19 Dec 2022

A new brand of rice, Arroz Premium, has joined other existing brands such as Tastic, Spekko, Excella and many others that Batswana have enjoyed over the years.

What sets Arroz Premium apart from the other brands is that it is a local brand, something that took years to be realised because for the longest time, Batswana were used to foreign brands, especially South African.

Perhaps this is because it never crossed their minds that the rice they were consuming was actually produced in Asia and packaged in South Africa.

Ingrid Pty Ltd, a SPEDU facilitated project based in Selebi Phikwe dared to start something uncommon in Botswana, a rice packaging company that sells rice under the brand name Arroz Premium.

The owners of Ingrid opened shop in Selebi Phikwe December 2021 so that they too, could benefit from the introduced SPEDU Investment Incentives that assures manufacturers a 30 per cent government off take on their products.

These incentives were introduced by government through the Ministry of Trade and Industry, to lure companies to invest in Selebi Phikwe and help resuscitate the economy of the town that was crippled by the closure of the BCL mine in 2016.

Funded by Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) to the tune of P1 million, Arroz Premium buys rice from Thailand and packages it into 10kg, 5kg and 2kg bags.

“Just like South Africa we took the initiative to buy rice from Thailand and package it locally,” said the master mind behind Arroz Premium brand, Ms Maikano Thuto.

The company started operating with 20 tonnes of rice from December 2021.

The 29-year-old Botswana University of Science and Technology (BIUST) graduate’s passion for business was ignited after realising that many businesses were struggling to stay afloat due to the COVID-19 pandemic.“COVID-19 affected many companies including government.

There were some retrenchments, so chances of getting a job were very slim, hence I decided to look for business opportunities instead.

Though I wanted something along Mechanical and Energy Engineering, I started toying with the idea of rice production when I realised that food prices were sky-rocketing,” she said.

Unlike other brands that Batswana are accustomed to, Arroz Premium, she said, had a unique aroma and quality and was tastier because of its organic nature of being produced from environmentally friendly practices of fertilizer-free soils and being watered with river water.

“Because of its par-boiled nature, the rice is a better alternative to diabetic individuals, to control post prandial hyperglycemia or low blood sugar.

Arroz Premium rice is best known for its undeniable premium quality, sleek, tapering grains with a unique aroma, oozing with great flavour and nutrition, pure white colour, full and grain elongation quality upon cooking,” said Ms Maikano.

With a staff complement of six people, Arroz Premium rice is available at various Selebi Phikwe stores, Palapye, Serowe and Francistown with the intention to spread wings to other areas in the country.

Ms Maikano explained that she and her partner were still building their clientele base, hence were still in talks with some stores in Gaborone and other places where they could sell their products to.

“Our dream is to have our local rice available in all stores across the country,” she said, appealing to individuals, government institutions and grocery stores to support the company by buying Arroz Premium rice.

For the company to supply country wide, she said there was need to increase storage, therefore, the company was aiming to have silos, to store tonnes of rice.

Ms Maikano said that would also address the problem of shipping, adding that it was costly and taking long for the imported rice to reach Botswana.

However, reliance on the Thailand suppliers will be history once the company starts growing rice locally, something she said was looked into by Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“We want to partake in this study, to learn to produce our own rice,” she said. ENDS