Whether it is being drizzled on salads or turned into face creams, Morocco's argan oil is the latest culinary and cosmetic must-have. But with sales soaring around the world, concerns remain about the pay and conditions of the mainly female workforce that produces the oil.
I watch as a group of women each use two rocks, one large, one small, to smash open the fruit to get to the seeds inside a very hard central nutshell.
They sit on cushions on the floor of a cool stone house, beside big piles of the fruit.
"I want a better job, with a better salary," says one of the workers, 37-year-old Samira Chari. "But there is nothing else. This is my only option."
We are in the Moroccan countryside, some 25km (15.5 miles) inland from the port city of Essaouira, halfway down the country's Atlantic coast. It is warm and sunny, and lush green argan trees pepper the arid landscape.
The women are employed by a business called Marjana, one of around 300 small firms, mostly co-operatives, that now produce argan oil by extracting it from the seeds.
The trees themselves, which are up to 10m (33 ft) tall, are found all over Morocco.
Often called the country's "liquid gold", global sales of argan oil are soaring, helped by studies that suggest it has health benefits. Production, which is almost all from Morocco, is expected to reach 19,623 US tons or $1.79bn (£1.4bn) by 2022 up from 4,836 US tons in 2014.
In Morocco argan is traditionally used as a foodstuff - a dip for bread or drizzled on couscous - and as a medicine. But the big growth in demand is being led by the worldwide cosmetics industry. In addition to face creams, it is now being added products like lip gloss, shampoo, moisturisers and soaps.
The women who harvest the seeds are more often from the Berber ethnic group, and this is the case at Marjana, where staff manager Amina Bouna says they bring age-old skills.
"Only Berber women know how to extract the oil," she says. "It's old Berber knowledge. Otherwise we have all types of women here - young, old, married and divorced."
The 80 women at the company are allowed to work as much as they like. But despite many working from early mornings until evenings, they normally make less than $221 (£170) a month, says Ms Bouna - below Morocco's recommended national minimum wage.
"But it's better than they stay at home," argues Ms Bouna. "Before, they made the oil at home. Their husbands sold it on the market and kept the money. Now they don't need their husbands' money, as they make their own. It's a win-win situation."
The workers do get some health insurance and pensions provision, but Ms Chari wants to see wages go up. Divorced, she says she has to work long hours to afford medicine for her daughter. She says if she were paid more, she'd be able to spend more time with her child.
As the industry becomes more lucrative, the issue of the women's wages has become an increasingly hot topic. Zoubida Charrouf, a chemistry professor at Mohammed V University of Rabat is one of the leading advocates for higher salaries.
Article at BBC.com
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