“Research and Development: Adding Value to Riceberry Paper”

Today, many people are living a hustling lifestyle competing against time and do not have time for health. However, eating is still the key to a daily life which feels close to home.

This has lead to an increased popularity for clean eating or wholesome food. Thus, staples like rice and processed rice products have been increasingly consumed together with other healthy food, such as salad rolls, Vietnamese meatball wraps (Nam Neung), Chinese steamed rice noodle rolls and vegetable rice noodle rolls.

Ms. Pennapa Saelao and Ms. Suthida Waetanee, students from the program of Agro-Industry, Rajamangala University of Technology Pitsanulok and their lecturers, Ms. Kodcharat Fugthong and Ms. Suriyaporn Nipornrum in collaboration with a community enterprise called House Keeper’s Thai desserts Group Ban Bang Payom Tai, found business opportunities in further  developing riceberry paper. Using riceberry as an ingredient to substitute for white rice aims to increase wholesomeness to a wide range of products and add value to them.

          The reasons for using riceberry is that amounts of antioxidants in riceberry are twice as high as in Vitamin C or E, including phenolic compounds, Gamma Oryzanol, and other bioactive compounds. In addition, the quantity of riceberry which can be substituted for white rice can be as high as 80% and it can form a complete sheet with less cracks. Increasing the quantity of riceberry in the sheet from 40% to 80% gives a darker purple color. When examined with a colorimeter, it was found that color value a* increased while color value L* decreased. The physical characteristics of riceberry paper including density, solubility, compressibility, elasticity, and water activity were in a range of 0.25 – 0.26 millimeters, 3.62-4.25%, 39.25-47.07 grams, 14.76-17.53 millimeters and 0.72-0.76 respectively. When comparing these characteristics with white rice paper, there were no differences. Investigating bioactive compounds showed that the total amount of phenolic, anthocyanin and antioxidative activity DPPH of the riceberry paper were higher than white rice paper. In terms of sensory properties, there is not a difference in score between riceberry and white rice paper. Therefore, riceberry paper can give more bioactive compounds which benefits health than white rice paper.