Milking the market

European Union health regulators have given the go-ahead for the UAE to become the first major exporter of camel milk products to the 27-nation bloc. If site inspections and other EU tests meet the specified criteria, the first batches of powdered camel milk under the brand name Camelicious could be heading to European shelves next year and then possibly to Asia and America.

 

“We know this isn’t what you’d call a mainstream product in the west,” said David Wernery, legal adviser for the Camelicious brand, whose parent company goes by the more staid name of Emirates Industry for Camel Milk and  Products. “We’re thinking about health food stores and alternative markets. It’s probably going to be a niche thing at first.”

 

Camel milk is considered an alternative for the lactose-intolerant. Researchers have studied possible roles for camel milk in fighting bacteria, tumours and diabetes, as well as traditional uses such as a treatment for liver disease.

 

For Dubai’s Ruler, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, a Camelicious foothold in Europe would mark a pet project coming to fruition.

 

Wernery’s veterinarian father, Ulrich Wernery, made a pitch about setting up a camel dairy to Sheikh Mohammed a decade ago.

 

“I told him, ‘You race camels. Why not milk them?'” said Ulrich, who first became enamoured with camels while working in Somalia in the 1970s.

 

His Highness did not give an immediate answer, so Ulrich went ahead and created a small pilot dairy in 2000 with about a dozen camels outside his research and animal care clinic in Dubai.