Every tagine we sell starts in the same place: a workshop in Safi, on Morocco's Atlantic coast, where we work directly with Muhammed and the artisans in his cooperative. Not through an import agent, not through a wholesaler buying in bulk from multiple unnamed workshops, but a direct, ongoing relationship with the people actually shaping, painting and firing each piece.
We think how a product is sourced matters just as much as how it's made, so this page is our honest account of that relationship: how we work with Muhammed's cooperative, what that partnership actually looks like, and what we're still working to improve.
Why We Chose to Source Directly
Moroccan pottery, and tagines in particular, often passes through several hands before it reaches a shop shelf abroad: the artisan who makes it, a local trader, an export agent, sometimes more than one importer, each adding a margin along the way. That chain can work, but it also puts real distance between the person making a piece and the person eventually cooking with it, and it tends to mean artisans see a smaller share of what a piece ultimately sells for.
We wanted a shorter, more direct relationship instead. Working with Muhammed's cooperative means we know exactly where our tagines come from, we can talk directly with the people making them, and there's no unnamed middle layer between Safi and our customers' kitchens.
Our Relationship With Muhammed's Cooperative
We've been working with Muhammed and his cooperative for between one and three years now. It's a relatively young partnership by the standards of a craft this old, but it's one we're committed to building on rather than treating as a short-term supplier arrangement.
Muhammed leads a cooperative of skilled artisans in Safi, working in the traditional way described throughout this site: clay dug and prepared by hand, pieces thrown on the wheel, carved, hand-painted and glazed, then fired in the kiln, the same nine-stage process behind every genuinely handmade tagine. What makes this a cooperative rather than a single workshop is that several artisans, often with different specialities, throwing, painting, glazing, work together under Muhammed to produce each order.
What We Don't Claim
We'd rather be straightforward here than dress this relationship up as something it isn't. We don't currently hold a formal fair-trade or ethical sourcing certification for this partnership. That's not because we don't take the underlying principles seriously, we do, it's because we haven't yet gone through the formal certification process that would let us use that specific language accurately.
What we can say honestly: we pay Muhammed's cooperative directly for the work they produce, we've built a working relationship over more than a year rather than treating it as a one-off transaction, and we intend to keep working with the same cooperative as we grow rather than switching suppliers to chase a marginally lower price. If and when we pursue formal certification, we'll update this page to reflect it properly, rather than using certification language now that we can't fully back up.
Quality Control and Consistency
Because every piece is handmade, no two tagines from Muhammed's cooperative are ever perfectly identical, and we see that as part of the appeal rather than something to correct. That said, we do work with the cooperative on consistency where it matters: sizing, cooking-safe construction, and glaze quality, so that every piece we receive is genuinely fit for the stovetop, not just visually finished.
Every tagine passes through the same final inspection stage described in our guide to how handmade tagines are made, checking for cracks, glaze coverage and overall structural soundness, before it's approved for shipping. Firing pottery at scale is genuinely unpredictable, even for experienced artisans, so this stage matters as much for us as it does for Muhammed's workshop.
Why This Matters to Us
We started Marrakesh Arts because we wanted to bring genuinely handmade Moroccan tagines to people who care about authentic cooking and real craftsmanship, not a mass-produced approximation of the style. That only works if the sourcing behind it is real too. Working directly with Muhammed's cooperative means every piece we sell is a piece we can actually stand behind, made by people we know, in a workshop we can describe honestly rather than in vague, unverifiable marketing language.
Our full range of handcrafted Moroccan ceramics, tagines and tableware alike, comes from this same relationship. As we grow, we're committed to keeping that relationship direct rather than letting it become another anonymous link in a longer supply chain.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you ensure quality across an order?
Every piece goes through a final inspection stage, checking for structural soundness, glaze coverage and cracks, before it's approved for shipping, the same process described in our guide to how tagines are made.
Do the artisans get paid fairly?
We pay Muhammed's cooperative directly for the work they produce, without an import agent or middleman taking a cut along the way. We don't have third-party wage certification to point to yet, but direct sourcing is a deliberate choice to keep more of what we pay with the people actually making each piece.
Why source directly instead of through an importer?
Sourcing through an importer or wholesaler adds distance and additional margin between the artisan and the customer. Working directly with Muhammed's cooperative means a shorter chain, a real relationship, and more transparency about where each piece actually comes from.
Will this sourcing relationship stay the same as you grow?
That's our intention. We'd rather scale by growing our relationship with Muhammed's cooperative, and potentially supporting more artisans within it, than by switching to a different, lower-cost supplier as demand increases.
Still a Work in Progress
We're not going to pretend this page, or our sourcing relationship, is a finished, polished story. It's a genuine, ongoing partnership with Muhammed and his cooperative that we're still building, and we'll keep updating this page honestly as that relationship develops, including if and when we're able to add formal certifications or more detail about how the partnership works day to day. If you have questions about where your tagine came from, we're happy to answer them directly rather than pointing you to a vague supply chain statement.
