From paddy to pack: what happens at the mill
Drying, ageing, husking, whitening, sorting, packing. A walk through the eight stages every grain passes through.
Paddy arrives from the fields in October and November with around 20% moisture. It is dried on open platforms and in mechanical dryers to 12%, then moved into ageing warehouses.
After ageing, the husk is removed and the brown rice is whitened in gentle passes so the grain is not broken. A colour sorter then rejects every discoloured or chalky grain, and length graders separate whole grains from broken.
Finally the rice is de-stoned, passed under magnets, and packed on machines that never touch the grain by hand. From here it goes to shelves in forty countries.