KEY POINTS:
Auckland is facing a specialty rice crisis, say local rice merchants as wholesalers like Gilmours and Thai Rice Wholesalers start setting limits to how much rice customers can buy.
While rice types such as long and medium grain are still readily available in supermarket shelves, stocks of varieties
such as jasmine and basmati, which are preferred by South-east Asians, Filipinos, Indians and most Chinese, are running out fast.
"We are so short of rice, it is not funny, and people are in a panic mode," said Ursula Lawrence, owner of Thai Rice Wholesalers, whose store was down to its last 25kg sack of rice when the Herald went there yesterday.
"Some customers are literally begging to buy more, saying they just had a baby and needed rice so that the new mother will be able to generate breast milk," she said.
Some Asians believe that eating rice would give a breast-feeding mother more milk.
"But in the light of what is happening and the uncertainty, we have to be firm with the limits we have set, and we have to be fair to everyone."
Since last month, walk-in shoppers at Thai Rice Wholesalers, which imports rice from Thailand, have been limited to one bag per purchase, and businesses such as restaurants have a two 25-kg sack limit per order.
Wholesalers Gilmours too have placed a two-bag restriction on certain varieties of rice to prevent retailers from "stockpiling".
"We don't want a situation where retailers hoard rice now, only to start selling at an astronomical price when that happens,"said a spokesman for Gilmours. Although there is no shortage of rice in New Zealand now, at the way things are happening, there could be one looming."
The decision by India, Vietnam, Egypt, Cambodia, Brazil and China to curtail exports to protect prices at home have been blamed as the main reason for the global price hikes and the recent rice panic.
Last Friday, Thailand proposed an Opec-style cartel with major rice exporting countries Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos to give them more control over international rice prices.
But skyrocketing prices and media reports of a global rice shortage are driving many New Zealanders, especially Asian and Indian immigrants, to stockpile - as their once inexpensive staple continues to scale record-high prices.
In Auckland, the price of rice has tripled since Christmas - and a 25kg sack, which used to cost about $25 six months ago now costs up to $65. One shopper Jessie Lee said: "Rice is our staple, so whatever the price, we have no choice."