Moroccan News briefs

French Company invests 3 million Euro

The French company Descours and its Moroccan partner, Atagri Industries, is planning to invest €3 million on frozen food factory in Morocco. According to the French-language magazine Jeune Afrique the factory will have a capacity of 60,000 tons of frozen food a year.

The unit will recruit 400 people, and is due to double the production capacity of the French group in Morocco. Due to open in 2009, the unit will comply with European traceability standards, according to Jeune Afrique.

Descours Group has achieved a turn over of $ 45mln in 2007, and treated 30,000 tons of fruits used in jam, mass-product pastries, catering and large-scale distribution.


Moroccan Grapes Harvest Big Bucks

The Moroccan grape harvest is in full swing and once again the wine industry will make a substantial contribution to the Moroccan economy and job markey. The wine growing industry provides some twenty thousand farming jobs and more than ten thousand permanent jobs in the production, bottling and distribution sectors. But despite the state-of-the-art technology currently available, a traditional method is still used. The Cellars of Meknes, a company founded by Brahim Zniber, is by far the largest producer of wine in Morocco with almost 85% of the market.


After developing wines bearing the brand names ‘Guerrouane’ and ‘Beni M’Tir’, the Zniber family has been commercializing the brand-name ‘Chateau’ and hence created the first “controlled appellation of origin” in Morocco in 1998; in spite of this success the export figures remain very low in contrast with its direct competitor , the Lancel Group, which exports almost all of its production.

Despite sales figures which almost reach 100 million euros in the wine-producing sector, Morocco is still confronting a long-standing paradox. Alcohol consumption is prohibited in theory… But the 45 million euros which end up in the Moroccan Treasure every year makes things easier to reconcile. Muslims are not supposed to drink alcohol yet, with an annual production of around 34 million bottles, 30 million are consumed each year inside the kingdom.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news