SunRice Quality

To guarantee the quality of your rice, SunRice requires all Australian-grown rice delivered to it to be grown from seed that has been produced in a manner that ensures its genetic integrity. Growers can only purchase seed, from SunRice’s Pure Seed Program, developed in conjunction with the NSW Department of Primary Industries at our research and development farm, Rice Research Australia Pty Ltd, which is situated in the Riverina.

Rice can only be grown in the designated rice growing quarantine area. This ensures Australian grown rice is free from exotic pests and diseases and is grown with minimal use of agricultural chemicals.

Australian rice seed is non-GMO and has full traceability from the delivery depot through to rice storage and milling, to distribution and then to the customer and consumer. The Pure Seed Program provides seed every year to the growers to ensure varietal purity and eliminates admixture in the field.

Harvest quality assurance and traceability right through to your door

Upon receipt of rice at harvest, SunRice samples and records each grower’s delivery and segregates the rice by variety. All harvest samples are then assessed by our Appraisals Laboratory to measure how each paddy batch will perform in the milling and cooking processes. Immediately prior to production, representative samples of the paddy batch are re-assessed to ensure that the quality of the paddy aligns with our customers' expectations.

SunRice mills all delivered paddy rice in its rice mills in Deniliquin and Leeton in the southern Riverina. The paddy is milled under tightly controlled conditions by highly skilled millers, with ongoing sampling and assessment of the rice to ensure compliance to our customers' standards.

After the rice has been milled, samples are further assessed against quality standards to confirm the product will meet cooking standards, and include:

• Hanasaki test, to determine if the rice is susceptible to cracking when exposed to moisture;
• Brokens test, to verify the broken grain content is within specification, minimising starches that may be released;
• Moisture test, to verify the moisture content is within specification, to ensure a consistent finished product.

After milling, the rice is packed into bags and marked with a ticket with a unique sequential number. Information about each bag is recorded in SunRice’s system, guaranteeing traceability once it leaves for distribution, regardless of its destination.