Call GOD! How to sell Brown Rice without really praying
Frank A. Hilario
July 26, 2011
"Brown Rice can save the country millions of dollars from rice importation" is the gist of the message of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) scientist Salvador "Buds" Serrano (Gabriel S Mabutas, 12 July 2011, mb.com.ph) even while some Government officials had been planning to import a total of 860K tons of rice for 2011 (ANN, 05 April 2011, philstar.com). Here's a pessimistic/optimistic note from me, and I speak for the poor farmers: "Gentlemen, your importation is good, but we need cash." Instead of encouraging the exporters of rice, why not encourage the producers? Why think global when you can act local? Put your money where your foot is!
That optimistic note of Buds Serrano is based on the fact that he or his mother agency FNRI has just discovered a formula to treat Brown Rice to extend its shelf life from only 3 months to as long as 8 months. Well, that's a technical solution.
In fact, Frank H says, Brown Rice is both a Solution Looking for a Problem - and a Problem Looking for a Solution.
The Solution is that Brown Rice still has the bran layer and the germ, which contain many vitamins and minerals for the human body, and all that is good for your health and mine. But The Solution has not been applied to solving The Problem of Wellness among Filipinos because nobody is buying that talk! The Asia Rice Foundation has been campaigning for Brown Rice for 11 years and getting nowhere (see my "Name Calling. Asia Rice Foundation's Brown Rice Campaign," 16 July 2011, Organic World Philippines, blogspot.com). Asia Rice has asked the desired questions and gotten only undesirable answers. Who wants Wellness? Everybody. Who wants Brown Rice? Nobody.
If Wellness is not The Problem, what is?
Paradoxically, The Problem is The Solution: Keep the bran layer and germ, but find one way or the other how to stop Brown Rice from getting rancid within 3 months. It's the oil in the bran - if you stabilize the oil or something, you prolong the shelf life of the brown grains. Buds Serrano is not giving any details, but my calculated guess is that that's exactly what FNRI has done.
Lo and behold! I have a simpler solution, and it took me only 15 minutes to arrive at it, not 15 months, neither funds requested nor expended for research, and there's no formula to memorize, only a call to GOD:
Grain On Demand - GOD.
Before I explain, let me remind you that Brown Rice may not always be imported but it is always exotic. The most astute among us cannot grow Brown Rice, even any Outstanding Farmer of the Year on top of the mountain or down in the valley. Brown Rice is not a variety but a kind of milling with the bran layer and germ still on the grain of rice. In other words, the rice growing in your neighborhood will do. It's the number of passes in a rice mill that gives you Brown Rice (once) or White Rice (twice).
Inspired by publishing's magnificent invention called Print On Demand (POD), Frank H along with GOD gives you these advantages:
(1) No technology to transfer. With GOD, there's no divinely designed software to buy, no expensive hardware to purchase, no man-made chemical residues to worry about, and no mathematical formula to keep. You just keep up the good work!
(2) No shelf life to worry about. Grain on Demand means you simply produce Brown Rice depending on demand. 3 months should be long enough to sell all those brown bags. Even so, you can always brag that your rice is almost always fresh from the farm, or the mill, whichever comes first.
(3) No inventory to keep. You don't have to keep your stocks high, whether you're a mill, warehouse, or supermarket. You just mill on demand.
(4) No remote places to consider. A micro-mill can do it especially for those who live in the backwoods.
(5) No mill size to reject. Small, medium, big mills can turn out Brown Rice anytime anywhere. In fact, it can be household size, so that the more affluent can have their rice and eat it too.
Ingenious! If I may so myself.
So, let's do a GOD-driven Brown Rice Supply-Push.
Note: GOD is not good if you're thinking solely about the science layer of Brown Rice. You can't sell Brown Rice by science alone!
With luck, my bright idea of GOD still will probably not sell enough Brown Rice by itself. So, you need to market it aggressively. You need a promotional campaign.
A campaign based on what? Let us consider 3 marketing strats:
* Asia Rice Marketing
* Golden Rice Marketing
* Marketing GOD
Asia Rice Marketing
Asia Rice has been trying to sell the idea of Brown Rice being a substitute for White Rice for more than a decade. Sure, they have not tired doing it, but they also haven't gotten anywhere with it. I can give 3 good reasons why Asia Rice has so far failed:
One: They made enemies of those who sell White Rice, stating the fact that Brown Rice is more nutritious than White Rice. That is correct, but here is an instance where a more expensive item is competing against a well-accepted good where the higher quality is not obvious. In fact, the brown color is a disadvantage - it looks dirty, or low class, or both (See my "Name Calling. Asia Rice Foundation's Brown Rice Campaign,"Organic World Philippines, blogspot.com).
Two: Theirs is not a Campaign, not a planned, step-wise effort. A few and similar press releases and that's all. It looks as if they are themselves unsure of what they're doing. Or, worse, it may be that they only half-believe in their product.
Three: Their selling point is that Brown Rice is a nutritious food, full of vitamins and minerals. They forgot that if nutrition sells, we don't have to sell malunggay or horse-radish tree (Moringa oleifera) at all; the leaves will sell themselves, as they are "loaded with nutrients, especially vitamins and minerals" as according to FNRI itself (Eduardo Gonzales, 19 April 2010, mb.com.ph).
If I believed in the Asia Rice campaign for Brown Rice, I could have contributed free of charge a slogan like "For more energy, fill up! with Brown Rice" - then I could have related the campaign to climate change and conservation of energies, both in growing and milling. I could have, but they didn't ask me. Too late. Now I have a better idea.
Golden Rice Marketing
One lesson in the failed attempt of Asia Rice to market Brown Rice is this: You've got to give your product class.
Considering that, I think the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) stands a good chance of succeeding in the marketing of Brown Rice where others have failed because of their world-renown attempt to engineer a Golden Rice variety. In this case, they can romanticize both stories for all I care.
Like, all they have to do is connect Brown Rice with Golden Rice. One is the reality, the other is the virtual reality. One is for good nutrition today, the other is for better nutrition tomorrow. One is God-made, the other is, with the help of God, man-made. One carries the tradition of generations, the other carries the tradition of science. To survive and thrive, we need both Faith and Reason.
Marketing GOD
In the meantime that Asia Rice is hesitating on changing streams with the same horse, while IRRI is palms together waiting for its Golden Rice to rise in the horizon, I am thinking of marketing GOD, that is to say, pointing out to Government and the Private Sector the market opportunities for grain on demand, and to families the wisdom of GOD, with the slogan:
Richer yet with Brown Rice.
Make yourself!
"Richer yet with Brown Rice" has a double meaning. One is that Brown Rice costs less than White Rice to produce while it sells at a higher price. That's for the producer. Two is that when you eat Brown Rice, your body is enriched with more vitamins and minerals. That's for the consumer. Marketing GOD is 2-pronged, directed at both the producer (farmer) and the consumer (family).
"Make yourself" also has a double meaning. One is that you can make yourself rich with Brown Rice. Two is that you can make Brown Rice yourself from paddy rice of your favorite variety - just have it milled only to remove the rice hull but not the bran layer and the germ.
This is the first time I think that a call to GOD is not a call to Faith but rather a call to Reason. Faith, nonetheless, is what I have that GOD will answer Asia Rice Foundation's 11-year prayer about Brown Rice!
Print
Email
