Rice bran oil production potential of Pakistan

Abid Butt, chief executive of e2e supply chain management, is an entrepreneur who has established Pakistan’s first rice bran oil mill.

Rice bran as it is called is a byproduct of rice milling process. Rice when converted from brown rice to white rice it gives rise to this byproduct. The bran is the outer coating of your everyday grain of rice, and is often removed during processing and used as animal feed - but a new study confirms it’s actually really nutritious.

Rice bran oil according to American Heart Association is the healthiest edible oil in the world. It’s per liter cost is equal to that of sunflower oil but it is comparatively healthier.

Many of the health benefits of bran can be utilized by extracting oil from it and using it for cooking purpose. The initiative by Mr. Butt may help Pakistanis make good use of the wasted byproduct. The plant according to him has the capacity of 10,000 tons and cost him around 1 billion rupees.

“The plant machinery cost me a little over Rs1 billion and has been imported from India — a leading country in rice bran oil technology. The production capacity of the plant is 10,000 tons.” says Mr. Butt.

Abid Butt intends to sell the oil to local edible oil companies for blending it with their products. But he also has an alternative of selling it by branding it themselves.

He says that as raw material is abundantly available locally, Government can reduce its edible oil import bill by millions of dollars.

As we know, the largest import of Pakistan after crude oil is edible oil. Pakistan spends around 2.7 billion dollars on import of edible oil annually.

Increasing edible oil production at home is a good option. Pakistan at present produces 6.7 million tons of rice annually and can reduce its import edible oil bill by around 510 million dollars by utilizing bran oil production potential.

In order to utilize full potential of bran oil technological barriers need to be overcome. Technological barriers include low shelf life of bran related products owing to presence of enzymes. Research may be under taken to enhance the shelf life of the oil. “Pakistan can gradually improve the efficiency of rice bran oil technology. We would like to get the support of Pakistani universities to improve the efficiency of this technology,” Butt said.

Rice bran which is used as low value animal feed or discarded despite the fact that it is rich in protein, healthy fats, dietary fibers and vitamins is going to be a rich source of essential nutrients for Pakistanis.