Research paper on Camel Milk Victoria

INTRODUCTION

Background

camel milk Australia is also termed as “white gold” as it offers number of health benefits. Camel Milk Victoria is owned by Megan Williams and Chris Williams. The farm contains a herd of total 70 camels and 20 female camels who are milked. The farm is stretched on 43 hectares on Webb Road, Kyabram in North Victoria (Romensky, 2015). The future expansion plan of Camel Milk Victoria includes the target to achieve 50 female camels for milking by the end of 2016. The idea of entering the niche market of Camel Milk within dairy industry in Australia hit Megan and Chris during their stay on station where they realized how wild camels were running openly in Australia (Hudson, 2016). Before jumping into this business, Chris and Megan took a trainers course by local camel trainer Peter Hodge in order to gain knowledge on how to handle camels. Since there is no requirement of obtaining dairy license for milking camels, so Chris and Megan opted out for milking camels in 2016 (Romensky, 2015). In order to milk the cows (female camels), Chris and Megan use portable milking machines.

 

Products

Current Products

The company is offering wide variety of products at present which includes half and one liter bottles of camel milk, 150 grams Camel Milk soap, 10 grams perfumed Lip balms which are manufactured with natural oil extracts, 1.25 Kg packs of Laundry powder manufactured using camel milk and attractive camel milk soaps in the shapes of camels and teddies weighing 100 and 60 grams respectively (Camel Milk Victoria, 2016).

The prices of each product are given below:

Product	Weight	Price $
Camel milk Soap	150 Grams	10.25
Laundry Powder	1.25 Kilograms	24.95
Lip Balms	10 Grams	9.95
Camel Milk Soap	75 Grams	6.95
Camel Milk Soap (Camel Shaped)	100 Grams	14.25
Camel Milk Soap (Teddy Shaped)	60 Grams	13.45
Camel Milk	1 Litre	21.0
Camel Milk	500 ml	11.0

Future Products

However, Camel Milk Victoria is also trying to produce camel milk powder, camel milk chocolate, camel milk yogurt and camel milk cheeses in addition to the above available products. The business is yet to be extended as Chris and Megan are planning to develop a camel themed tourist park near Kyabram that will offer rides, milking showroom and a whole new café inspired by camels and their history. The tourism farm will be stretched on 200 hectares and is still in process up till end of 2017 (Hudson, 2016).

Mission

The mission of Camel Milk Victoria is to provide healthier alternative to cow milk, goat milk and sheep milk. The broad vision of Camel Milk Victoria is to facilitate consumption of Camel Milk in Australia for fighting with diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis, stomach ulcers and autism.

Vision

Camel Milk Victoria’s future vision is to lead the Camel Milk industry in Australia by promoting camel milk benefits as “super food” and healthy drink with 30 percent less fat, 40 percent less lactose, high calcium and high levels of magnesium content (Ribarich, 2016).

Nutritional Content

The nutritional content in Camel Milk is shown in the table below. It can be seen that as compared to cow, goat, sheep and human, Camel Milk has much lower content of fat and lactose. While protein content may vary but is still more than goat and human milk. This shows that Camel Milk can be sold under claims of low fat and lactose content (Bioasli Camel Milk, 2016).

Source: (Bioasli Camel Milk, 2016)

SITUATION ANALYSIS

Market Sector

There is an association of camel milk with the Australian dairy market. This dairy market offers wide variety of products such as milk, cheese, butter, margarine and other products that are associated with dairy in general. The retail value of Milk grew at around 2% in the year 2014 as compared to 4% in the year 2013 (Euromonitor, 2015). This shows that there is a decline in the retail value growth rate of Milk. Due to the fact that the consumers situated in Australia are in a habit of skipping the breakfast frequently, hence there is a sharp fall in the consumption of milk.

There is an expectation that the future consumption of milk will decline from 2% in 2015 to 1%. The camel milk is a sort of a niche market which will cause a diversion of the prospects of sales of cow, sheep and goat milk in favor of itself (Australian Feral Camel Management, 2015). This diversion will be caused because of the additional benefits that the camel milk has. The dairy manufacturing sector of Australia is diverse and contains public as well as multi-national companies. The industry is very concentrated at medium level as the largest share is held by Lion Pty Ltd at 21%, Murray Goulburn Cooperative Co Limited holds 14.5% and Fonterra Cooperative Group Limited holds 10.2% (IBISWorld, 2013). Norco and Challenge are the other medium sized cooperation’s operating in dairy manufacturing. The chart below shows the shares of dairy manufacturing industry held by each corporation.

Source: (IBISWorld, 2013)

 

 

Supply Chain

The supply chain of Australian dairy industry starts with around 6,686 registered dairy farms out of which 68% are registered in Victoria. The dairy farms in Australia are mostly family owned and produce fresh milk on daily basis. 98% of the drinking milk is produced by farms while 2% is produced by corporates (IBISWorld, 2013).

Source: (IBISWorld, 2013)

Camel Milk Market Demography

The utilization of camels for the purpose of production of milk and dairy in the Australian dry land represents possibilities of major development in the camel milk industry. Australia is one of the blessed countries in the west which has an abundant supply of camels, hence, it can capitalize the market of camel milk to a great extent. The country has an estimated supply of 300,000 feral camels in Australian desert (Helbig, 2016). This is a huge number which needs to be tapped in for milk with the help of technologically advanced research facilities used for the purpose of refinement as well as pasteurization of the camel milk. The Australian Camel industry is on the verge of expansion since the past 20 years but the country has yet to see any improvement in its growth (Dowdell, 2016). According to the report published by the BBC in 2013, approximately 7.5 lakh camels are roaming in the country (Martin, 2014).

There are approximately 100 milking camels in Australia as compared to 1.65 million dairy cows. More than 50% of the feral camels in Australia are present in arid regions of Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and Norther Territory (Vertebrate Pests Committee, 2010). The percentage of feral camels in Australia by region is given in the table below:

Source: (Vertebrate Pests Committee, 2010)

Camel Milk Demand Analysis

Camel milk is attraction number of people at global level due to two main attractions of consuming it. Firstly, camel milk act as a natural pharmacy and secondly it helps in fighting with human health’s challenges like super bug, allergies and other leading diseases (Clean Skin Camels, 2016). The international demand for camel milk has increased to 7,000 liters and pose an opportunity for Camel Milk Victoria to cater increasing demand for camel milk. Camel Milk Industry in Australia is at better position than the camel milk market in Dubai as Australia is the only western country with much access to wild camels that are disease free. According to Martin (2014) there are over 200 million potential milk consumers across the globe and the industry can stand at $10 billion in near future.  

There is a rise in the demand for camel milk in the country which is opening new horizons for the milk products as signified by the Australian Camel Dairies (2014). This means that there is an opening for a new niche market that can prove profitable. In the past, the camel milk has been disapproved by the Australian health department as they claimed that as one cannot pasteurize camel milk, there is a chance that the milk would contain a lot of bacteria. This situation changed rapidly in 2014, when the health department started issuing licenses to the camel milk producers because of the new technologies that were introduced in the industry that assisted in pasteurizing the camel milk (Martin, 2014). The pasteurized milk opened new horizons for the camel dairies as the sale of milk for human consumption increased manifold.

The camel milk demand in Australia is rising with passing time. There is such high demand for camel milk in Australia that during November, 2014, it was being resold at $200 liter on Gumtree (Kakar, 2015). The rise in Camel Milk demand is due to its invaluable role in fighting with diseases like diabetes, autism and cancer. Some of the challenges that the camel milk market demand faced included fluctuations in government legislation and cost of starting a camel milk dairy.

Competition

Due to increasing demand in Australia for Camel Milk, more and more players are entering in the industry. There are few of the very well established camel milk dairies operating in Queensland, Western Australia and Northern Territory. However, with future expansion plans Camel Milk Victoria is predicted to grow at faster pace. Moreover, it holds the title of the first licensed camel milk production house in the state (Long, 2015).

Competitors

Name	Location	Owners	Information
Humpalicious	Port Germein, South Australia	Roger and Warwick	South Australian first operational camel milk dairy farm.  It was established in 2013 and currently have 60 camels that are mustered and milked (Humpalicious, 2016).
Clarendon Dairy	Northwest of Brisbane	Hannah Purss and Evan Casey	First commercial scale dairy set up in 2015 and has 33 camels brought up from South Australia. The aim is to build 850 herd camel milk dairy which would be largest in Australia (Helbig, 2016).
QCamel	Caloundra district, Sunshine Coast	Peter and Lauren Brisbane.	Second camel dairy nationwide and first dairy farm in Queensland, East Coast of Australia. There are 30 camels while six cows are milked daily resulting in 150 liters of camel milk (QCamel, 2016).
Australian Camel Dairies	Perth Hills, Western Australia	Steve Geppert	First Commercial camel dairy farm in Perth Hills, Western Australia with 30 camels in herd producing 5 liters milk each day (Martin, 2014).
Calamunda Camel Farm	Paulls Valley, Western Australia	Chris O’Harra and Gilad Berman	30 Arabian Camels are milked daily (Martin, 2014)

SWOT:

Strengths:

• The milk of camel is considered as a healthier alternative when it comes to cow milk.

• It contains very low fat and calcium, Vitamin C, iron and potassium content is high in the camel milk (Australian Feral Camel Management, 2015).

• The camel milk can be consumed regularly by individuals who are lactose intolerant (Martin, 2014).

• The yield of milk produced from one camel can easily reach up to 20 litres on daily basis provided that there is a proper use of machinery (Romensky, 2015).

• The camels have the tendency to be completely at ease during the process of milking and can be easily domesticated (Brisbane, 2009).

• There is a lot of training manuals and health documentations that are available to capture as well as handle camels.

• There has been an agreement on the behalf of commonwealth in order to initiate research regarding the camel milk dairies.

• CACIA officers have been associated with the development of camel products.

 

 

Weaknesses:

• The people generally lack awareness of the benefits of camel milk because of which its demand has not been able to exceed cow milk demand (Clean Skin Camels, 2016).

• The consumers of milk have developed the taste for cow milk and the salty taste of camel milk might not prove tasty for them (Romensky, 2015).

• If the camel milk is not pasteurized, there is a lot of bacteria present in the milk which is medically proven to be unhealthy (Martin, 2014).

• There is untargeted and inefficient promotion of the camel milk while aiming towards the camel milk consumers.

Opportunities:

• The awareness of camels being major providers of milk is growing.

• The shift of the consumers towards healthier options of food with low fats and high calcium contents is making the demand of camel milk on a rise (Swinburn, et al., 2010).

• The diseases related to heart and blood sugar has opened the opportunity for the industry associated with camel milk.

• Milk from camels can be considered as a kitchen item that is used on regular basis and has a lot of health benefits as compared to cow’s milk.

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