For more than a decade, Diners Group has made a name for itself as a premier rice processor, marketer, and distributor in the City of Mbale in Eastern Uganda, with its products reaching as far as South Sudan, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Despite its well-established presence and growing reach across the region, the company faced a significant challenge: maximising the value of other rice milling by-products like broken rice and rice bran. These by-products were either discarded or sold at low prices, hindering the company’s growth potential and limiting opportunities to expand into new markets.
But this is about to change. With support from Kilimo Trust, the company is now tapping into the potential of rice by-products by processing them into ready-to-consume, nutrient-rich products, including instant rice porridge flour, noodles, and snacks.
“We’re using value addition to diversify our offerings and open new revenue streams,” says Mohammed Sekatawa, the Managing Director of Diners Group.
“What we are offering is a 100 percent nutrient advantage. For the instant porridge, we mill the broken rice and blend it with all the key micronutrients such as protein, calcium, and iron to give you a highly nutritious blend for both children and adults.”
The company is currently conducting commercial piloting for the newly developed rice by-product lines, which it hopes will help boost its market presence and profitability.
“Our vision is to become the first choice regional producer of value-added products," Sekatawa adds.
Through its Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Rice Initiative for Climate Smart Agriculture (R4iCSA), Kilimo Trust is championing utilisation of rice by products and adoption of other sustainable agricultural practices.
Since 2018, the organisation has been supporting Diners Group to strengthen its supply chain and expand market access beyond the borders of Uganda.
“We are very happy with the progress made by Diners as well as other organisations and farmer groups and that we are supporting in the region,” says Kilimo Trust Chief Executive Officer Dr. Birungi Korutaro.
“Seeing farmers adopt sustainable practices and increase their yields and incomes means there is transformation. As an organisation, we’re committed to ensuring that we continue to see more transformation like this so that we can build more communities in Uganda and across Eastern Africa.”
Supported by the IKEA Foundation, the R4ICSA project aims to increase the adoption of sustainable rice production practices among 10,000 smallholder rice farmers in Kenya and Uganda in order to boost farmers' production levels and mitigate the effects of climate change.