NUTRICE or how to optimise rice cooking

September 24, 2009 "Rice cookers represent a very big market, in particumar in Asia, which is today dominated by the highest technology. However, we still have to understand the influence of the cooking parametres, that the appliances already on the market allow us to control, on the taste and nutritional propertiesof rice," resumes Philippe Crévoisier, Managing Director of "Electrical Cooking" of the group SEB. 

Eventually, this new knowledge will allow the world leader in small home appliances to design a new range of rice cookers that completely meet the needs of consumers in terms of nutrition and taste. "Our aim is to become the leader of this particular market," declares Philippe Crévoisier.

It is in this context that SEB launched the project NUTRICE, developed in partnership with three clusters - Vitagora, Q@limed and Nutrition-Longévité-Santé - and that obtained funding from the French national funding agency for cluster projects. There are eight partners in total, including four research organisations (1), two industrial groups (SEB and LESAFFRE) and two SMEs (NEXIDIA and SENSINA) involved in this 36 month project. For the research program, three main areas have been identified: cooking processes with not extrinsic additions, sensory analysis and pre-clinical analysis. For the most part, the research will be carried out around rice, which is the second highest cereal crop (after wheat) in terms of volume and the food staple for around half of the world's population. In addition, the amount of rice consumed has grown by 40% in the last 30 years. "What we are looking to characterise, it's essentially what is found on the plate," indicates the Managing Director of SEB.

For their part, LESAFFRE, known for the production of breadmaing yeasts, and NEXIDIA, specialist in microbiologie, will be working on onnovative means of rice preparations. SEB, LBS and CIRAD will be lookingn into the cooking parameters and their influences on nutritional and taste properties. SENSINA, a young, Dijon-based company, will be carrying out consumer tests and evaluating products provided by SEB. Finally, the Montpellier University Hospital will study the positif impact of the new processes and the bioavailability of micronutrients. Philippe Crévoisier displays all the more enthusiasm for this project for the fact that it is the second in partnership with Vitagora to receive national funding and to be launched.

(1)
- Laboratoire de Biologie des Semences (LBS), Unité Mixte de Recherche INRA/AgroParisTech
- Centre Européen des Sciences du Goût (CESG), Unité Mixte de recherche CNRS/Université de Bourgogne/INRA
- CIRAD
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Montpellier

Contact
Philippe Crevoisier
Email : pcrevoisier@seb.fr

Source : Agence JFD and Co

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