Jasponica hybrid rice finds market in Cebu

Although still two years in the market, Jasponica Rice, a kind of hybrid rice is already gaining popularity with the Cebuano consumers as well as its foreign dwellers and tourists despite being rather pricy than the regular white rice in the market.

Under the Doña Maria Premium Rice brand developed by SL Agritech, the company which brought hybrid rice in the Philippines, Jasponica Rice is slowly gaining popularity with the Cebu market especially Koreans.

Solely distributed by Happy Rice Company here in Cebu, Jasponica rice was soft launched in the Philippines over two years ago and has since become a favorite of more Filipinos especially gaining huge following in the higher-end segment from A to B and C markets.

Right now, Jasponica is priced at P1, 620 per 25 kilos of packing, making it around P50 per kilo. It is also available in two kilo packs and five kilo packaging. It is being sold in supermarkets around town such as Rustan’s, Gaisano Malls, Fooda Saver’s Mart and SM supermarkets.

Here in Cebu, Shanna Louise Te Lopez of Happy Rice Co. said that they are getting huge number of patrons from the Korean community as well as big five star hotels and restaurants.

Lopez is planning to increase their distribution points and retailers even in convenient store outlets especially with the entrance of their 30 grams packaging.

When she started distributing the rice in Cebu, Lopez shared that she used to have only 10 tons a month of initial order but with its increasing popularity, it has now been increased to 40 tons a month, growing 50 percent in two years of distribution.

SL Agritech chairman and CEO Henry Lim Bon Liong said that Jasponica rice has become popular in the market because it has better quality but is cheaper than imported Thai Jasmine rice, which is long grained, thin, aromatic but not soft in texture and the “glutinous” Japanese  rice.

Hybrid rice is a genealogy of rice produced through crossbreeding of different kinds of rice and this technology has been brought by Lim in the country which has significantly increase the output of yield of some farmers who used it.

Lim has about 1, 500 hectares of combined seed farms in three different sites in the country which produces hybrid seeds that are also exported in other neighboring Asian countries such as in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and China.