(Sophia Roe) If you're looking to do more to keep your emissions down,
you should probably start with what you pour in your coffee.
Yep, I'm talking about milk.
One researcher found that milk, cheese, and ice cream from cows
is responsible for about 3.6% of global emissions.
The almonds in your almond milk
take about six times more water to grow
than the same amount of oats.
Which is one reason why oat milk is now everywhere.
Well, those aren't the only milk alternatives.
There's also one that has an added benefit,
plus, it has humps.
ALT MILK
(Lauren Bribane) So now what we're going to do
is take a little bit of milk out of each tit,
and we're going to have a look at that milk.
(Arielle Duhaime-Ross) Okay, I'm going to give this a try.
I am getting quite-- Oh, there we go.
All right, I'm milking camel.
(Lauren) The next two, the next two we got to milk, yeah.
(Arielle) This is a camel dairy farm
and it's in Australia.
When Lauren Brisbane started it six years ago,
it was the only one in the country.
(Lauren) It's been difficult
because Australians aren't naturally adventurous
particularly in new food types.
(Arielle) In the 1860s,
Afghan camel herders were hired
to help explore the country's desert landscapes
bringing thousands of camels with them.
But with the advent of trains and cars,
camels soon became obsolete.
So they were released into the wild.
Fast forward to the early 2000s,
and Australia was home to more than a million camels,
which was a problem because those camels
cause 10 million dollars in environmental damage each year,
according to the government.
So officials tried to stop them by killing thousands of camels in 2010.
Lauren saw this as an opportunity to turn camels into a cash cow.
(Lauren) There's worldwide need for camel's milk.
It doesn't cause a lot of the dysfunction or the allergy reaction
that you get from, you know, dairy, cow's dairy milk.
So it's easier to digest.
(Arielle) Research on camel's milk is still very scarce.
There's only limited evidence to suggest that camel's milk
might have unique nutritional properties
and overall, the jury still out.
At $25 a liter, it's also not cheap.
(Lauren) Look, I think it's expensive because camels don't produce a lot of milk,
and the way you operate a dairy is completely different.
But it's a very high-end healthy product,
and to produce that properly is expensive.
(Arielle) Camel's milk has been popular in the Middle East and Africa
for thousands of year,.
and Australia is nowhere close to cracking the list of top producers.
Laura thinks she can help expand the product's reach
beyond just being a fad, though.
So, we had a chat with her target audience.
Would you be willing to try the camel's milk today?
(Leon Weber) Yeah, all right. Sure.
(Arielle) What do you think?
(Leon) It actually tastes a lot like goat's milk without the pungent taste.
(Arielle You have a little bit of milk here--
(Leon) A camel's milk mustache.
(Arielle) Would you pay $25 for a liter of camel's milk?
(Karen Knipper) Maybe once and then see how I go. (laughter)
Maybe, okay.
It's like four times the amount of the regular milk
and I guess, as a novelty, it's all right,
(Arielle) Lauren's farm isn't the only one of its kind.
Around a dozen other camel dairies have popped up in Australia since 2014.
And the industry is growing.
According to one report,
it's projected to grow by 8% globally each year,
for the next seven years.
It's a projection that someone like Jeff Flood,
co-owner of Summer Land Camel Farm,
is really banking on.
(Jeff Flood) We're nearly 800 camels now.
Besides, our operation here
represents pretty much 60% of the industry in total in volume.
So it's a huge R&D project here-- Well, how do we build the herd?
We've got to take a feral animal and convince it that it's safe to be here.
It's okay to give up milk.
There's a whole training and domestication process in the front.
(Jeff) Enjoy.
(Arielle) Okay. Thank you.
(Jeff) So this room is a super clean room.
(Arielle) Okay, I noticed some stuff in jars and some--
(Jeff) Yeah...
(Arielle) Some Tupperware, what's going on here?
(Jeff) This is all that cheese prototyping--
(Arielle) So... was this top secret?
(Jeff) Yes. A lot of that is actually--
(Arielle) Really?
(Jeff) Nobody's done stuff with camel's milk work like we have so,
for example, has anyone made a parmesan cheese out of camel's milk?.
Well, we have.
(Jeff) So this is, this morning's milk.
(Arielle) That is so white.
(Jeff) It is so white.
(Arielle) The color is very unnatural.
It looks completely different.
(Jeff) Well, here's to our health again.
(Arielle) Thank you so much.
Oh, that was really interesting.
It definitely tastes like milk.
It doesn't taste strong like goat's milk.
Little bit on the salty side?
(Jeff) It's really clean.
What's exciting is there's a really clean mouthfeel,
so it spreads evenly across the mouth.
The fat molecules, like I said, are really small,
and you get the full flavor of the milk all the way through.
(Arielle) What does the future of this industry look like?
(Jeff) I would hope that in about 10 years' time everybody in Australia
has tasted camel milk,
whether it's a gelato or cheese or milk,
or they've used the product that's got camel milk in there,
maybe the skincare range or something, the nutraceutical product that uses it.
(Arielle) Scaling camel's milk production isn't easy because of their low,
and sometimes unpredictable daily yield,
but Jeff's farm is trying to do just that.
Lauren's approach to camel's milk production
is a bit different, though.
She puts a lot of emphasis on cuddle time,
which she says helps the camels feel more comfortable,
and more willing to give up their milk.
(Lauren) Every afternoon, camel cuddling is part of the job.
(Arielle) Really? Well, that is quite a burden.
(Lauren) I know, It is, it's terrible.
(Arielle) It's horrible, must be very hard for you.
(Lauren) Yeah, very hard.
(Lauren) It was really great coming from a perspective
that we weren't dairy people,
because we looked at camels as camels.
And we looked at their needs and-- (laughter)
(Arielle) He loves to cuddle!
(Lauren) Hello. It's okay. This is Rosie.
(Arielle) And from your perspective, is this doing well?
(Lauren) Well, we're breaking even, at the moment.
and when we're just popping over into the profit sector.
When you start anything, it's always difficult,
but it's certainly moving along in a nice direction,
let's put it that way.