Milking those camels for all they’re worth
Marcel Steingiesser gave up a 14-year career at the world’s biggest mining company to stake his future on what he says is an even better opportunity — Australian camel milk.
That’s because while demand is growing in the U.S. and Asia as camel milk’s purported health benefits attract drinkers outside the traditional markets in Africa and the Middle East, there simply aren’t enough camels available globally to supply the milk that retails for more than $20 a litre (Canadian) in parts of Asia.
Australia can fill that gap because it’s home to the biggest herd of wild camels in the world, said Steingiesser, who joined Good Earth Dairy as CEO in 2016, without ever having tasted the slightly salty milk that camels produce. Now he drinks it regularly.
“We have the opportunity to make the best camel milk,” Steingiesser said at Good Earth’s pilot dairy 160 kilometres north of Perth as Bob, a two-year-old male camel, nosed around his pockets for a handful of pellets.
Until now, camels have been a problem in Australia. Wild camels have wreaked havoc across the Outback since they were first introduced in the 1840s to help explorers navigate the nation.
The mob is growing at about 8 per cent a year, according to Pest Smart, and the animals are normally culled by helicopter in remote areas. Wild camels can be caught and domesticated.
That’s an opportunity for Good Earth, because the access to wild camels makes it easy to quickly expand, says Steingiesser. Good Earth currently has about 100 camels and it’s aiming to expand to a total of 3,300 by June 2020.
Scale is key to getting production costs lower, said Steingiesser.
“Australia is in a unique position,” said Good Earth director and co-founder Stephen Geppert. “If we were to rely on breeding we would be very limited but we have access to a huge supply of camels in the desert.”
Another producer, Victoria-based the Camel Milk Co. of Australia, has doubled output in the past year and now makes 250 litres a day from a herd of 250 animals.
Williams began exporting fresh milk to Singapore in January and sales have doubled. In Australia, supply can’t keep up with demand and there was a four-week waiting period for new customers, according to a 2016 government report.
Compared with cow milk, camel milk has five times the vitamin C and 10 times the iron, according to the Australian Camel Industry Association. It doesn’t contain the whey proteins found in cow’s milk that contribute to dairy allergies.
Allison Aitken, 50, of Dalmeny, New South Wales, says since she started drinking camel milk three months ago to help with stomach problems, her symptoms have improved dramatically. “I’ve been on 17 different diets, paleo, gluten free and oddly enough something as simple as camel milk has worked,” said Aitken, who has half a glass of camel milk daily.