Rice-Based Cheese? Study Points to Possibility for New Rice Markets

Mar 06, 2026

For vegans and people who are allergic to dairy, nuts or gluten, rice is a surprising source to make a hypoallergenic alternative cheese.

As a bonus, the protein sources in rice are considered byproducts of white rice processing, adding value and potential domestic demand for one of Arkansas' leading crops, says Mahfuzur Rahman, an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

Rahman and his food science graduate student, Ruslan Mehadi Galib, recently published a study in the journal Future Foods that provides more understanding of the capabilities of rice proteins for hypoallergenic alternative foods. The experiment station is the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

A variety of proteins extracted from a single rice cultivar were shown to provide qualities needed for plant-based cheesemaking, including firm texture and meltability.

"In a single rice grain, we have three different types of protein — from brown rice, white rice and bran," said Rahman, who is also part of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the U of A. "That's the fundamental understanding we wanted to develop. When you say, 'rice protein,' what does that mean? Is it brown rice protein? Bran protein? Broken kernel protein?"

Circular Economy Opportunity

Arkansas is the leading rice producer in the United States, harvesting a record 1.43 million acres in 2024 that accounted for nearly 50% of the nation's total rice production. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the study points out that in 2024 the U.S. produced an estimated 14.3 million tons of rice bran and 24.8 million tons of broken kernels annually, offering a potential yield of about 3.3 million tons of protein for the plant-based protein market.

Currently, companies import and distribute rice protein within the U.S. market, the study added. Rahman pointed out that using these rice milling byproducts for protein extraction presents a "significant opportunity to expand the U.S.-based rice protein market while promoting a sustainable circular economy."

Source : uark.edu

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids