ECONOMICS & enterprise
ECONOMICS & enterprise open sesame Nothing seedy about this new factory By Joyce Wiswell Ten percent may not seem like much, but it’s too much for Namir Daman. He’s determined to find a way to make money off the 10 percent of waste his factory is left with. Daman’s sesame seed processor, North America Sesame Works, opened in Taylor in November. Before a sesame seed can be consumed, the hull must be removed. “It’s 10 percent of the whole sesame,” he said of the hull. “I did some testing with my lab and it has a great amount of protein and carbs and a good amount of fat. It would be wonderful for animal feed, so I have contacted some farms in Michigan to see if they are interested.” For now, the hulls, which have a sawdust-like consistency, are bagged in polyurethane and sit on pallets. “I hate to throw it away,” Daman confessed. Such creative thinking is what led Daman, a long-time immigration attorney, to open the 30,000-square-foot factory. “There isn’t another known factory in the United States to take the sesame in its natural form from the farm and process it completely,” he said. “Other factories grind sesame seeds but they are already hulled and roasted.” Most sesame paste, known as tahini, is imported from the Middle East, Daman said. It’s eaten on its own as a dip and is a main ingredient in hummus. Sesame seeds grow in pods on flowering plants. The seeds come into Daman’s factory straight from a farm in Ethiopia mixed in with stones and sticks picked up during harvesting. He buys the seeds by the shipping container, 17.9 tons at a time. At North America Sesame Works, the seeds begin their processing in a cleaning machine, then go into the peeling machine — a unique invention that uses friction to remove the hull that Daman found at a food show in Germany. “It used to be that you would soak the seeds in pools of water with salt, which helps loosen the skin. But that uses a lot of water and the EPA frowns upon that because of all the waste water. The water is very costly to reclaim; you would need a desalination plant,” Daman said. “When I saw the peeling machine I said, ‘wow, the solution is right here.’” Next, the seeds travel into a dryer, and then a Namir Daman stands besides the sesame dryer. sister peeling machine to remove any hulls that are stubbornly hanging on. After that, it’s into the polish machine, which removes hard edges and polishes the seeds to make them look shinier. The seeds are then roasted in a contraption that uses steam technology rather than flame. Finally, they travel into a machine to cool off and then into a holding tank if they will be sold as whole seeds. More often, they go into a grinding machine to be turned to paste. “We use old-world grinding stones that weigh a ton and a half each, but they are machine operated, not run by a horse or donkey,” Daman said. “The poor sesame has no chance.” Remarkably, the entire production is so fully automated that Daman has just a handful of employees – and can run the entire factory line off his iPad. “No one touches the sesame,” he said. “Our food safety laws in the U.S. are different from anywhere else in the world.” Also different, he said, is the fact that he offers customers million in liability insurance. “This product has the danger of salmonella and E. coli if not produced and stored properly,” he said. The factory, on which Daman spent million, is capable of producing 1,000 40-pound buckets of sesame paste a day. For now he’s taking “baby steps” with small orders but is excited to be negotiating with what he called the nation’s “third-largest hummus producer.” It’s a long way from the courtroom and Daman has no complaints about leaving visa and immigration work behind. “I was constantly battling the government and they have all the resources on their side,” he said. “All you have on your side is your client and half the time they don’t have the money to pay you.” His wife, Eman Jajonie-Daman, carries on the legal tradition as an attorney and also a magistrate at the 46th District Court in Southfield. Daman longs to offer a completely American product, and that means establishing a sesame seed farm stateside. That requires semi-arid land that starts off with a lot of rainfall followed by abundant sunshine. Texas, southern Oklahoma or New Mexico could fit the bill, said Daman, who is already scoping out possibilities. “An acre does not yield a lot and it’s a very laborintensive harvest,” he said. “But I could say this is a 100 percent U.S. product and not be dependent on a foreign country or U.S. customs.” 44 CHALDEAN NEWS MAY 2014
MAY 2014 CHALDEAN NEWS 45
