As an alternative to wood, a Tunisian start-up transforms olive pomace into energy

"We extract energy and make money from discarded organic waste," Yassine Khelifi, 36, founder of the start-up Bioheat, created in 2022 in the village of Sanhaja, near Manouba (northwest), told AFP.

Showing remnants of "fitoura," a compressed paste of olive pomace (skins, pulp residues, pit fragments), he is proud to "transform something worthless into a source of wealth."

That morning, workers bring the pomace by truck, they are inserted into a mold which makes cylindrical briquettes, left to dry for 30 days, in the sun and in greenhouses, before being packaged for delivery to customers.

"Fitoura" has been used since time immemorial in Tunisia to light fires (in hammams and bakeries), in cooking (as a dietary supplement), and to feed animals. But most of this olive-pressing waste ends up in nature, polluting the soil.

Tunisia, which is among the world's top five olive oil producers with 340.000 tonnes for the current 2024/2025 season, generates almost double the amount of "fitoura" waste (600.000 tonnes this year).

In his native countryside, Yassine Khelifi always saw the workers at the nearby press using the "fitoura": "I wondered how this material could burn for so long without going out."

This would give him the idea, years later, of "transforming it into energy" in order to "reduce the use of firewood in a country suffering from deforestation and climate change."

This engineer and satellite image analyst started his own business in 2015 to sell stoves but noticed a shortage of wood. Starting in 2018, he searched Tunisia and Europe for a machine capable of transforming olive cake into briquettes. In vain.

He decided to build it himself, testing "all types of engines and spare parts" for four years.

Up to the development of a briquette with a residual moisture content of 8%, approximately half that of firewood and "producing much lower CO2 emissions".

Bioheat, which currently employs around ten people, has found opportunities in Tunisia: restaurateurs, hoteliers and certain poorly heated schools in the deprived regions of the northwest, where the temperatures are harsh in winter.

"To be encouraged"

But the majority (60%) of its production (600 tonnes this year) is now exported to France and Canada.

Selim Sahli, 40, owner of a guesthouse near Nabeul (east), is delighted to have switched from wood to briquettes this winter: "It's a clean and easy-to-use energy source, and from a financial point of view, I've reduced my heating costs by a third."

Ahmed Harrar, owner of a pizzeria in the suburbs of Tunis, boasts other advantages: the low-humidity briquettes produce less smoke than wood, much to the relief of his neighbors, and "the 'fitoura' gives the pizza a special flavor."

According to Noureddine Nasr, a former expert on agricultural and rural development at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), better use of olive oil "helps to protect the environment and create jobs and wealth."

This type of project is "to be encouraged," he says, because this invention "contributes to reducing energy purchases in a country with a high energy deficit."

Tunisia depends on fuel and gas imports for more than 60% of its needs, according to official statistics. Energy supplies are a drain on the country's budget, which is indebted to around 80% of its GDP.

In creating his start-up, Yassine Khelifi had to face "a path strewn with pitfalls": he notably encountered difficulties in raising funds, due to "high bank rates", preferring to ask those around him for help.

But his ambitions remain intact. He dreams of "becoming a key player in the transition to clean energy in Tunisia, and why not, on a global scale."