COFCO Rice starts purchasing new grain, laying out a global industry chain
Although rice's status as the head of the five grains has never wavered, the fact that much of the loose rice on the market contains almost no new rice leaves consumers quite helpless, and the idea that good rice must start from the source has become the only path for the rice industry's development. Recently, a reporter from China Business Journal learned at the first COFCO Fortune 2015 Rice Harvest Culture Festival that COFCO Rice has now established 17 domestic leading rice processing plants in premium rice-producing regions across the country, and starting from Shenyang, COFCO Rice will successively carry out this year's new grain purchasing work nationwide.
Gutter oil, toxic milk, toxic rice, toxic preserved fruit, gelatin yogurt, clenbuterol…… For a long time, China's food safety problems have emerged one after another, with problem foods following in endless succession, causing consumers to once "turn pale at the mention of food." The reason behind this is nothing other than that some food enterprises, driven by profit, disregard laws and regulations and arbitrarily produce, process and sell fake and inferior food, thereby harming consumers' interests.
In fact, in the process of food going from raw material to the tip of the tongue, a lack of supervision at any link may lead to safety problems. In view of this situation, COFCO Rice began implementing a whole-industry-chain layout strategy in 2010, established a unified management standard system, personally controlled every link in the industry chain, and, with the goal of creating safe and healthy quality "from field to table," set the industry principle that "good rice must start from the source."
As for how COFCO Rice realized its whole-industry-chain layout, the relevant person in charge of COFCO Rice introduced that in order to ensure the pure lineage of Fortune Daohuaxiang, COFCO Rice limits its raw grain to the premium rice-producing region of Wuchang. This is because this region has innate ecological environmental advantages. With its humus-rich soil, geographical location surrounded by mountains on three sides, river basin running through the entire region, and abundant sunlight throughout the year, it is hailed by the industry as the "rice kingdom under Zhangguangcai Ridge."
In the five years of advancing and deepening its industry chain layout, COFCO Rice successively established an ecological environmental protection mechanism, realized innovation in the agricultural management system, formed a professional quality and safety management team, and introduced overseas processing technology and equipment. Today, COFCO Rice has established 17 domestic leading rice processing plants in premium rice-producing regions across the country, and COFCO Shenyang Rice is one of them. Ren Bo, general manager of COFCO (Shenyang) Rice, said that through leading R&D strength and advanced management models, COFCO Shenyang Rice took the lead in pioneering the cooperative model, established an electronic data platform, and has already cultivated rice varieties with high eating-quality values nationwide.
In addition, for the Chinese market, COFCO Fortune rice has also launched Dongting Koshihikari rice specially used for Japanese cuisine. COFCO Rice introduced Koshihikari rice seeds from Japan and planted them in the Dandong Donggang area of Liaoning Province, which is at the same latitude as Niigata Prefecture in Japan, the rice's place of origin, supplemented by irrigation with water from the Yalu River, endowing it with a natural environment suitable for rice growth. In the planting and production process, COFCO Rice adopts the "five unifications" management model of "unified seed selection, unified planting, unified fertilization, unified harvesting, and unified purchasing," strictly requiring cooperative organizations to be disciplined and processing and production to be standardized, so as to ensure the product quality of authentic sushi rice.
As consumers pursue a higher quality of life, imported rice has begun to gain favor in recent years. According to data from China Customs, from January to August 2015, China imported 1.96 million tons of rice, an increase of about 18% from 1.65 million tons in the same period of the previous year. In August, China imported 215,000 tons of rice, down 34% month-on-month and up 43% year-on-year. In addition, in the first eight months of this year, China exported 142,200 tons of rice, up 5% year-on-year.
Under such consumption trends, COFCO Rice has also begun to extend its rice industry chain layout globally. For example, COFCO Fortune rice launched 100% original imported Thung Kula Rong Hai Thai jasmine rice, and this rice comes from the core production area of jasmine rice in northeastern Thailand——the premium raw grain of the Thung Kula Rong Hai region.
It is understood that Thailand has a rice cultivation history of more than 5,000 years. Among these, jasmine rice has always been regarded by the Thai people as a label of Thai culinary culture, and the jasmine rice produced in Kula Rong Hai in northeastern Thailand is the most precious, regarded as the "royal tribute" among jasmine rice. However, in recent years, there has appeared in the Chinese market the phenomenon of Jiangxi rice being passed off as "Thai fragrant rice" in repackaged form, and even illegal acts of adding fragrance by spraying edible flavoring. Therefore, if consumers want to eat authentic original Thai fragrant rice, they need to pay special attention to choosing legitimate brands and sales channels.
Ren Bo said that under COFCO Rice there are Wuchang Daohuaxiang, Dongting Koshihikari rice, and Thung Kula Rong Hai Thai jasmine rice. These are all "good rice on the tip of the tongue," but to guarantee the excellent quality of rice "from field to table," it is necessary, while doing a good job in the whole-industry-chain layout, to strictly control processes and standards and achieve "good rice starts from the source."
"With COFCO Rice at the forefront, Chinese grain enterprises' production levels and product quality have already reached the front ranks of the world. The continued hot sales of Fortune Daohuaxiang and Dongting Koshihikari rice show that consumers' demands for rice are also getting higher and higher. As a calling card for China in the world grain industry, COFCO Rice will continue to promote 'good Chinese rice' to the world while also introducing more premium rice varieties and production processes into the country, thereby pushing the variety and quality of rice to new heights." said the relevant person in charge of COFCO Rice.