Exciting market for specialty colored rice

Consumers use colored rice (pink, red, purple, black) more and more as this specialty rice line becomes cheaper and easier to eat.
Scientists specializing in Vietnamese rice varieties have created improved varieties of colored rice that combine many advantages that traditional colored rice does not have, thus creating a broader consumer market.

Specialty… not expensive Introduced by an acquaintance, Tran Thi Mai (living in Phu Nhuan district, Ho Chi Minh City) bought a bag of pink rice and was told to cook it like normal rice, without pre-soaking like many other colored rice. When you bring the rice home, pour the water into it and it turns pink, when cooked, the rice is light red, medium flexible but still spongy, delicious, just like the white rice the family often eats. Colored rice on the market is quite diverse According to Dr. Dao Minh So, Head of the Plant Breeding Department at the Southern Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology, the traditional colored rice varieties left by grandparents are often spongy, delicious, and the area is increasingly shrinking. due to the cultivation time of 5-6 months, only one crop can be grown per year, low yield. “The process of breeding improved rice varieties, suitable for new farming conditions, we accidentally created some colored rice varieties (pink, red, purple, black). Through nutritional analysis, especially especially iron, antioxidant content is much higher than white rice, so we really want this rice line to develop.To be honest, we can’t compare this colored rice with traditional colored rice because rice tradition has not been analyzed,” said Dr. So. Dr So said that the research process lasted for decades, by 2020 the red (or pink) rice variety named SR20 has been selected and is being tested on a large scale in many locations in the Southeast and the Mekong Delta. The authors cooperated with an enterprise in Ho Chi Minh City to process rice from the above material area to bring SR20 rice to the market, mainly consumed in Ho Chi Minh City. “Colored rice is always rich in micronutrients, high in anthocyanins antioxidants, but the market is mainly brown rice (whole rice), not everyone can eat it, before cooking. Therefore, when cooperating with DN, I asked them to process the milled form (with some bran remaining) with the goal of turning this colored rice into a daily consumer product like ordinary white rice but still retains most of the nutrients and antioxidants.Red rice with bran is more difficult to store, spoils quickly, but we overcome it by milling to where we can sell it, it is better to sell in small quantities rather than using preservatives. manage or fumigate” – Dr. So confided. The rice variety SR20 is cultivated for a short time (more than 3 months while traditional rice lasts for 5-6 months), has a good yield (5-7 tons/ha), has good resistance to pests and diseases, so the price is equivalent to many varieties. rice. Wider market According to a reporter’s survey, colored rice is sold mainly in the form of brown or milled to preserve nutrients, with the selling price ranging from 25,000 to 100,000 VND/kg. Colored rice brands sell at high prices mainly because of internationally certified organic rice; The rest average price is at 40,000 – 50,000 VND/kg. As one of the first agents to sell branded bags of rice in Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Phan Thanh Hieu, Director of Phuong Nam Food Joint Stock Company, admitted that the consumption of colored rice is getting better and better. “If in 2015, the consumption of colored rice was only about 1 ton/month, now it’s about 5 tons/month. In addition to retail, we also wholesale to retail stores and sell to a number of units. processing with orders of several hundred kilograms Young people and office workers today are using colored rice more and more due to the application of a healthy diet to be healthier and more beautiful, not just a group of customers who have needs. In addition, now there are enterprises applying Japanese technology to process brown rice into pre-packaged rice, which is very convenient for busy young people who do not have time to cook, just need to heat up and eat immediately. “- Mr. Hieu shared. Consumers often have a stereotype that colored rice will be very dry and hard, but in fact, the colored rice that Phuong Nam Food Joint Stock Company is trading is soft and easy to eat. “This is rice from the rice variety of the author group Ho Quang Cua, who created the famous ST25 rice around the world. After the success of ST25 rice, it also created an effect for the consumption of other types of rice of the same author” – Mr. Hieu evaluated. Also just launching organic purple brown rice products for the first time to the market, Mr. Lam Anh Tu, Director of Hoa Nang Agricultural Products Co., Ltd (HCMC), said that the enterprise’s goal is to diversify products. “This is purple rice from the purple ST variety of the author group Ho Quang Cua, which is grown on the raw material of shrimp rice; it is an improved variety of colored rice, so the rice is soft, not difficult to eat as many people think. Moreover, brown rice is also very tasty. The whole bran shell should be safe during cultivation, otherwise residues of fertilizers will be left here. Therefore, the organic farming material area of ​​enterprises is an advantage,” said Mr. Tu. It is easy to confuse purple sticky rice with purple rice According to some bags trading enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City, the market for colored rice is mainly active in the domestic segment, with very little export. “The market is confused between purple rice and purple sticky rice (also known as sticky rice) due to the very similar appearance, especially with the product with the whole bran (processed brown) while the price of purple rice is high. much higher than purple sticky rice due to the different yield of the two varieties. Worryingly, purple rice has a low glycemic index and purple glutinous rice has a high glycemic index, so consumers need to be careful. The simplest way to distinguish is to break the rice grain in half, if the inside is opaque white like glutinous rice, it is purple rice, if it is white, it is purple rice “- a representative of a business revealed. According to physician Dinh Cong Bay, General Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Medicinal Association, it is always better to eat raw rice (whole bran or milled) than well-milled rice because it retains nutrients in the bran layer. However, when using this rice, consumers should pay attention to choose safe cultivated rice, organic rice because the bran layer on the outside is easy to be contaminated with chemical residues if farming is not good. For new varieties of rice crops, breeding units should publish the research process to create varieties as well as specific scientific evidences about the active ingredients in them for consumers to know and choose.