{"id":206451,"date":"2018-12-20T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=206451"},"modified":"2018-12-21T17:58:28","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T19:58:28","slug":"the-camel-milk-chocolate-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/the-camel-milk-chocolate-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"The camel milk chocolate factory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dubai \u2013 Behind the doors of one of the plants in the Dubai Oasis Silicon free zone, the smell is pleasant and inviting. A machine mixes up the dark bright liquid that\u2019ll turn to chocolate. In another piece of equipment, the dried brown paste sits in molds that gyrate in the air, and hands set the tablets into golden wrappings. This would otherwise just be a neat, well-equipped fine chocolate factory, weren\u2019t it for the main ingredient: camel milk.<\/p>\n

Al Nassma is an UAE-based company that\u2019s taking to the world with a product that combines local tradition \u2013 camel milk \u2013 and the luxury that typifies the lives of locals and tourists alike here. The company\u2019s manufacturing unit puts out some 100 tons per year of camel milk chocolate. The milk comes from a 6,000-camel farm about 15 km away from the plant.<\/p>\n

The chocolates are mostly carried by airport shops, from where they fly across borders in the luggage of Asians, Europeans, Americans and anyone looking to leave the Middle East with something that symbolizes the region. Who wouldn\u2019t like to step off a homebound flight from Dubai with a sophisticated gift made with milk from a desert animal which embodies Bedouin life and is a part of local history?<\/p>\n

ANBA made a visit to the Al Nassma plant and spoke with general manager Martin van Almsick (pictured above), a non-local who\u2019s a chocolate aficionado. \u201cWhen we started, ten years ago, not everybody was convinced that that was a good idea, to sell camel milk chocolates,\u201d he says. But there was government-owned farm with milk available, and chocolate people who were willing to give it a go. That\u2019s how Al Nassma came into being.<\/p>\n

Martin explains that no one was making camel milk chocolate before Al Nassma came into the picture. \u201cCamel milk has been here for centuries, and people here, they know about the special values and properties of camel milk. It\u2019s a very healthy milk. And then chocolate people came, you know, and people start to talk, and this is how ideas are generated,\u201d he says. The expertise on what the camel milk had to be like for chocolate-making and the actual manufacturing were developed by the company.<\/p>\n

Production doesn\u2019t seem that secretive. One big machine combines the ingredients, and then the mix gets poured into different molds. Another piece of equipment spins the molds to dry out the chocolate. A machine detects impurities, the product gets refrigerated and the content of the molds gets adjusted for a smooth tablet, among other processes.<\/p>\n

There are lots of humans on hand at the plant. They\u2019ll cut dates into strips for the filling of some of the chocolates, pack and box up the product, etc. Martin explains that the team is multinational, with people from India, Sudan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Germany. Martin himself is from Germany, and he walks through the plant speaking amicably with the staff.<\/p>\n

(story continues after photo gallery)<\/em><\/p>\n