Rice 米

How it appears on labels

Labeling rules

• The Food Labeling Standards (Appended Table 3) define brown rice as “rice prepared by removing the hulls from paddy” and polished rice as “brown rice with all or part of the bran layer removed and polished.”
• Brown rice and polished rice sold in bags are fresh foods, and the label gives the name (“玄米” (brown rice), “精米” (polished rice), “胚芽精米” (germ-retained polished rice), and so on) and the “原料玄米” (raw-material brown rice). If the raw-material brown rice has the same origin, variety, and harvest year, it is a “単一原料米” (single-origin rice) and the origin, variety, and harvest year are written; otherwise it is labeled as “複数原料米” (multi-origin rice) or the like with the origins and usage proportions (Articles 18 and 19 and Appended Table 24).
• The Rice Traceability Act (the Act on Recording Information on Transactions of Rice Grain and the Like and on Communicating Origin Information) requires records of transactions and communication of origin for rice, rice flour, rice koji, and cooked rice products, as well as mochi, dango, rice crackers, sake, single-distilled shochu, and mirin (MAFF's overview). Rice vinegar is not on this list of covered items. For products covered by this Act other than rice itself and mochi, such as sake and rice crackers, the rice used as a raw material is excluded from country-of-origin labeling of ingredients under the Food Labeling Standards (Article 3).
• The organic JAS (JAS 1605, Japanese Agricultural Standard for organic plants) gives examples of how to write the name of organic agricultural products: “有機栽培○○”, “有機○○”, “○○（有機）”, “オーガニック○○”, and so on. The standard for organic processed foods (JAS 1606) requires that, among the ingredients, organic agricultural products have “有機” (organic) or similar wording written before or after the name. “有機栽培米” (organically grown rice) uses this style.

Good to know

• Among the products on this site, the rice vinegar (河原酢造 老梅 有機純米酢, Kawara Suzo “Roubai” organic pure rice vinegar) lists only “有機栽培米（国産）” (organically grown rice (domestic)) as its ingredient. Since it is the first ingredient by weight, it carries country-of-origin labeling of the ingredient (国産, domestic).
• The Food Labeling Standards (Appended Table 22) limit the use of “純○○酢” (pure ○○ vinegar) on vinegar to products made only from a single kind of grain, fruit, or the like (with ○○ being the name of that ingredient).
• Rice is not among the allergen items covered by labeling.
• In the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (8th revised edition, 2023 supplement), brown rice has 3.0 g of dietary fiber per 100 g and polished rice (non-glutinous) has 0.5 g.

Food composition data

Per 100 g of the edible portion. Source: MEXT, Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (8th revised edition, 2023 supplement).

Products on this site that contain it

Product pages are in Japanese for now; each one reads every ingredient on the label.

Related pages

• Article: Types of vinegar (rice vinegar and pure rice vinegar)
• Ingredient: Brewed vinegar and rice vinegar
• Ingredient: Rice flour and chickpea flour
• Products on this site: Vinegar

Sources

• Food Labeling Standards (Cabinet Office Ordinance No. 10 of 2015) — e-Gov Japanese Law Search
• Overview of the Rice Traceability Act — MAFF
• Japanese Agricultural Standard for organic plants (JAS 1605:2024) — MAFF
• Japanese Agricultural Standard for organic processed foods (JAS 1606:2024) — MAFF
• Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (8th revised edition, 2023 supplement) — MEXT

Sources are in Japanese unless noted otherwise. This page is a translation of our Japanese page; if they differ, the Japanese page is the reference.

Other ingredients in this group

• Wheat flour / wheat
• Soybeans
• Rice flour / chickpea flour
• Starch
• こうじ（米こうじ・麹菌）