Our story

From steppe
to Britain

A snack carried across the Mongolian steppe for generations, now made in Britain.

The food

What is aaruul?

Aaruul is dried milk curd, and one of the oldest foods of the Mongolian steppe. Milk is soured, the curd is strained and pressed, then it is cut or moulded and left to dry, traditionally on the roof of the ger in the wind and sun.

What comes out is firm, tangy and long-keeping: a food a herder could carry for days on horseback. It is still eaten across Mongolia today, offered to guests and packed for journeys.

Most protein snacks in Britain are built from isolates, syrups and long ingredient lists. Aaruul is the opposite: real food, made by a method rather than a formula.

The journey

Three chapters

  1. Herders press curd and dry it on the roof of the ger in the steppe wind✦The steppe
  2. The recipe✦Milk, honey, sea salt and time
  3. Two founders with a shared obsession with Mongolian history✦Britain

The founders

Two people, one obsession

The two founders standing behind a table laid for a traditional Mongolian celebration, with guests in traditional deel robes and a tall tower of ul boov pastries at the centre
The founders (standing, back) at a traditional Mongolian celebration. At the centre of the table: ul boov, the tiered festival pastry crowned with aaruul.
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Daniel Pinchen

Co-founder

Daniel studied Anthropology at Oxford, drawn to how cultures live, eat and pass on what they know. After four years as a business analyst, first in legal automation and then running renewal pricing for an e-commerce business, Daniel left to build things.

That meant an online shop for a central London chocolate café, then co-founding an Italian streetwear label, and now The Mongolian Protein Co.

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Martin Zaman

Co-founder

Martin read History at Cardiff, then spent three years abroad, working at a university in Canada and teaching English in Korea. Back in Britain, Martin led the family business beyond its Costa portfolio into a multi-brand hospitality group: a five-city master franchise with Smoke & Pepper, an early UK Paris Baguette franchise, and Tossed’s first franchise store.

A long fascination with Mongolian history sparked the idea of bringing aaruul to Britain.

“We wanted a protein snack that felt closer to real food than a supplement. The steppe had already made one.”

The founders

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