Better Recovery, Targeted Investment Key to Higher Rice-Milling Returns
IREF suggests improving rice recovery over capacity to boost millers' earnings. Learn how a 1% shift can add Rs 60 lakh in annual sales.
The Indian rice milling industry is standing at a crossroads where the secret to profitability may not lie in building more factories, but in making existing ones smarter. According to the Indian Rice Exporters' Federation (IREF), focusing on improving rice recovery rates could yield far greater financial rewards for millers than simply expanding their processing capacity.
The scale of this opportunity is massive. IREF estimates that for a mill processing 30,000 tonnes of paddy, a mere one-percentage-point shift—converting broken grains into whole grains—could potentially add Rs 60 lakh in annual sales. This calculation assumes a price difference of Rs 20 per kg and focuses on the gross revenue boost before accounting for the costs of technological upgrades.
Shift from Volume to Value
The core philosophy driving this shift is the transition from high-volume processing to high-value retention. Instead of asking how much more rice can be processed, the industry is beginning to ask how much more value can be extracted from every single tonne of paddy.
“The opportunity is not simply to process more rice, but to retain more value from every tonne,” stated Deepak Goyal, Vice President (Basmati) at IREF and Director of Mahavir Rice Mill. He emphasized the need to distinguish between areas where new capacity is genuinely necessary and areas where better drying, superior technology, or improved utilization can drive stronger returns from current facilities.
BIRC 2026: Mapping the Future of Milling
These critical industry discussions are set to take center stage at the Bharat International Rice Conference (BIRC) 2026, scheduled from October 23-25 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. A dedicated session titled “Profitable Rice Milling: Costs, Planning and Margin Improvement” will take place on October 24.
The conference aims to provide a comprehensive roadmap for the industry, including:
- Technological Upgrades: Evaluating controlled drying, tempering, automated husking, whitening, and optical sorting.
- Operational Efficiency: Examining plant design, capacity gaps, and in-line quality monitoring to reduce avoidable losses.
- Investment Models: Revealing a projected model rice mill setup cost for the 2026-27 period, covering everything from land and machinery to effluent management and laboratories.
- Strategic Planning: Distinguishing between fixed investments and seasonal working capital requirements.
Analyzing the National Landscape
With an estimated annual rice crop wholesale value hovering around Rs 6 lakh crore, the efficiency of the 30,000 operational rice mills in India is vital to the national economy. The BIRC 2026 will dive deep into regional concentrations and capacity utilization to identify underserved paddy-producing areas.
By addressing gaps in drying, storage, grading, and finishing facilities, the industry hopes to move toward a more consistent and profitable model. The ultimate goal of the upcoming sessions is to provide millers with expert-reviewed comparisons, helping them decide whether to invest, expand, upgrade, or defer projects based on paddy availability, buyer demand, and funding accessibility.