DSM and Bühler have announced the opening of Wuxi NutriRice, a production facility operated in a joint venture between Bühler and DSM.

"As a responsible corporate citizen with extensive worldwide experience in the nutrition field, DSM is committed to improving public health in China", says Weiming Jiang, president of DSM China.

This facility is the first commercial scale production of its kind in the world and produces NutriRice, nutritional enriched rice kernels to be mixed with natural rice that are produced via a patented process that reportedly protects the stability of the nutrients while at the same time ensuring high bio-availability and good taste.

Wuxi NutriRice will market the enriched rice kernels to rice millers working closely with not only rice mills but also retailers to introduce the concept and benefits of NutriRice enriched rice to consumers. The newly opened facility will start production in August 2007. It will start with limited capacity, which is sufficient to enrich approximately 80,000 tonnes of rice. As it is the first facility of its kind, it is primarily intended for market development and it is anticipated that the capacity will be increased in the coming years.

Over the last few decades, the health and nutritional status of the Chinese population has improved significantly. Although great improvements have been made, the problems of nutritional deficiency and imbalance still exist. Micronutrient deficiencies such as nutritional anemia and Vitamin A deficiency are still common even in urban populations. As a staple food, rice provides a high percentage of the daily caloric intake of the Chinese population. However, since many of the nutrients in rice are lost during the rice whitening and polishing process, milled rice has relatively low micronutrient content in comparison to un-milled rice. The traditional rinsing of rice is another challenge to rice enrichment since vitamins and minerals can potentially be washed off.

In response to these hurdles, the NutriRice process offers the unique possibility to efficiently encapsulate multiple micronutrients inside the rice kernel. Nutrients such as vitamin A and B as well as Iron and Zinc can be chosen for inclusion. Due to the patented process in which micro nutrients are encapsulated into the rice kernel, NutriRice shows superior physical stability with excellent retention of vitamins and minerals during storage, washing and cooking. In addition to this, NutriRice kernels can be adapted to the shape and length of regional rice varieties, making it acceptable to consumers whatever their cultural or regional preference.

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