Just wait for it.
Posted on 01/22/2016 5:41:08 PM PST by nickcarraway
One start-up is betting on a new super food to shake up the dairy aisle.
"We're America's new dairy generation, and we sell camel milk," said Walid Abdul Wahab, the founder of Desert Farms, the first start-up producing its own line of camel milk in North America.
He told CNBC he wants to provide the U.S. with what he calls a "clean and better dairy alternative" that is already popular in Saudi Arabia, his native country.
Desert Farms offers three varieties: raw, pasteurized and kefir. Currently, 150 retailers across the U.S. carry the milk, including Whole Foods, and it's sold online. Some stores carry the milk fresh, but most keep the product frozen.
Wahab told CNBC his customers prefer frozen camel milk because it gives it a longer shelf life without adding any preservatives.
The camel milk is served in both eight-ounce and 16-ounce bottles and retails for between $18.99 and $21.99.
The Skinny
Jean Terminiello, former Coca-Cola sales VP and founder of the Big Beverage Co., was concerned the product is too expensive for the average consumer.
She wondered how people have responded to the price so far. Despite the $20 price tag, Wahab said his customers are drinking it up.
"The response that we get from most consumers is that they haven't been able to drink milk for the last 10 years until they discovered camel's milk," Wahab told CNBC.
Alicia Syrett, board member of the New York Angels, questioned what dairy category camel milk fits in.
"Camel milk is in its own category," Wahab told CNBC. According to the founder, some studies found that children with dairy allergies were able to consume camel milk.
Camel milk Source: Desert Farms Camel milk Wahab also said he believes camel milk has more health benefits than other dairy beverages. "It has three times the amount of Vitamin C, almost 10 times the amount of iron and almost half the amount of fat," he said.
But the start-up enters a crowded shelf space, competing against leading dairy options such as cow's milk, and popular alternatives like soy and almond milk.
Market Research firm IbisWorld estimates that in 2015, the Dairy Farms industry generated $35.6 billion in revenue. The research firm also found that the soy and almond milk industry generated an estimate of $1.2 billion in 2015, after growing 7.2 percent year over year since 2010.
Still, the start-up might be well on its way to getting over the hump, as the founder likes to say.
According to Wahab, Desert Farms has 100,000 customers and has hit $1.5 million in milk sales since its January 2014 launch. Wahab also told CNBC the start-up is selling more than 5,000 bottles a week.
Its largest customer base is parents of autistic children. According to Wahab, autistic children can easily digest the milk, but camel milk has not been scientifically proven to treat autism. He also claims the camel milk may help improve motor skills, but this is anecdotal.
While the start-up is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Desert Farms produces and bottles its milk at camel farms in Missouri, Indiana and Ohio. It is self-funded with $25,000, with no outside investments.
Wahab told CNBC he plans to expand the product line to include chocolate flavored milk, ice cream, even yogurt, and is also working on an infant formula.
Well, as tall as camels are the milkmaid won’t need a stool.
Does this mean there’s hope for the Freeper Dairy and its line of moose cheese?
Nowhere in the article does it state that the recipie for camels’s milk in the middle east is a combination of camel milk and camel urine.
I was wondering about the whizz.
I would never recommend drinking raw milk of any kind, but camel’s milk has the added danger of MERS. That is a virus carried by camels, and has a fairly high fatality rate.
I know people who go to the farmers market to get raw milk for their children. (Cow or goat milk)
This character is just the marketer, not the producer. There’s a Mennonite family in Missouri who have been milking camels for several years, and this Desert Farms label is one of their distributors.
It’s pasteurized.
Hump Day Every Day
http://www.hpj.com/rich/hump-day-every-day/article_1dc236f7-9d4e-5135-9f2f-5e159f4f3b01.html
Interesting read.
How can they sell “raw” camel milk when Wisconsin dairy farmers almost lost their farm giving raw milk away to friends and family.
Did you see posted earlier this week the link to the utube showing idiot arab camel riders over there drinking camel pee and then washing their face in it?? Looked like when they lifted the tail the faucet came on.
Twenty-two bucks for 16 oz of, eh, product? Only in saudi arabia, the land where our gasoline greenbacks magically appear on the arab’s money trees.
I can’t imagine deciding to give my children raw milk. Even if the udder were not directly below the anus, there is still the risk that the cow is ill and asymptomatic, in which case the milk will contain bacteria or viruses. Yuck.
Just wait for it.
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