U.S. Rice in the UK – Ready to Heat and Eat

    
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – Last month Tilda, a local U.S. rice importer here, launched a brand new ready-to-heat (RTH) pouch rice product featuring identified U.S. long grain rice.   

“The launch of Tilda’s RTH pouch rice is an exciting new development as this is an entirely new category for U.S. rice sales in the UK,” said USA Rice Vice President International Sarah Moran.  “Pouch rice made up more than 56 percent of the value of mainstream retail UK rice sales in 2018, a growth of +8 percent on the year.”  

The Tilda RTH product is available on the shelves in Waitrose, a British supermarket chain, as well as online, and is seeing increasing demand by busy consumers, particularly from the growing number of single-person households who appreciate the product for its convenience.

“Research showed that more than 40 percent of the spending in the pouch rice category is on products backed by promotions, so USA Rice joined forces with Tilda to support the launch of this product,” said Moran.  “The campaign included online marketing and consumer magazine advertising funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded to USA Rice to mitigate the damage as a result of trade tensions between the U.S. and other countries.”

In June 2018, the EU introduced an additional 25 percent retaliatory tariff on U.S. milled rice which has led to a 46 percent reduction in U.S. rice exports to the UK over the past year.