A chewy cheese made by generations of yak herders in Nepal has become an unexpected hit overseas — as a dog treat — bringing entrepreneurs and Himalayan farmers a windfall.
Known as churpi, the dried cheese made from churned yak’s milk and cow’s milk has long been a popular snack domestically.
However, businessman Sujan Shrestha said he had “a lightbulb moment” after a US friend bought the cheese for his pooch before returning home from the Himalayan country.
Photo: AFP
“We were actually offended at first (that) ... he was giving churpi to his dog,” Shrestha said.
Then they saw the business opportunities.
Shrestha, a former handicrafts salesman, and two friends decided to test the water in 2007, setting up a stall at a farmers’ market in Washington and selling the cheese exclusively for dogs. They sold out within half an hour.
Since then, business has nearly doubled year-on-year.
The company, known as Himalayan Dog Chew, is now a frontrunner among a handful of firms which market churpi in the US, Britain, Canada and Japan.
It exported more than 200 tonnes of churpi from Nepal last year, with sales in North America and Japan totalling US$9 million.
Industrywide, Shrestha and rival firms like Yeti Dog Chew say the US market alone accounts for annual sales of at least US$10 million.
Nepal exported about 300 tonnes of dog chew in 2013 in total, with suppliers struggling to keep up with demand, according to a report by Kathmandu-based non-profit, Institution for Suitable Actions For Prosperity.
Shrestha also decided to establish a production plant in Seattle, where 60 workers use machines to try to replicate the laborious techniques of Himalayan farmers.
The traditional process — unchanged for centuries — sees yak herders churn and strain the milk by hand, before wrapping the semi-solid residue in a cloth and hanging it up to dry and ferment.
For farmers like Mingma Sherpa from Nepal’s Everest region, surging demand for his cheese has meant about US$1,500 a year in extra income — a bonanza in a country where one quarter of the population lives on less than US$1.25 a day.
“It is strange to think that our churpi is eaten by dogs, but it is so good ... they must like it too,” Sherpa, 30, said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS