CROCODILE burgers have gone on sale at the Milan Expo 2015 in Italy.
Prepared and sold in a corner of Zimbabwe’s exhibition space in the Tubers and Cereals Cluster, Crocoburgers are served between two slices of bread, garnished with aubergines, courgettes, peppers and Baobab chilli sauce.
They appear on the menu with roast potatoes and Baobab juice for 15 euros. The meat has been disease-prevention tested in Brescia and sales are allowed thanks to a special Expo exemption.
Zimbabwe has shipped over one tonne of crocodile meat from a farm that raises 200,000 crocodiles a year, but more is on standby.
The Zimbabwean consul, Georges El Badaoui, said the meat was light, fat-free and extremely high quality.
He added that there had been no concerns about the tests, and that they had served to confirm the goodness of the meat, which came from Kariba, a town beside a lake created by an Italian-made dam.
El Badaoui also noted that Italy was one of the very few countries not to allow the import and sale of crocodile meat, but things could be about to change.
Alongside the freshly-prepared hamburgers are other products ready to go onto the Italian market, such as crocodile fillets, which have been paired with Sicilian oranges and Pachino cherry tomatoes.
Companies specialising in tuna or other fish would be best suited to producing crocodile meat, as the meat processing procedures are very similar.Advertisement