An estimated 25-50% of the annual camel milk production in Kenya and Ethiopia is currently wasted because of lack of infrastructure and lack of further processing to preserve the milk, according to Chr. Hansen. Thus, thousands of camel owners in these arid regions could benefit from developments that can help them increase the use-value and prolong the shelf life of their camel milk.
In an attempt to facilitate this, Chr. Hansen has launched a camel forum on LinkedIn. The initiative comes after a CSR project in 2012 by Chr. Hansen and Kenyan company Oleleshwa Enterprises to improve the living conditions of small-scale camel owners.
The project focused on the development of basic knowledge about camel cheese production to enable camel owners to produce their own camel cheese for both sales and own consumption, and ended with the development of several camel cheese recipes, which have been collected in a simple camel cheese manual available for download.
“We now realise that the more knowledge we generate, the more need for further development and information we have and for that reason we have created an external platform where people all around the world can share their knowledge, experiences, and recipes on camel milk products,” said Rolando Saltini, global marketing manager cheese, Chr. Hansen. “Everyone will be able to make suggestions, questions and comments regarding camel milk and camel milk products. It will be an independent platform but with a link to Chr. Hansen.”
Chr. Hansen said that the new open discussion platform will mainly have an educational character, but it can also serve as inspiration for the development of more recipes in the future. For instance, camel cheese is not widely produced on an industrial level and on the long term, this forum may contribute to the camel cheese consolidation on specific markets.
The company has worked together with Marina Zande, an independent food engineer and graduate in the topic of camel chymosin and camel cheese making, on this project. Zande evaluated all platforms currently available and chose Linkedin as the camel platform, as most of the camel society is already present here.
“This project could support the development of a profitable business for camel owners in the arid areas of Africa and Middle East, and it will provide ideas for the development of new products,” said Zande. “We strongly believe that this forum can establish more knowledge on the production of numerous camel milk products on an industrial level.”
