Richard has been a food and farming journalist for almost six years. After seeing a tweet from Farm Africa advertising for runners in the 2014 Brighton Half Marathon, he decided to apply. Given his lifelong interest in food and farming, both inside and outside of work, he felt Farm Africa was the ideal charity partner. However, not content to simply pound the pavements for us, he decided to boost his fundraising efforts with a very unusual idea.

Richard has been working with the Emirates Industry for Camel Milk & Products (EICMP) and UK coffee shop chain Taylor St Baristas to realise his “dream” of “ordering a ‘camelatte’ in my favourite coffee shop”. His dream became a reality, and from Wednesday 5 February 2014 London coffee-drinkers will be able to buy their usual beverage with a nutritious twist. The Taylor St Baristas branch at 125 Old Broad Street, EC2N 1AR will be offering camel milk coffees to customers for an extra £1, and the proceeds will be donated to Farm Africa. Camel milk coffees will also be available from other London branches from Thursday 6 February, and from the Brighton branch (28 Queens Road, BN1 3XA) on Saturday 8 February, until stocks last.

Richard sampling a camel milk coffee at Taylor St Baristas, London.

Camel’s milk is very nutritious - it has around half the fat content of cow milk and up to five times the amount of vitamin C. It’s also rich in unsaturated fatty acids. “Cow, goat and even buffalo milk are all widely available in the UK now and there’s no reason why camel milk can’t make it into the mainstream here too,” said Richard.

Farm Africa sees the growing demand for livestock products from urban consumers as an opportunity for animal owners to trade themselves out of poverty. We are currently supporting a number of communities through livestock projects including Poultry farming and marketing and Sidai, a social enterprise that is setting up a network of centres to provide high-quality livestock services in rural Kenya.

We are thrilled that Richard has chosen to run the Brighton Half Marathon in support of Farm Africa and we love his innovative fundraising idea (have a read of his article about the venture - published in The Grocer). We can’t wait to have our first sip of camel milk coffee, and will be cheering from the sidelines in Brighton on 16 February.