Overview

The major agriculture production area of Nepal is in the plain lands of Terai. Because of this, most of the country’s mills and processing facilities are also located in this region. There are limited numbers of mills outside of this region. Production of rice in the Terai is not enough to meet the daily consumption requirement of the nation. Therefore, to meet the demand, milled rice and paddy is imported from India.

Nepal has about 350 private commercial mills in operation although more than 500 are registered. State owned Food Management and Trading Company (FMTC) is also a major actor in collection and distribution of rice but their milling capacity is limited to two mills; 2 MT per hour in Rajapur, Bardiya (Aruwa Makwanpur: raw coarse rice) and 1 MT per hour in Janakpur, Dhanusha (Basmati). These 350 mills are further segmented into small, medium and big depending upon their production per hour. (100 mills of 1 MT/h, 215 mills of 1-5 MT/h; 35 mills of 5-8 MT/h). The collective production of these mills across all segment is dependent on the mill operation hour in a day, seasonality of the harvest, milling capacity of the production unit. 

Generally, most of the mills operate for 1 single shift for 8 hours per day and that is only for 5 months harvest season of May through September.

For more information, please see: 4.6 Nepal Storage and Milling Companies Contact List.

Food Management and Trading Company (FMTC)

The Food Management and Trading Company (FMTC, formerly Nepal Food Corporation) is a state-owned enterprise. FMTC contributes to food security by supplying subsidized food commodities to people in food insecure and food deficit areas and it plays a role influencing the market by procuring and encouraging production of indigenous food commodities.  

FMTC has two rice mills:

• A mill in Rajapur, Bardiya with a capacity of two MT/h and runs in the high season two shifts of 10 hours (night) and eight hours (day); they source exclusively Nepalese paddy and the monthly average output is 200-350 MT of milled rice or 2,200 MT/annum. The mill has four warehouses with a total storage capacity of 6,000 MT.
• A mill in Janakpur, Dhanusha with a capacity of one MT/h. They have a paddy quota for 1,000 MT/annum of coarse rice (Mansuli) and 700 MT of Basmati. They have two warehouses with a combined storage capacity of 3,000 MT.

(Source: World Food Programme. Rationalisation of the Food Management and Trading Company Warehouse Network. Food Management and Trading Company, 2019.)

L. Dugar Group (Dugar Brothers), Nepalgunj, Lumbini Province

Century Food Pvt. Ltd., Biratnagar, Province 1

Century Food is a trading company of mainly Indian rice, repacked and distributed in Nepal.

Bohra Group (including Himalayan Industries)

Bohra Group is a market-oriented food producer, among others, operating two rice mills with eight MT/hr (Bohra Industries) and five MT/hr milling capacity (Himalayan Industries) respectively.

(Source: Albani, Martin, et al. Landscape Study for Rice Fortification. Department of Health Services, Nepal in support of WFP RBB, 2017.)

Shree Radha Krishna Rice Mill

Nutri Foods (P) Ltd.

Bohra Industries

Vikas Food Products

Vikas Food Products (P.)  Ltd., a food manufacturing industry in Nepal, has 5 separate plants for Wheat flour (150 MT), Whole wheat flour (100 MT), Blended Fortified Food (Lito) (40 MT), Maize grit/flour (30 MT), Rice (120 MT) milling per day.  They also exporting whole wheat flour and multigrain flour to Germany, Japan and China. Vikar Food Product imports food grains to meet its annual demand.

Medium/smaller sized mills in Nepalgunj, Lumbini Province

All of them are sourcing Nepalese rice (mainly coarse) and supply 90-100 per cent of their output to the hill and mountain areas of Gandaki Province, Lumbini Province and Karnali Province of Nepal. The transportation costs increase significantly not only by distance but also by degree of difficulty of road access (or path). From May to September, some areas are simply inaccessible by land transport because of floods and landslides.

Disclaimer: Inclusion of company information in the LCA does not imply any business relationship between the supplier and WFP / Logistics Cluster, and is used solely as a determinant of services, and capacities.

Please note: WFP / Logistics Cluster maintain complete impartiality and are not in a position to endorse, comment on any company's suitability as a reputable service provider.