The “Rice Brekkies” cereal, launched at last week’s GuyExpo by President Donald Ramotar, is a pilot project developed by the Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (IAST) and the factory still has to be set up and the product cleared by the regulatory authorities.

The project is being commercialised due to the effort of the Minister of Commerce Irfaan Ali, who saw the potential of the product and its relevance in the Guyana context, during a visit by the Minister and the President Ramotar to IAST earlier this year.

The cereal, which is pending approval from the government’s Food and Drug Department, is currently manufactured at the IAST’s facilities at Turkeyen, at a pilot scale which is approximately 600 250g boxes per week.

Through the collaboration of the Ministry and the IAST, funding for the construction of a manufacturing plant was procured from the Rural Develop-ment Fund, administered by the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce. The capital cost is anticipated to be $75 Million. The institute would be responsible for supervising the building and commissioning of the plant as well as training staff, developing quality control measures and overseeing the operation of the plant over the initial years of its operations.

A score of 5 indicates that the scorer felt that the particular attribute being tested was excellent, and a score of one indicates that scorer felt that the attribute was poor. The error bars represents one standard deviation (both up and down) based on the spread of the data. (Chart Provided By IAST, Director, Suresh Narine.)

Speaking to Stabroek News on Wednesday, Director of the IAST Professor Suresh Narine said that the plant will most likely be located at Anna Regina, in Region Two. The exact location was expected to be announced later in the week. He also anticipated that the plant would take four to six months to be completed. The IAST has already completed the full design and is ready to begin the tendering process. Narine said that from the promise of the return on investment from the cereals project, which the institute has calculated to be 27% to 33%, the initial investment by government in the institute’s efforts has been vindicated.

When asked about the type of technology used in the manufacturing process, Narine explained that the process of extrusion will be used. Extrusion is a way of cooking which applies controlled torque and heat to food products. It is also the same process used to produce textured vegetable protein, such as soy chunks.

Narine noted that in 2013, the IAST had acquired a pilot scale food and pharmaceutical extruder, an instrument which was entirely funded by the Government of Guyana. This instrument cost $55,582,785. He also recalled that the level of scrutiny from cabinet members was significant because the cost of the equipment was high. However, the institute was able to convince cabinet members that the application of extrusion technology to many of the agricultural commodities would result in creation of a number of high-value products.