Innovation

One of the major innovations made by the company is a factory in Kelaa des Sraghna, a Moroccan province in the Marrakech-Safi region. The province's population is 754,705 which is 17% of the whole region. The region has a reputation for good agriculture because of the quality of olive trees that occupy approximately 44,000 hectares, with an annual production of more than 90,000 tons of olive oil, which is 67% of the total olive oil consumption in Morocco. This region, however, suffers from many problems. The farmers and growers do not have enough funds to buy and operate harvesting and mowing equipment so they end picking the olives by hand and picking all the olives in the tree. These techniques are harmful for nature because:

• Picking olives by hand damages the roots of the trees.
• Picking all the olives in the tree reduces the lifetime of the tree since farmers are not well trained to know which olives to pick and which to allow to keep growing since olives have different stages of ripeness: green ripe, yellow ripe, green to straw, rose to red-brown and the black ripe.

The innovation is a factory founded in 2013 by Lesieur Cristal Company in the Marrakech-Safi region with a total investments up to 30 million Dirhams. The company had many innovative ideas for picking olives from the trees in an ecological way to protect the trees and ensure their durability. By using special machines and techniques that protect water and natural resources, and using solar panels to save the energy, the company ends up protecting the trees through harvesting machines that do not allow the olives to touch the ground, and turn the olives into oils as quickly as possible.

Inspiration

The region is known for its good quality olive oil trees that grow in more than 44,000 hectares. However, these trees are dying each year because of lack of maintenance. Moreover, the inhabitants of the region suffer from the lack of health care, transportation and education, and must walk several kilometers to get water from water sources. This is why the company started asking how it could simultaneously utilize the natural resources of the region and protect the environment. Indeed, the company succeeded in collaborating with the local authorities to implement measures to protect the environment:

· Saving water by implementing new methods of irrigation.

· Implementing new methods of harvesting by machines instead of manual labor.

· Buying machines that pick the olives in an eco-friendly way such as tractors, harvesters and mowing equipment.

· Making roads to facilitate transportation.

· Saving energy by using solar panels.

The lack of health care, scarcity of water, and the great hectares of olive production lands that are wasted each year because of the lack of maintenance inspired the company to develop a strategy of sustainability that benefits the current generation and preserves the needs of future generations.

*See the link of the institutional movie (2008 ) of Lesieur Cristal to understand the whole activity and its contribution in the Moroccan Market.

Overall impact

Lesieur Cristal Company succeeded in helping the community of Kelaa des Sraghna by installing all the infrastructure needed such as roads, water distribution channels, and electricity distribution channels to preserve the region's natural resources such as water and solar energy.

The company made the local residents realize how the good resources available in their region can be used, showing them new methods of harvesting and irrigation. The residents developed a sense of pride in the region because of its improvement in local production and commercialization in Morocco.

This also improved the company's production which increased national production and promoted local products instead of importing olive and seeds from other countries. Also, many European and American businesses learned of the good quality and history of Moroccan olives and olive oil and started buying from many Moroccan brands which increased exportation.

Business benefit

In collaboration with the local authorities and some companies, the company is now holding a showroom each year to promote the local agriculture products to attract more people and companies to purchase and support the start-up businesses in the area and promote the region. The region started to grow year after year and attracted many investors. There are a few administrations and motels there and the region is growing its portfolio year after year.

The factory is a successful example of the lean manufacturing program of the company. This factory in Kelaa des sraghna and another one in Ain harouda Casablanca both work on oilseed crushing and oil refining and made the company increase its production up to 1,450 tons a day which is 400,000 tons a year. Thanks to Lesieur Cristal good quality oil production, it was recently rewarded with the ISO 1400 for the environment protection.

By holding more than 58% of the market shares, the company is now the first agro-industrial company in Morocco.

Social and environmental benefit

This business has a great benefit for both the society and the environment:

• Society: Inhabitants are now proud of their region and have the sense of belonging to it. Since the inauguration of the factory, people no longer need to travel to big cities to find jobs. The factory created more job opportunities in the region by helping start-up businesses. Everyone is working in collaboration with the factory. Even start-up business there benefited from training and technologies that ultimately helped them improve their businesses.

• Environment: There is remarkable improvement in the environment. The company is now using techniques to pick olives from trees using machines that maintain the durability of the trees. It also preserves the natural resources by using techniques that do not waste water, and gives the trees only the quantity of water needed such as drop-by drop. The use of solar panels also saves electricity. All these techniques are favorable for the environment.

Interview

Mohamed el Baraka, Deputy Chief Executive Officer