Jul 14, 2010
Cooker turns rice into bread
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The machine is named 'GOPAN' in Japan - coined from 'gohan', meaning cooked rice, and 'pan', Spanish for bread. Sanyo will start exporting it to other Asian countries next year after its Japanese launch in October. -- PHOTO: AFP
<!-- story content : start --> TOKYO - JAPAN'S consumer electronics maker Sanyo has launched the world's first cooker that can turn rice grains into bread - an innovation that it hopes will be a hit across Asia. The machine can mill a cup of rice grains into rice flour, then mixes it with water, gluten, yeast and other ingredients to bake a loaf of bread in four hours, Sanyo Electric said.
The machine is named 'GOPAN' in Japan - coined from 'gohan', meaning cooked rice, and 'pan', Spanish for bread. Sanyo will start exporting it to other Asian countries next year after its Japanese launch in October. 'We are eagerly working to export this to other Asian countries, mainly China and South-east Asia, which share the culture of growing rice,' said company spokesman Liu Yingying.
The machine would retail between 50,000 and 60,000 yen (S$774-928). Wheat-free bread is good for people allergic to the grain, Sanyo said, noting that the machine can also operate without using gluten, which is taken from wheat and helps dough to rise.
Sanyo argued that another benefit would be that in Japan the cooker would increase rice consumption and change people's eating habits, helping increase the country's low food self-sufficiency ratio. The market for 'home bakery', or home-use bread-making machines, has boomed in Japan in the recent years, with shipments rising 30.7 per cent in 2009 from the previous year to 438,000 units, according to industry data. -- AFP
