quite recent. Indeed, due to important quality matters, argan oil had remained ignored for years. During all this time, argan oil's numerous pharmacological properties have provided benefit only to the population of the Essaouira and Sous Massa Draa regions, the part of the world where argan oil is exclusively produced. Argan oil's world‐wide success is principally the result of a vast multidisciplinary program initiated by the government of Morocco almost 35 years ago. This program, which began by the chemical characterization of argan oil and argan metabolites, has subsequently allowed the establishment of an official, and internationally recognized, argan oil quality norm, together with good preparation pratice guidelines. Because of this norm and these stringent guidelines argan oil has got the trust of customers. This has led to the triggering of its international recognition. Concomittantly, private, governmental and non‐governmental organizations have taken great care to ensure that a large part of argan‐oil derived wealth was redistributed to the Sous Massa Draa population, principally through the building of woman‐managed argan oil preparation cooperatives. This paper relates the major steps of the argan oil saga.Going from the argan tree to high quality argan oil in 35 years.