Field Trip at Matco Rice Processing

Field trips are always exciting. They let us experience where and how science is applied. In the mid of December, I arranged a field trip for B.S 3^rd year students of Department of Food Science andTechnology, University of Karachi for their Cereal Technology course at Matco Rice Processing (PVT) LTD.

Matco is one of the largest rice exporters in Pakistan. It is an ISO 9001:2000, HACCP, KOSHER, BRC (British Retail Consortium), WQA (WOOLWORTHS QUALITY ASSURANCE STANDARD) certified company. Falak rice is their flagship product. I know the product name has sparked your interest in this review!

Our Matco coordinators explained the major theories, methodologies, techniques are being used at Matco for rice processing. We observed how dehulled paddy is converted into white polished rice we purchase from market. We can say rice processing is cleaning of rice with different methods at every step. In pre-cleaning stage, the dust and impurities are removed including threads, papers. After pre-cleaning, rice moved into paddy separators which separates the paddy from the rice.  There are heavy de-stoners to remove small stones left during the pre-cleaning step.

Now, rice is fed into polishing machines in which it is whitened or polished. No chemicals are used for polishing but it is done through the use of water spray and air.

Length grading

After polishing, rice comes in thickness grader. Then, it passes through the length graders. Length graders separate the broken rice from head rice. There are holes inside the graders which hold the rice having no heads or are broken than the desired head of the grain.The rice processing machine also have color sorter, an emergent machine equipped with CCD or sensors which detects the difference in color. It processes the grain image and separates the grain on the basis of color. It can also detect the aged grains.

Stacked rice sacks

Now, the rice is ready to be packed. The packaged bags are checked through the metal detectors.The rice is fumigated before and after processing. The

Packages ready to despatch

number of fumigation cycles depends upon the final destination and required shelf life of the product.Quality is assured at every step to produce premium quality rice.

I am thankful to Mr. Kaukab Alam Siddiqui, the Q.A Manager at Matco Rice Processing and his team for making the exposure trip a great learning experience for us.