A range of sweet and savoury rice crackers produced for Chemical Industries Colombo (CIC), a quoted company that has in recent years been branching into agri-business, have been test marketed in recent months and data gathered is currently under evaluation.

The Industrial Technology Institute (ITI) has been researching rice-based products for several years and has successfully developed necessary technology for the manufacture of rice crackers.

An ITI bulletin reported that two flavours, chicken and chocolate, have been formulated and the technology transferred to CIC.

CIC which has diversified its business from paints to pharmaceuticals and chemicals is now into agriculture with an investment into the cultivation of special rice varieties for the domestic and export markets.

ITI said that CIC was interested in promoting the manufacture of new rice based products in Sri Lanka and had solicited ITI assistance for this.

After some deliberations, rice crackers were selected as a product CIC was interested in marketing and savoury chicken and sweet chocolates were identified as the preferred flavours.

"After several laboratory trials, the researchers at the Food Technology Section of ITI were able to develop a product to match their requirements," the bulletin said.

It described rice crackers as a ``flat crisp snack made with puffed rice grains attached to each other.’’

"Although seemingly straightforward, much research is required to produce a satisfactory product, as crackers cannot be made with all varieties of rice," ITI said.

Trials were carried out with different varieties of rice as those with low amylase content were necessary to produce high qualify rice crackers.

Since CIC has launched the cultivation of speciality rice varieties, the availability of raw materials posed no problems.

CIC however did not have processing facilities and were not in a position to go into production immediately and ITI forged the necessary link with a sub contractor who had previously shown interest in purchasing the technology from ITI.

The pilot production of rice crackers were carried out at the sub contractor’s facility under the supervision of ITI scientists and CIC has been test marketing the product through their various sales outlets.

A spokesman for CIC said that they have received market reactions on the acceptability of the product and such reactions varied. They have developed the packaging and the product has been priced at Rs.135 which is almost twice the price of wheat flour based crackers established in the market.

"We have to evaluate the data we have and possibly decide whether we should look at a cracker with part rice and part wheat content," a spokesman for CIC said.