- mawarannahr
- May 21, 2019
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20 metric tons to be exact. Per container. And we do like 30 - 50 containers a week in imports.
You ever want to got a rice person riled up, ask them what are the mitigation procedures for bugs in rice. Hooooo mama. Buckle up kids, this is going to be a loving ride.
As soon as the rice is milled to the degree it needs to be, and is ready for shipping or storage, it has to be treated. Period, the end, no questions. Why? Because rice insects are many and varied, and tenacious little fucks.
For organic product, you can't use traditional chemical fumigants, even though it doesn't show up in testable amounts in the final product. For organic product, you have to fumigate in CO2, a warm temp, for like 14 days minimum. Why? Because CO2 doesn't kill eggs, so you need to fume that sucker until the eggs that still eggsist while fuming will hatch, and the larva can be killed off. Also, any pupa won't really be killed off, so you have to wait for the pupa to become adults so that they can get killed off. Oh. You don't have 14 days to fume this stuff because the customer needed their rice like yesterday, and you should have dispatched last week, but it was some lamp festival or something, and half your staff was "out sick" even though you told them you need to fulfil this goddamned contract on time. Fine. In that case, it's reefer time!
A 40' refrigerated container (also known as a "reefer" in the logistics business) can be ordered in cases where you need to freeze the rice to avoid/kill bugs. How long? Traditionally, rice sold in totes needs at least 30 days at -18C to kill off infection. Why do I say traditionally? IT IS NOT ENOUGH TIME ANYMORE. The loving bugs have evolved in the past 15 or so years to where they can survive 30 days. You need a minimum of 45 days under -18C temperature kept constant to make sure you go scorched earth (so to speak) on the rice.This is good news for you, because you're in India or Thailand, and the usual transit time to the USA is about 45 days. However, reefers cost more than dry containers, and are in significantly shorter supply, and all accessorial charges are doubled because they're charged by the TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) since they're 40' and not 20' like standard dry containers. Also also, you're going to get bumped if the vessel is overbooked, because they can snurgle a 20' into whatever little pockets of space on the vessel, but the reefers need to be in specific spots where they can get plugged in to run the motor for the journey. Also, rice is a commodity food, not a luxury food. This means that the profit margins are razor thin. You can't really afford that much of a hit because Priya from production was going to her 15th grandmother's funeral that month. You'll do it if you HAVE to, but the CO2 fume is a lot cheaper and straightforward to do.
However, say you have conventional product that you're shipping out. That's "easier" but also hella dangerous. In India, they spray the absolute bejeebers out of the field with every pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide known to mankind. Basmati is a low yield crop, and sensitive to drat near everything. They're not taking any chances on losing out on product that they can sell next year (Basmati is aged, so this year's crops won't be sold at least until next year if you're a good Basmati producer). Then, when it gets into the plant, they fumigate the finished rice. What fumigant? In India, they use Methyl Bromide. Methyl Bromide is deadly toxic. As in, you inhale a little bit, and you have permanent lung damage. You inhale a little over a long time, and you're going to have brain damage. This poo poo is not a joke at all. When you're fumigating with it, you have to ensure that the entire works is AIR TIGHT. No leaks. Every time they put something under fume, they have to quadruple check that there's no air leaks at all. In a rice manufacturing or processing facility, they'll have special rooms dedicated to fumigation, so that they can mitigate any risks of inhalation by the people working there. Fumigation can also be done in the container itself (and it is!).
You first fumigate the rice as it's done processing. It's 48 hours of fumigation, and then 24 hours to air it out once it's done. Then, you throw the totes into the container, and fume the container as well. When the container arrives in the USA, the USDA and customs and border patrol will demand to see the fumigation certificate to show the concentration of the fumigant, the temperature, and how long the product has been fumed. If it's missing a fume certificate, now they're suspicious, and will be going through your container with a fine-toothed comb (also called an intensive exam). This is going to cost you an extra $1000 or so per container (if it's a 20' dry) up to $3600 (for a reefer), so loving have your docs in order, or pay the price. (In certain ports, all containers from India just automagically get "randomly" selected for intensive exam, regardless of how good the docs are.)
In Thailand, they use Phosphine, and let it run for 14 days. Phosphine IS still a toxic gas, but not nearly as much as methyl bromide. However, it takes a lot longer for it to do its job. Again, they'll include the fume certificate with the documents package when they send the container out.
Hooray, you're done now right? No more infestation. NOPE. WRONG. YES MORE INFESTATION.
Once the product comes to the final country, it's usually good practice to fume it (in the container) again. Why? It's been on a boat for 45 - 60 days. While technically you only need to fume every 60 days or so, you can't guarantee the safety of your stuff aboard a cargo vessel. What if other bugs came from other containers and hung out in this one? US Customs doesn't give a crap about flour beetles or rice weevils. They only care if there's Khapra beetle, and wood pests (found in the pallets if they're not heat treated). It can be literally crawling with rice weevils, to the point where you can't see the colour of the totes anymore, and customs don't give a poo poo, because it's not the bug they're concerned with preventing. So, to prevent that situation, you fume it as soon as it comes into your hands. What if it's organic? Off to the cold storage you go! Again, even if it's been treated with CO2 overseas, re-infestation is a serious concern, so all our customers require a minimum of 30 days in freezing (either in transit or in the warehouse in the USA) before they'll accept a load.
Well, what if even after all this, you STILL find bugs? If you're a large sized operation, you don't care as long as there's no live bugs, because you're about to throw the rice through your own cleaning machines anyway (AKA sifters, X-ray, metal detector, etc), so if they're dead, they're going to be pulled out of the product anyways. If you're a rinky dink small little repacker (so you only order like 100,000 lbs a month or less-there's one customer who we're all whining to get rid of, because they only order like 90,000 lbs of rice in a month, and are a giant pain in my rear end to service, but since they're one of our first customers, bossman wants to keep servicing their account) and don't have cleaning machinery (because smaller ones don't have space), you'll reject if there's live OR dead insects. So now does the rice get thrown out? Nope. We send it to the cleaners. That's gonna cost you like $5K - $10K per load to clean, which pretty much demolishes your profit margins, but you don't want to throw away food that can be saved.
So yes. Bugs are an issue.
When I bring rice to my house, it goes directly into the freezer. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Go sit in the freezer right now. It sits there for at least 3 days, if not a week. I don't care if it's organic or conventional. It's getting frozen good and solid. THEN I'll move it to the fridge for overnight so that it comes up to temp gradually. Then it gets transferred to an airtight container with an oxygen absorber if I'm going to keep it in that container longer than 3 months, or just by itself it it's less than 3 months. When I say airtight, I mean that it's a box that has a rubber gasket, so that nothing is entering or leaving that container, period. My parents sucked at food storage, so our rice consistently had bugs in when I was growing up. Making a pot of rice took forever, because you had to rinse so many times to get rid of the bugs. I'm freakishly paranoid about bugs, so I make sure to treat my grains with the utmost of disrespect. loving sit in that freezer and think about what you've done. >
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This is really interesting reading, thank you.
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Dec 30, 2023 22:54
