China Rice Bran Oil Debuts in Japan

China rice bran oil brand Arawana has made its first move into the ultra-competitive Japan market with its first supermarket launch, Food navigator-asia.com reported last week.  Its debut was accompanied by huge advertisements on skyscrapers in Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing, and a grand product launch event that attracted hundreds of shoppers at the “il gusto Dolce Vita” store, the report said.  This is quite an unusual phenomenon as, while Japan is major consumer of rice bran oil, its market is dominated by domestic brands.  Japan is known to be originator of rice bran oil, with a century of history.

At the International Conference on Rice Bran Oil (ICRBO) 2016 in Tokyo, Arawana competed with several rice bran oil brands from Japan, India, Vietnam and Thailand, and won the “Quality Award”.  With this exposure and recognition, word about Arawana rice bran oil soon spread, and even Japanese students were reportedly buying Arawana rice bran oil from China.

Arawana is China’s leading brand of edible oil, whose parent company Wilmar International Limited ranks number 239 in the Fortune 500 list 2016.  Arawana started to focus on rice bran oil in 2006.  The R&D team created “enzymatic degumming”, a patented technology of low-temperature extraction, to naturally reserve oryzanol and phytosterol, two core nutrients of rice bran oil.  The average content of both oryzanol and phytosterol have been measured to be 10,000 mg/kg, which is identified to be a good balance between nutrient reservation and quality. Arawana rice bran oil is, therefore, known for its quality, colour and flavour.