Ultra Rice®
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Improved Nutrition: Solutions through Innovation competition.
To address malnutrition, PATH developed Ultra Rice, a manufactured grain fortified with essential vitamins and minerals. Rice is a staple food for about 2.5 billion people in the developing world. Ultra Rice grains are blended with traditional rice to provide deficient nutrients without radical changes in food consumption patterns.
A propos de vous
Section 1: About You
Prénom
Teresa
Nom
Guillien
Adresse électronique
URL du site Web
Organization
PATH
Pays
États Unis
Section 2: About Your Organization
Nom
PATH
Site Web
Téléphone
206-285-3500
Adresse
1455 NW Leary Way, Seattle, WA 98107
Votre organisation est-elle une
organisation à but non lucratif
Pays
États Unis
Your idea
Name Your Project
Ultra Rice®
Country your work focuses on
Inde
Describe Your Idea
To address malnutrition, PATH developed Ultra Rice, a manufactured grain fortified with essential vitamins and minerals. Rice is a staple food for about 2.5 billion people in the developing world. Ultra Rice grains are blended with traditional rice to provide deficient nutrients without radical changes in food consumption patterns.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
Ultra Rice is a pioneering technology within the new and growing field of rice fortification. We have designed both our technology and commercialization model to meet the needs of poor people living in rice consuming communities of the developing world.
Ultra Rice’s technology encapsulates nutrients in the grain to avoid micronutrient loss from the common practice of rinsing and soaking rice before cooking. Earlier technologies, such as rice-coating, do not retain micronutrients through this process.
To avoid requiring changes in cultural practices, Ultra Rice is designed to look and taste like traditional rice. It is made from rice flour that is fortified with micronutrients and stabilizing ingredients. Dough prepared from this mixture moves through pasta-making equipment and is cut into rice-shaped grains before drying. The fortified grains are blended with locally grown and milled traditional rice, typically at a ratio between 1:100 and 1:200. Once
Ultra Rice is cooked, people eat it just as they would traditional rice. The Ultra Rice technology can be customized to meet a population’s specific nutritional needs by adjusting the types and concentrations of vitamins and minerals in the grain.
Our commercialization strategy is also innovative. We transfer the technology to local producers. This bolsters local economies, ensures local control, and reduces costs, making large-scale introduction feasible. This way, the health benefits of Ultra Rice have the potential to reach a large number of people across a wide range of geographies and cultures, particularly resource-poor populations facing significant barriers to food access and availability.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Oui
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
Research shows regular consumption of Ultra Rice, especially among children, can effectively increase individuals’ stores of essential vitamins and minerals:
- In 2006, research involving women factory workers in Mexico showed that Ultra Rice reduced the prevalence of anemia by 80 percent and iron deficiency by 29 percent.
- A 2008 trial conducted in Brazil among children aged 6 to 24 months showed a 44 percent drop in iron-deficiency over a 5-month period in children receiving Ultra Rice compared to a 22 percent drop in children who received iron drops.
- In 2007, research conducted in India among schoolchildren aged 5 to 11 years found that the consumption of rice fortified with Ultra Rice increased body iron stores and reduced the prevalence of iron deficiency and sickness.
Since December 2008, 61,000 children in Andhra Pradesh, India have received daily servings of Ultra Rice through the Naandi Foundation’s Midday Meal Program. This pilot project has helped prove the feasibility of adding Ultra Rice to a centralized kitchen operation.
PATH hopes to replicate this pilot project. We are focused on integrating Ultra Rice grains into government-funded meal programs that provide ready distribution channels to nutritionally vulnerable people. In India, for example, the national Mid-Day Meal Scheme (school lunch program) feeds rice-based lunches to approximately 120 million schoolchildren each day. Through distribution in these programs alone, the potential positive impact of Ultra Rice in India is enormous.
Problem
Ultra Rice addresses a hidden hunger: micronutrient malnutrition. An estimated 2 billion people suffer from the most common nutritional disorder, iron deficiency. Iron deficiency is responsible for 20 percent of maternal deaths. It impairs cognitive development in children and reduces the productivity of entire populations. By compromising intelligence and capacity to work, iron deficiency reduces gross national product in developing countries by as much as 4 percent.
Deficiencies of vitamin A, zinc, and iodine also cause significant ill health. An estimated 500 million children suffer from vitamin A and zinc deficiencies, which are responsible for 1.1 million deaths annually. Where mild- to moderate-iodine deficiency occurs, the intelligence quotient drops by 13.5 points. More than 30 percent of deaths among children under 5 years in the developing world are linked to micronutrient malnutrition, and half of deaths among children ages 6 months to 5 years are related to the problem.
Actions
PATH anticipates that Ultra Rice will have greatest impact when used as a tool for preventing micronutrient deficiencies in broad populations over a sustained period of time. PATH aims to foster long-term supply and demand for Ultra Rice in multiple countries with high rates of micronutrient malnutrition. We expect this to break longstanding cycles of poor nutritional health.
Results
Poor nutritional health leaves children less able to fight off infection and contributes significantly to rates of illness and death. Rice is a staple food consumed daily by about 2.5 billion people and thus a promising vehicle for micronutrient fortification. Ultra Rice can deliver micronutrients to large segments of the population without requiring any change in food consumption patterns.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
Success within the next three years will require expansion in several key areas. We must:
- Expand our Ultra Rice supply base beyond our current suppliers in Brazil and India.
- Gather more clinical evidence of the effectiveness of Ultra Rice, including results from new geographic regions.
- Develop programmatic mandates for the use of fortified rice in specific government programs targeting nutritionally vulnerable groups such as pregnant mothers and children.
- Gain further support from institutions such as the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization.
- Secure funding to mobilize implementation partners, expand markets, and meet the needs of feeding programs at scale.
In the next year, we hope to establish successful models of supply and demand in India and Brazil. To reach this goal, we are working to ensure that:
- Our current manufacturers continue to produce Ultra Rice.
- Key public sector programs purchase Ultra Rice and integrate it into their programs.
- National champions emerge from both the public and private sectors to expand the market for Ultra Rice.
With further funding, in the following two years we plan to:
- Expand our market models in both India and Brazil, penetrating additional states and working through new distribution channels.
- Develop an augmented evidence base showing impact in each country as large-scale effectiveness studies are completed.
- Expand into several Southeast Asian countries, using our Indian Ultra Rice supply base to catalyze those markets.
- Generate new markets in Central America using our Brazilian Ultra Rice supply base.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Although the evidence base for Ultra Rice is already robust, a future trial that uncovers issues with acceptability or impact could place barriers in our path to success. That scenario is unlikely to emerge. As we have described elsewhere, Ultra Rice has shown positive results from three clinical efficacy studies conducted in three different demographic groups.
How many people will your project serve annually?
Plus de 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Oui
Viabilité
A quel étape votre projet en est-il ?
En place depuis 1 à 5 ans
In what country?
Inde
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Oui
If yes, provide organization name.
PATH
How long has this organization been operating?
Plus 5 années
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Oui
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Oui
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Oui
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Oui
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
PATH’s Ultra Rice project aims to demonstrate successful in-country models of supply and demand. This will allow us to build commercial markets and encourage public-sector adoption of Ultra Rice at a price that will help fortified rice reach those most in need. Our partnerships are crucial to meeting these goals. PATH works with pasta manufacturers and rice millers in our targeted countries and communities to ensure stable and affordable supplies of fortified rice. Using local manufacturing equipment reduces capital investment costs and low-cost blending equipment reduces expenses for rice millers—incentivizing participation along the supply chain.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
To reach people who are nutritionally vulnerable, PATH licenses Ultra Rice manufacturing technology to select commercial partners. So far, we have licensed the technology to manufacturers in Brazil, Colombia, and India. Now we need additional implementation partners to expand the reach of Ultra Rice and increase the market share of fortified rice in targeted regions.
To meet the needs of this growing market, we must:
1. Set up regional centers for transferring the Ultra Rice technology to manufacturers and rice millers.
2. Help potential commercial partners better understand the Ultra Rice technology and learn how to use it.
3. Negotiate appropriate supply and price obligations into license agreements.
In combination, these measures will ensure a level playing field for all Ultra Rice manufacturers as well as encourage sustainable and affordable access to high-quality fortified rice by public- and private-sectors consumers.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
Micronutrient malnutrition threatens the health of billions of people, mostly in the developing world. Diets that lack important nutrients substantially contribute to the global burden of disease, affect the physical and cognitive development of young children, and dramatically reduce the work productivity of entire populations. Each year, iron deficiency saps the energy and learning capacity of nearly a billion people, vitamin A deficiency contributes to the deaths of 2 to 3 million children, and deficiencies in folic acid among expectant mothers during their first days of pregnancy causes more than 200,000 severe birth defects. Thiamin deficits retard intrauterine growth and often result in low birth weight, and shortages in zinc can lead to longer and more severe bouts of diarrhea in children.
The inventors of Ultra Rice, the late Dr. James Cox, and his son Robert Duffy Cox, donated patent rights to PATH in 1997. Having partnered with PATH to address global malnutrition, they felt PATH was well-positioned to garner the public, private, and donor support needed to introduce Ultra Rice to developing countries on a broad scale.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Duffy Cox and his dad James had a great idea that for years went nowhere. Their quest to develop vitamin-A fortified rice, which could fight global malnutrition, started in 1985. That’s when the father-and-son inventors at Bellingham, Washington-based Bon Dente International, a research and development firm, were asked by the US Department of Agriculture to work on the problem.
After five years of experiments—and with the assistance of a researcher at Iowa State University—they nailed it. Through a process that’s like making pasta—running rice through a type of noodle-making machine—they were able to extend the shelf life of vitamin A in rice from one week to about six months. Their product could also withstand hot and humid storage conditions.
After securing a patent in the mid-1990s, the family entrepreneurs traveled to Asia and Latin America, trying to strike deals with local partners and distributors to get their product into the marketplace. They trademarked it Ultra Rice.
Their efforts fell flat. It could have been language barriers, cultural barriers, resistance from competitors, or something else, Duffy Cox says. “We’re not marketers,” he explains. “We like to develop a unique concept and let somebody else take over.”
Cox, whose father has since died, ended up donating the Ultra Rice patent to PATH. The Seattle-based nonprofit specializes in nurturing technologies to reduce health disparities in the developing world. After a couple of false starts of its own, PATH found partners to help get Ultra Rice into commercial use by the end of this year, says Dipika Matthias, the project director for PATH. The organization now has a $6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand the use of Ultra Rice in its first four markets: Brazil, Colombia, China, and India.
“This is a product now poised for success, on the brink of commercial production,” Matthias says. “We’re going to see an impact from this within five years.”
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