RS Sodhi, managing director of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), said the milk for the product will be acquired locally.
He said the chocolate will be made from milk mainly from the Kharai and Kutchi pastoral camel breeds, and sold at around 200,000 retailers across India.
“We will procure camel milk from Kutch and the chocolates will be made at Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers,” he added.
Sarhad Dairy, the commercial name of the Kutch district dairy co-operative, is in the process of setting up a camel milk processing plant in the area, which will soon be operational.
Sodhi also announced that a new Amul confectionery plant has been planned for Anand, also in Gujarat. It will be used for the manufacture of a range of chocolate products, and will have a capacity of around 1,000 tonnes per month.
India’s food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, last year approved camel milk as a food item, issuing specific standards for its sale and trade.
Camel chocolate has long been manufactured in Arab countries, and is currently going through a resurgence in demand.