"Wuchang rice" is hard to distinguish between true and false VF.jpg
The price of rice marked "Wuchang" in some supermarkets in Beijing ranges from 5 yuan per kilogram to 10 yuan per kilogram. The price of bagged rice of an ancient ship brand of Beijing Grain Group is 52.9 yuan, while the price of bagged rice of 5 kg of Minle Township, Wuchang City, Heilongjiang Province is 95.6 yuan. The organic rice of 5 kg of bagged rice produced by Zhongnong Yubang (Beijing) Ecological Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. is also marked with the word "Wuchang" and the price is 169 yuan.
A customer service officer of Wuchangtou rice manufacturer said that the price of authentic Wuchang rice is about 10 yuan per kilogram. When choosing to buy, you can refer to whether the packaging has a geographical indication to protect the product label. It is understood that, with the approval of the State Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection, there are 183 enterprises using special geographical indications for Wuchang rice products, but no Yihai Jiali and Jingliang Group are found in the list.
It is worth noting that a 5kg goldfish rice with original rice fragrance is sold at 89.9 yuan in Yihai Jiali. Although the word "Wuchang" is not marked in the eye-catching position, it is clearly marked in the product description as "Wuchang" in Heilongjiang Province, but the batch number is produced in Jilin Province.
Qin Liming, deputy director of the Agricultural Bureau of Wuchang City, has calculated the account: the rice planting area of the whole city is about 2.2 million mu, and the rice yield is 1.5 million tons per mu. Even if the highest rice yield of 70% is calculated, the annual rice output will not exceed 1.55 million tons.
According to the information on the website of Wuchang Agricultural Bureau, only 714,000 tons of high-quality rice were produced in Wuchang in 2015, and the sales volume was only 5.42 billion yuan.
Qin Liming introduced that 293 rice enterprises registered in the industrial and commercial departments of Wuchang City have a capacity of 4 million tons. In theory, the total output of Wuchang rice will not exceed that. However, according to incomplete statistics, the so-called "Wuchang" rice sold in China every year exceeds 10 million tons, which means that more than 90% of the sales of "Wuchang" rice on the market are counterfeit.
Of course, there is another question: the capacity far exceeds the output of 3 million tons, which part of the capacity to process rice, I am afraid only the processors themselves know.
According to the industry, I am afraid that many processing enterprises are processing "harmonized rice". In 2014, the Wuchang Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision issued a report that the source of "Harmonized Rice" mainly has three channels. Firstly, the fragrance of foreign rice and rice flowers is blended, without labeling "Wuchang rice"; secondly, the fragrance of other varieties of rice and rice flowers of Wuchang is blended, labeling "Wuchang rice"; the third channel is the blending of foreign rice and other varieties of rice of Wuchang, labeling "Wuchang rice".
Zhu Danpeng, a researcher in the food and beverage industry of China Brand Research Institute, said, "There are a lot of counterfeit rice in the market, mainly because the supervision is not in place and the efforts to combat counterfeiting are not enough."
For the future, how to rebuild the brand image of Wuchang rice in the eyes of consumers, Zhu Danpeng said that the most effective way at present is to open some direct stores of Wuchang rice, but the previous investment will be relatively large, the cycle of cost recovery may be longer, but at least it can restore the current situation.
"At present, the price plate of Wuchang rice has been scrambled, and the taste of rice is almost the same. With the different fertilizers, moisture and processing tools in the rice production and planting process, it is difficult to ensure that the same brand products have the same taste in different years. In short, the rice production industry chain is too long, standardization and scale is difficult, which leaves a lot of room for some enterprises, especially those with larger strength, to cheat. Zhu Danpeng said.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Fang Binnan and Li Zhenxing
Source: Beijing Business Daily