Dubai: Chocolate company Al Nassma, which uses camel milk to produce confectionery as the only one of its kind in the world, is planning to open outlets in California, New York and Tokyo in the next months, General Manager Martin van Almsick told Gulf News in an exclusive interview on the premises of the 3000-camel farm in Umm Nahad near Dubai.
"Since the launch of our camel milk chocolate production at the end of last year we experienced surprisingly tremendous demand especially from Japanese and American expats living in Dubai, who use to buy large amounts of the chocolate as a gift for their relatives and friends when visiting home," Van Almsick said.
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"We also get dozens of e-mails per day from abroad asking if the chocolate is available in the customers' home countries. We end sending them chocolate through our online shop channel," he added.
The overseas expansion has now priority over originally planned steps to open shops and outlets in GCC and Middle East countries first, van Almsick said. However, plans to expand to Saudi Arabia, where at least one shop will open in Jeddah next year, as well as to Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Iran, Egypt and Turkey are "on track".
When the camel milk farm including the chocolate factory and a dairy were inaugurated in October last year after a planning period of more than two years, it was an open question if the project will prove successful as the factory was designed for an output of some 100 tonnes of chocolate products yearly.
Today, there is no doubt that there is adequate demand for this amount of "five-star chocolate", as van Almsick calls it. In the UAE, Al Nassma has partnerships with Jumeirah Hotel Group, Kempinski, JW Marriott, Grand Hyatt, Dubai Duty Free and Etihad Airways. The second produce of the farm, camel milk drinks under the brand name "Camelicious", are sold in several malls and supermarket chains like Spinneys, Geant and Union Coop.
Al Nassma is a joint venture of the Dubai Government and HM Chocolate Holding, based in Vienna and founded by entrepreneurial confectioner Hans Georg Hochleitner from Salzburg, Austria. Renowned Austrian chocolate manufacturer Manner AG, a century-old family company in Vienna, is holding 45 per cent of HM Chocolate's stake and is assisting Al Nassma in the production process and delivering know-how. Camel milk is delivered as freeze-dried powder to Manner's Viennese factory and processed into big chocolate blocks there. Then the raw blocks return to Dubai for final production. At the Al Nassma chocolate factory currently 15 people are working on the transformation of the blocks into several types of fancy chocolate products.
There are the classic camel milk chocolate bars, but also bars enriched with spices (of cardamom and cinnamon) and date flavour as well as deep dark chocolate bars. A broad range of pralines is also produced, comprising Arabic coffee cream, marzipan and hazelnut nougat tastes. At the end of the line Al Nassma offers chocolate camels and hollow camel figures, all made from the same precious camel milk chocolate.
The factory only uses genuine and pure ingredients, van Almsick said. "This is what truly distinguishes us from other large chocolate producers." Spices are bought in the region, high quality cocoa originates from Ivory Coast and Ghana, vanilla from Madagascar, oranges from Spain, honey from Hungary and nuts from Australia. Van Almsick is planning to switch from Hungarian honey to honey made in Yemen, he said. "We are currently performing a quality assessment."
Quality is indeed an issue at Al Nassma's premises. Outsiders are not allowed to even get near the 3000-camel farm, where specialised veterinaries are closely watching over the livestock. When entering the property, the car has to pass a pond filled with disinfectant liquid to ensure that any bacteria are washed off the tyres. All in all, some 200 people are working at the place, 80 per cent of them are specialised camel farmers.
Does Al Nassma feel the recession, which has particularly hit sales of luxury goods over the last month? "Not at all," van Almsick said. "In my opinion, chocolate is one of the few recession-proof things. It's a kind of special luxury which people indulge themselves in even in harder times. It turns out that chocolate is a thing which is even more in demand in times of crises."
Precious liquid
The camel milk farm on the outskirts of Dubai, Camelicious, is home to some 3000 camels. In average, a camel gives between two and ten litres of milk a day, depending if there is a calf needing part of the milk.
This is far less than the amount of milk cows are delivering, so the precious white liquid is treated very carefully. Camel milk boasts a broad range of health benefits: It is much lower in fat than cow milk, contains several enzymes that have a positive effect on digestion and vitamins that strengthen the immune systems.
And then there is the taste: A sip of genuine, pure camel milk provides the taste buds a light and clear impression of freshness, then lays a breeze of pleasant mealiness on the tongue and leaves a mystical, very light bitterness at the finish.
