Rice Again ! Sell To The End User

[Nickthegreek]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the help in the past few weeks..

I had a thought yesterday and not sure if anyone is currently doing this, or has done...

As has already become clear the farmers of rice do not make all the money..!

My idea was to process the rice and then sell it ourselves to local restaurants etc..I am assuming that if we can cut out the middle men and take it to the end user we will make more money..

What I dont know is what type of machinery I would require and if it is cost prohibitive?

Welcome any comments..

Nick

[ozzydom]

Nick, A "long see" machine is about 100k or less ,but why would you buy one. There are

many of them situated in every village in Thailand.

The owners of these machines will usually shell your rice for free ,as long as they retain the ram (shells/pollard ) and broken rice to be used as stock feed.

"local restaurants" probably already buy their rice direct from farmers (usually relatives) at a tiny premium to the factory prices.

Look around in any town or village and you will see that every second shop or stall retails rice so competition is pretty heavy.

As a rice farmer,employing better practices and increasing yield is the way to higher income.

[Nickthegreek]

Hi Ozzydom,

What if I we were to sell direct through a shop of our own? is this a viable option if the price were more competetive?

I take on board you points about yeild and that makes perfect sense,however I am just trying to explore all angles..

Regards

Nick

[Gary A]

Hi Ozzydom,

What if I we were to sell direct through a shop of our own? is this a viable option if the price were more competetive?

I take on board you points about yeild and that makes perfect sense,however I am just trying to explore all angles..

Regards

Nick

Nick, here is how it works in our village. The farmers harvest their rice. The guy with the thresher keeps a small portion of the rice. Some farmers still thresh by hand but having a machine saves a lot of work for a small price. The village miller mills the rice and keeps the rum to make animal feed. No charge for milling to the rice owner. The rice is bagged and goes to the market where it is sold either by the farmer or a local vendor. Most of these farmers keep a large portion of their crop for their own use. Living hand to mouth doesn't leave a large amount of rice to sell to a commercial buyer. No one makes big money from the local crop. The average family farm around here is ten rai.

[ozzydom]

Hi Ozzydom,

What if I we were to sell direct through a shop of our own? is this a viable option if the price were more competetive?

I take on board you points about yeild and that makes perfect sense,however I am just trying to explore all angles..

Regards

Nick

Probably depends on what other products you could market also, I am pretty sure you would not make your shop assistants wages out of a stand alone rice shop there is just so much opposition, even the pharmacies and liquor stores sell rice.

If you could come up with a marketing gimmick or some form of value adding you may be in with a chance.

There is always a market for quality fried rice ,why not learn how to do a really good fried rice and use your own grown products (course you have to grow some Jasmine ).

I will tell you how we value add with our fish farming operation....

We sell our fish at 60bt per kg at farm gate (55 baht to food stalls).We grade our fish and fish of 250gram ,the T/W and her helper grill Thai style (lemon grass stuffing).

These are sold in a styrene pack with a small cup of chille sauce, for 35 baht each delivered, papaya salad and sticky rice are extra. Mark up is 100 %.

Her market is local gambling dens (casino,s) weddings,funerals and piss-ups.

She has done 400 packs in a day,and she only does to order.

I am currently trying to finish the landscaping around the ponds to build 5 casa,s ,these have already been rented out to individual ladies from the area for 100 baht per day for catering .

Each lady will have her own circle of friends and family as a market and we will supply the fish at 55 baht kg, we will also provide the liquor at a small mark up.

The casa,s are quoted at 2000 baht each so its a pretty fair return.

And thats how we value add.

[PaddyThai]

Ozzydom, that sounds super. I agree 100%. If you want to make money, you need to value ad to your product. Sounds like you got a good thing going there. Best of luck.

[raybingham]

Ozzydom, that sounds super. I agree 100%. If you want to make money, you need to value ad to your product. Sounds like you got a good thing going there. Best of luck.

Anyone have access to 24,000 kilos of rice. I have someone in the UK who is looking to import a container load.

[NedKelly]

You need to make something from the rice.....??