Camel milk, which has a therapeutic value, poses a potential in the milk industry. (Photo : Getty Images)
Six years after her bold venture into a fresh business, a young woman from Hebei is making huge humps of money out of camels.
Zheng Linlin, 28, and a native of Tangshan, Hebei, can earn a million yuan in a year by selling camels and their milk. This is in contrast to what she experienced at the beginning of her business where she lost more than a million yuan in the first three years.
Just like most success stories, Zheng's story started with a lot of challenges. Having a college degree, she was expected by her family to do a white-collar job in the city and not raise camels in the province.
Moreover, the camels, which she bought in Inner Mongolia, were not adapted to the environment in Tangshan, and this caused them illnesses and for some, death. Not finding any veterinarian around, Zheng had to travel back to Inner Mongolia to get some expert advice.
Despite the money she lost, Zheng did not stop from pursuing her vision of building a camel milk industry.
Her passion started when she learned in college that camel milk has an edge over the more common cow's milk, in that the former has a therapeutic value. Camel milk contains insulin, making it a potential natural solution for diabetes.
Her persistence and hard work paid off when she finally mastered how to feed and take care of her camels. Stabilizing their living conditions also meant the stabilization of the yield.
Today, she has 170 camels in all, 50 of which are milking females. The rest are for sale or for tourism activities.
Aside from her farm in Tangshan, Zhang has already opened a breeding facility in Beijing and plans to open another in Shanghai very soon.
She said that her clients are mostly diabetics and the rich, considering that camel milk is significantly more expensive than cow milk. The average cost of camel milk in the market today is 198 yuan, while cow milk is only 10 yuan.
Zhang's business story is one of setbacks and success. Failures are a part of business, but as long as someone has the eye to see a promising opportunity and the courage to take risks, success is just waiting round the corner.
