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The
price of the nation's favourite dish - the curry - looks set to rise
due to massive increases in world rice prices, an industry spokesman
has warned.
Alex Waugh,
director of the Rice Association, said prices were up 60%
year-on-year and the price of basmati rice, one of the most popular
varieties in the UK, had almost doubled.
Big producers
like India and China have restricted their exports, along with
Vietnam and Egypt, and there were now "rapidly declining
stocks" in the world. Thailand and the US were now the main
suppliers to the world market, he said.
This would
feed into the price British consumers pay for rice at shops and in
restaurants. Mr Waugh said: "If you are a restaurant owner
and you are buying a lot of rice you either reduce your margins or
you put your prices up.
"A
cost increase of that magnitude is going to feed through and this
will probably see the price of a curry increase."
Mr Waugh also
warned that the price rises would hit the Bangladeshi community in
the UK as rice is a staple part of the diet.
The doubling
of basmati prices and the sharp rises for other varieties comes on
the back of increased inflation figures.
Mr Waugh
said: "The big producers like China and India have restricted
their exports so that price rises don't hit their own people so much.
"Now
the main countries exporting rice are really just the US and Thailand
and we have seen rapidly declining stocks over the last few years."
The UK
imports around 200,000 tonnes of rice every year and is the largest
importer of rice in the EU. Its imports account for 20% of all EU
rice imports and half of all EU basmati rice imports. |
