By Houria Chouhab
F2F Volunteer Technical & Field Assistant

The president of Tarsilte Nortane with the F2F and EU Beni Mellal teams.

Demnate is a commune in the province of Azilal, Beni Mellal region. This commune is known for its richness of medicinal and aromatic plants, such as thyme and rosemary, in addition to the quality of its honey products.

The F2F team accompanied by a UVA student paid a visit to Tislite Nortane Cooperative in Demnate and had a chance to meet up with its president Lalla Naima to discuss the activities of the co-op and the challenges that burden the sustainability of their development.

The F2F team was glad to hear that Tislite Nortane is an active cooperative that prepares Moroccan sweets and extracts essential oils out of the local medicinal and aromatic plants. The president was confident about the traditional way of extracting the oils, but this will not help her getting the certification of product safety.

In this regard, the F2F team will provide technical training for the members of this cooperative about the correct technical way to extract the essential oils. This will eventually guide the members to the right way of making the most important part of their products.

This fruitful discussion made it also clear that the cooperative needs training in e-marketing in order to expand the sales of its products as well as to reach wider clients. This could be a second step for the F2F team to go for as a future assignment.