New Rice Brand Finally Released in Niigata, Japan

Consumption of rice in Japan is the number one in the world. Japanese has been loving rice since hundreds of years ago and even today, rice is the main source of the energy. Rice with Miso soup is the traditional Japanese breakfast and almost every Japanese dish are usually eaten together with rice.

Japanese rice is white in color with rounded shape with rich in taste. With the rice branding to take place from all over Japan, Niigata prefecture produced a brand new rice brand named "Shinnosuke" to release as the original Niigata rice Koshihikari is lowering the share in the rice market.

70% of rice from Niigata is Koshihikari, but the decrease in popularity has been an issue for rice producing prefecture. Therefore, the prefecture has spent 7 years to develop a new breed. Shinnosuke is very rich in sweet taste and each grain is large in size.

Shinnosuke has been provided for restaurants and hotels but for the general market, it will only be available from the year 2017. From Tuesday, some restaurants in Niigata and Tokyo started serving the new rice to examine the response from consumers.

In a restaurant or a hotel in Niigata, the new rice, Shinnosuke was served together with Sashimi and Japanese style grilled fish to enrich the taste of rice. 66 years old women who had the dish said, "This rice is very sweet in taste and different from the normal rice.  I can not wait for it to be in the market".

Competition in rice market is extremely tough as many prefectures started producing their own rice brand with different breeding. However, the top governor of Niigata prefecture Izumida has said "This is a brand new rice, different from Koshihikari. Niigata is the most famous place for producing rice. This is something that we can start selling with full of confidence. We want to sell the highest quality rice without thinking about products from other prefectures."

News Source: NHK