Tell us a little bit about your startup
HumbleRice™ cooker, first of its kind fully automatic electric rice cooker which cooks rice in the traditional Indian method of boiling rice in excess water and then draining the starch water out. As per research published from various sources this traditional method helps to reduce risk of diseases like obesity, diabetes & cancer.
How did you come up with this idea?
Back in 2014 my mother visited us and used a normal electric rice cooker for the first time in her life. Seeing her admiration for this simple daily use appliance, I offered, if I could buy one for her back in our native and to my surprise, her answer was a quick and resounding “NO”. She preferred her traditional method of rice cooking (where rice is cooked in plenty of water in an open vessel and the extra starch is then drained out). “I don’t like the extra starch that remains when you cook in these electric rice cookers. Your dad is pre-diabetic and must avoid any excess sugar consumption,” said she.
I have lived in Odisha, Assam, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and people from these states traditionally cooked rice in this method. Talking to my friends from Kerala, Punjab, Andhra, Bihar, Gujarat, and Himachal also gave me confidence that people from these states also cooked rice in this method. But then, we don’t have a fully automatic rice cooker which automates this method. All the rice cookers in market cook in a method where all starch is absorbed back into rice. The traditional method remains a very tedious and time consuming method and also risky while draining the hot starch. In a modern, busy life, many people are giving up this traditional method and adopting the normal rice or pressure cookers ignoring the difference between the two methods. This motivated me to find a solution to this simple problem.
What problem does your startup solve?
HumbleRice™ cooker automates the traditional Indian method of rice cooking. By using it one can easily reduce the sugar/starch intake from rice and prepare fluffy rice; excess carbohydrate consumption has been identified to be the primary reason for diabetes and obesity and hence using a starch reducing rice cooker reduces that risk. Also, rice is known to contain traces of arsenic due to usage of pesticide while growing. Arsenic is a known cancer causing substance. Cooking rice in the traditional method also helps to remove above 50% of arsenic as the starch gets drained. It’s fully automatic, so after user put’s the rice and water in suggested proportion, no need for constant attention, it will cook, drain the starch and switch off.
What is the process of ordering?
We have finished the design, electronics and prototyping of this product. Currently we are working on manufacturing the product. Pre-booking will open around July and shipped before December 2017. The units will be delivered on first-book-first-serve basis. We are currently accepting email registration on our site and further updates will be sent on registered email ids. We encourage people to register on the site https://eathumblerice.com if they would like to be among the first to own this product.
What are your recent achievements?
A demo of HumbleRice™ cooker was acknowledged and well appreciated at the prestigious Make In Odisha 2016 event for innovation. While doing R&D on the product over last 2 years we have spoke to lot of people and have prepared a good list of prospective customers who are waiting to pre-order the product.
For more details visit https://eathumblerice.com/
Founders : Raja Panda And Sweta Mishra