Innovative rice products

SRI LANKA was once known as the Granary of the East. Rice is still our staple diet, though wheat flour based products have become popular over the last few decades. This is especially true in the cities, where stressed-out working people have little or no time to prepare elaborate rice and curry meals.

Bread has become an essential part of the diet, to the extent where even a slight rise in bread prices is commented upon editorially in newspapers.

With Sri Lanka heading for a bumper paddy harvest, the time has come to decide on making the maximum use of our rice resources. Such a move will immensely benefit the paddy farmers, who have seen their fortunes dwindle as a result of the increasing reliance on flour.

Now the tables have turned, with the Government removing the flour subsidy. The prices of flour-based products have increased substantially, making them unattractive to many. This is an ideal opportunity to promote rice consumption in a big way, as a bumper harvest could lead to lower prices.

However, Sri Lankans are used to consuming rice as rice per se, with accompanying curries. There has been no effort to expand the scope of rice-based products. Sri Lankans do relish some rice-flour based foods such as stringhoppers, which have become popular take-away items.

Now a Japanese company is showing the way. For the first time in Sri Lanka, rice flour would be used to produce bread and cakes.

Hayashibara Co. Ltd, has tied up with Pelwatta Sugar Company to introduce this technology to Sri Lanka. Bread and other sweets produced from rice are already available in Japanese supermarkets and are very popular.

They would initially introduce machines to mill rice to produce the flour. These machines would not cost more than Rs, 300,000 each and the company hopes to install a machine in each district.

The secret of making bread, cakes and other sweets from rice flour is in Trehalose, a substance added when milling rice flour. This substance is an extract from mushrooms and other plant extracts and has no chemicals harmful to humans.

The protagonists of the project cite several advantages - bread produced with rice flour has a longer shelf life and would be much cheaper. The quality and the taste would be the same.

While the consumer will get a great product at a very reasonable price, the country will also benefit through the saving of foreign exchange used to purchase wheat. Sri Lanka annually spends over Rs. 25 billion to import wheat. Paddy farmers would also get a better price for their produce since the demand for paddy would increase.

The Government has allocated Rs.1000 million this year for purchasing paddy directly from farmers. The new drive to diversify into more rice-based products will be a boon for paddy farmers and the agriculture sector in general.