Food Staple Business Ideas

Wheat, Rice and Corn are the 3 most consumed staple foods everyday by the various people around the world. Many people even consume them 3 or more times a day for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. My mother for example cannot feel satiated unless she eats a dish of rice at least once a day and she is not alone.

The usual way people earn money from them is by growing them in bulk in farms. They are then usually sold to wholesalers who further retails in then into smaller quantities. Another way people earn money from them is by cooking them into various dishes and then reselling them.

Wheat, Rice and Corn is usually milled into flour which is used to make a variety of foods which include beverages, biscuits, bread, cakes, cereals, confectionery, crackers, crisp-breads, crumpets, muffins, noodles, pasta, pastries, sauces, snack foods, sweets, various dishes and so on. The only limitations it seems in creating food based from them are one’s imagination.

After the wheat, rice and corn grains have been harvested from the plants the leftover straws of the plant are used for other things such as for animal food, biofuels, biomass, construction materials, handicrafts, horticulture, packaging, paper making, roping and so on. At the very basic the straws are left on farms as animal bedding or as soil nutrients when they decay.

Rice in Asia

In Asia for example rice is extensively used as food. The Japanese make balls or various shapes of rice, add a bit of salt and moisten their hands with water to shape them. They then add small strips of fruit (like avocado), vegetable (like cucumber), meat (like fish meat) or a combination of these and they even wrap them in seaweed.

In the Philippines sticky rice is made into many sweet flavoured or bland rice cakes topped with sweets. A roving food vendor for example usually stops over at our home in the Philippines to sell us some. They are cheaper and more filling as compared to eating plain bread for breakfast or snack or even a meal sometimes.

The sweet cake I am very particular with is a mildly sweet flavoured rice cake shaped like a short stick and wrapped in banana leaf. It is sold with a price of 15 cents each in the Philippines which is very cheap since it is filling enough to substitute for a breakfast meal. When I am not interested in having dinner for example I just eat one of these.

Considering the price and taste of a sushi roll in Australia for example this simple rice cake can compete in a global scale but is not marketed enough unfortunately just like all the other rice cakes from the Philippines and other Asian countries. Japan still holds a large sway in people’s imagination when it comes to sticky rice dishes.

Is Corn the Best Staple Food?

I believe corn is the best staple food. Unlike wheat which need to be baked and rice which needs to be flavoured because it is tasteless corn is so basic that you can just boil, steam or grill it and it is already ready to be eaten. They are also already tasty that there is no need to flavour them before eating them.

I like corn and eat it whenever I can. I even drink the leftover water used to boil them. I buy from vendors of boiled corn but I never saw any one of them selling the leftover water used to boil the corns. I believe they can make extra money selling them as sweet corn juice.

Even corn silk can be used to earn money. Corn silk is the hairy threads that grow on the corn cob. They have medicinal properties such as lowering blood pressure and are drank as tea. That is why I think corn vendors are wasting a lot when they do not fully utilise all parts of the corn.

Nothing Goes to Waste

You can also ferment wheat, rice and corn to create alcoholic beverages. The process is not complicated and even tribal villages have their own version of such alcoholic beverages. Incidentally fermented plant matter such as the three (3) mentioned can also be converted to fuel. This means that even if you have excess of these food staples they will not go to waste.

Conclusion

As can be seen many of the products that can be made from these food staples can be made even from one’s own home. More important is that the grains from these food staples can be stored for a long time and can be eaten by the sellers even if they do not sell. It is highly recommended that people store them when prices are down as some sort of investment.