Rice consumption in Europe

How much rice do people in Europe consume?

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We’ve looked at rice consumption in Asia before. In Asia (especially the eastern and southern regions) rice is the most common staple food, in Europe, it’s potatoes. Europeans are known for consuming a lot of potatoes and we’ve seen that’s true. Although rice consumption in Europe is not that high, there are still some regional differences, so let’s look at that.

In general, it looks like rice consumption is higher in southern Europe and lowest in eastern Europe. But there are quite some exceptions all around Europe.

The biggest consumer is Portugal (16.1 kg), followed by Turkey (15.8 kg), Albania (12.3 kg) and Belgium (11.3 kg). Yes, Belgians are the fourth biggest consumers of rice in Europe. Much higher than other western and northern European countries.

The lowest numbers can be found in the former Yugoslavian countries. Serbia has the lowest consumption (0.9 kg), followed by Montenegro (1.9 kg) and Croatia (2.5 kg). Although numbers are lowest in eastern Europe, there are a few exceptions. Russia, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic consume for more rice than other eastern European countries.

The data for this map comes from the FAO. The data includes any product made of rice, including rice noodles, sake, rice starch, rice flour and other products made of rice. The amount of rice in the dataset concerns the raw (uncooked) weight.