Paddle faster, the UK market is growing
Jun 16, 2021
LONDON, UK – Building on the success of recent promotions focused on U.S.-grown long grain rice here, USA Rice has expanded those efforts to include medium grain and wild rice across the target ethnic and mainstream retail chains.
“Traditionally, the UK program focuses heavily on promoting U.S. long grain, including milled and parboiled, that make up about 90 percent of all U.S. rice exports to the UK,” said Eszter Somogyi, USA Rice director for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. “In response to increasing demand for different rice types by importers as well as local consumers, we extended campaigns to include medium grain as well as wild rice and mixes. New social media platforms are helping to increase awareness, followers, and engagement for all U.S. rice varieties sold here.”
An array of promotional activities, in collaboration with local importers and supporting local U.S. rice brands sold in different segments of the market, includes digital advertising on online grocery platforms, a LinkedIn campaign, a billboard campaign throughout major UK cities, and point-of-sale promotions in hundreds of ethnic shops and supermarkets.
U.S.-grown rice has a loyal customer base across the UK’s Asian wholesale sector, and throughout June, USA Rice, in cooperation with a local U.S. rice brand, is conducting a major campaign based on the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, a global celebration of a patriotic scholar, poet, and politician named Qu Yuan who lived around 2,500 years ago.
“The UK is a culturally diverse market and consumption habits are strongly influenced by the ethnic origin of the customers,” said Somogyi. “This diversity provides a unique potential for growth for different types of U.S. rice in this market, and we look forward to working together with all the different players to continue to grow sales.”
The UK is the largest single market for U.S. rice sales on the European continent. Last year sales totaled 27,170 MT, with a value of $15.4 million.