Virus export ban may result in a run on rice: Moni Varma

By Amit Roy

MONI VARMA, who is sometimes known as Britain’s “Basmati baron”, said he fears there might be a real run on rice if more countries were to ban their exports because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Varma is chairman and group chief execu­tive of the VeeTee brand that he established in 1987. His is one of the biggest rice companies in Europe.

He told Eastern Eye: “My rice comes from all over the world, from our own factory in India. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myan­mar, all over South America, the United States – it comes from many, many, many places.”

Referring to supermarket shelves being stripped bare of rice before Britain went into lockdown last month, he said: “The shortage was not there. It was the panic buying that caused the shortage. The real shortage might come in the future. Some countries are ban­ning exports. Myanmar has blocked it, Viet­nam has blocked it, Cambodia has blocked it – they are our suppliers.”

Moni Varma.

He made a perceptive culinary observation about rice, which was not really to the taste of the traditional “roast beef and two veg” gen­eration of yesteryear. “Rice is now part and parcel of the British diet and almost becom­ing part and parcel of the American diet these days,” Varma said.

Basmati makes up 70 per cent of his busi­ness, with “VeeTee Mega” the most sought after. “It’s the extra long grain Basmati and it is the best. And it is on the shelves in almost all the supermarkets. It is a big seller in the eth­nic market. It’s the best rice for biryanis, pi­laus and all that.”

Grown in the Himalayan foothills, basmati rice from India, “takes six weeks to arrive by sea. Countries like India are in lockdown, so everything is slowed down by 30-40-50 days.

“God forbid if there is another hot spot in the world. Let there not be a hot spot in India where there was a sort of panic buying before. It is already bad, the price and all that. That (a new hot spot) will create a stranglehold on the supply chain.”

Varma’s two “giant” factories are in Roches­ter in Kent. One does the cleaning, milling and polishing of rice which arrives in large containers from India, while the other is re­sponsible for the cooking of the millions of varied pouches that VeeTee sells.

“Never been busier,” he summed up. “The factories are working flat out. Factories here and in India. Food is required, so we have a duty to the nation which we are doing.

“Some countries are banning exports. Oth­ers are just increasing prices. You can’t do anything in a situation like this.

“Monday to Friday (I get) all sorts of de­mands from American supermarkets. But we have our own existing clients and their re­quirements have spiked – between 30 per cent and 70 per cent more than they have in regular times. I have them to satisfy. We are pushing out replacement stocks and they are rocketing as well.”

Varma, who said the situation was “crazy”, emphasised that his first loyalty was to his old customers whom he would not ditch in order to sell rice at inflated prices to, say, supermar­kets in America. “If one had capacity and the stocks, then you would be getting business from areas that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to reach,” he acknowledged.

“For example, the American supermarkets are chasing us for rice. Which is otherwise an uphill struggle, a battle for anybody from here (in the UK). It is good that it opens new doors.”

He added: “It wouldn’t be good if a com­pany is irresponsible and doesn’t actually look after its existing, long-standing partners. And we are just not cut out for that. So we had to turn down a lot of business, turn down lots of people on the basis that either there is no rice, or there is no capacity or no milling time or no packing capacity.”

He is not impressed by “opportunists” who are “very transactional”.

“I can count only one or two (customers in the US) we may have helped. We have some long-standing cooked rice business in the US. Otherwise, our concentration goes into help­ing our existing partners here in the UK.”

The latter include the restaurant trade, ethnic customers and the supermarkets. Var­ma has had to summon up the diplomatic skills of a Henry Kissinger to balance their competing demands.

“Not only do they ask for more, most of them also ask for priority over the others, which we can’t, we definitely won’t do. So what we did was proportionate to whatever their taking was. So if it was 70 per cent more or 50 per cent, then we allocated 70 per cent or 50 per cent more – no favouritism here. But we have had to make sure we keep them go­ing, little or large; we have to make sure we keep them serviced.

“It is another matter that if we give them 200 per cent more, the shelves will still be empty because that is the nature of the beast. When there in a run on some­thing it creates an artificial short­age. The shortage wasn’t there then (before the panic buying).”

There are problems that any employer faces in dealing with a shrinking workforce. “In 37- 40 years I have never seen a situation like this. But we are discharging our obligations.”

It is a comfort to Varma that his 35-year-old son, Ra­jiv, who was educated at Fel­sted and studied in New York before joining the family business 10 years ago, “pretty much runs the show these days”.

He is clearly very proud of his son: “He has lived the business with me on the dining table – you can’t help but hear what goes on. Most of the senior people and on the shop floor can see the vibrancy, young thoughts, a different way of doing business. He has earned a place for himself not by vir­tue of the fact he is my son. If I say, ‘please get this done,’ they will do it. But if he says it, they will do it quicker.”

It was his son who persuaded his parents to move from their seven-bedroom house in Moor Park in Hert­fordshire to a four-bedroom apartment in Grosvenor Square in London’s Mayfair. He longer has to drive to Kent, but instead takes the fast train from King’s Cross – except he has been ordered by his son to stay put.

But Varma admitted that he occasionally “sneaks in” to “show my face” whereupon he is told by senior staff as well as workers on the shop floor that there is no need for him to take risks.

“Extremely good of them,” said Varma. “It shows the company has some very, very long-standing people. They recog­nise we have a duty to service our existing customers and in the best collaborative manner that we can.”