Rice Bubbles are not necessarily homegrown, Gina Rinehart has revealed.
Ms Rinehart lamented on Tuesday that the rice in Rice Bubbles breakfast cereal, and by extension the children’s party favourite, chocolate crackles, does not come from Australia.
‘Remember those chocolate crackers that Australians treat to generations of children’s birthday parties, made with rice bubbles, now look at the rice bubble pack, it says, made in the Republic of Korea!’ said the richest person in the country.
‘Despite the fact that we produce a lot of rice in our own north!’
Australian childhood favourite, chocolate crackle, is not always made with Australian ingredients, it has been revealed
However, it appears that Rice Bubbles, whose maker Kellanova Australia (formerly Kellogg’s) has registered the name ‘chocolate crackles’, with each packet of cereal having the recipe on the back, normally contains Australian rice.
A company spokesman said the rice had mainly come from local supplier SunRice for more than 50 years, but there were still shortages at times.
“There have been times when we have temporarily imported rice due to poor local conditions, for example in 2021 when a poor rice season resulted in local supply constraints,” the spokesperson said.
‘We also have a gluten-free Rice Bubbles product imported from Thailand as this location is set up to produce gluten-free products.’
While Ny Breaking Australia was unable to verify the label Ms Rinehart saw, which she said was on a parcel she picked up in Washington, other parcels indicated the rice bubbles inside varied by country of origin.
Most packages observed online or on shelves declared they were ‘made in Australia with at least 99% Australian ingredients’.
However, a 705g pack advertised online by Woolworths mysteriously read: ‘Made in Australia from less than 10% Australian ingredients’.
A 315g box spotted on the shelves of a Sydney Coles described its contents as: ‘Made in Thailand’.
Ms Rinehart made her comment while delivering a speech to mark National Agriculture and Related Industries Day, of which she is the founder and patron.
Chocolate crackles with rice bubbles are so synonymous that the recipe is on the back of the packets
The Rice Bubbles packets state that the ingredients come from different places or in this case the origin remains largely mysterious
The billionaire heiress claimed the destructive policies that began with the election of the “socialist” Whitlam government in 1972 robbed Australia of its “greatness” in making things.
“Our manufacturing industries were world-class, producing almost everything we needed: ships, cars, agricultural machinery and a range of household appliances,” she said.
‘The consequences of excessive government spending, high interest rates and massive inflation in the 1980s and the necessary reduction in protection foreshadowed the collapse of many manufacturing industries.
“In the 1970s we built almost all the equipment needed for farming, we made our own fertilizer and refined our own fuel, we even processed much of our wool – not anymore.”
According to Ms Rinehart, ‘excessive government spending, high interest rates and massive inflation in the 1980s and the necessary reduction in protections foreshadowed the collapse of many manufacturing industries’.
Mining magnate Mrs Rinehart is Australia’s richest person with an estimated fortune
“This may have put our country in serious trouble, but because of our primary production: mining and agriculture, and the many businesses they support,” she said.
Despite the contribution of what she called “essential” primary industries, Ms Rinehart said the media, those they influence and the government are “taking an increasingly hostile and counterproductive attitude towards mining and agriculture”.
Ms Rinehart is Australia’s richest person with a fortune estimated at more than $34 billion, mainly earned from running the giant Hancock Prospecting iron ore mine.
She is also Australia’s largest landowner, with her properties covering about 1.6 percent of the continent’s land area.