Europe’s Largest Street Festival Features U.S. Rice

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM -- Two local U.S. rice brands, Peacock and Tropical Sun, participated in a billboard campaign set up by USA Rice for the carnival season, which concludes here at the Notting Hill Carnival the last weekend of August.  

The Carnival started in 1966 and is now recognized as Europe’s largest street festival attracting more than one million attendees each year and featuring music, dancing, theater, and, of course, food, including rice – a lot of rice!  Reports suggest that as much as 18 MT of rice is eaten over that one carnival weekend.

Both Peacock and Tropical Sun sponsored billboards at specific sites around London prior to and during the Carnival to ensure that U.S. rice was the preferred rice eaten at the street festival.

“We always order extra rice for the carnival season, which covers multiple cities, but culminates at the Notting Hill Carnival,” said Tropical Sun’s Marketing Manager Jag Singh.  “The love that we receive for Tropical Sun USA rice is measured by the additional volume we sell in the run up to, and over Carnival weekend.”  Tropical Sun also had its own branded tent set up at the Carnival.

“This was the first time we participated in a billboard campaign prior to the Carnival, and the early results show that it was successful in driving volume for our brand,” said Peter Walker, sales manager of Peacock USA rice.  “We’d like to do this again.”

The U.S. exports about 30,000 MT (over $15 million) of rice to the UK each year, most of which is exported under tariff rate quota (TRQ) certificates.  U.S. exports to the UK are up 9 percent in the first six months of this year compared with last year.