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AyRojgar

Puffed rice (muri) making

Frying rice into muri. One kilo of rice gives 900 grams of muri and coarse rice costs Tk 50-55/kg, so machine muri keeps only Tk 4-6 a kilo while hand-fried pure muri wholesales at Tk 90.

  • Last reviewed: 19 September 2026
  • Version 1
Starting capital
৳20,000 – ৳2,00,000
Editorial estimate
Manpower
2 – 8 people
First sale
7 – 30 days
Editorial estimate
Break-even
1.5 – 6 months
Editorial estimate
Kind of work
Workshop · Easy

What the business is

Frying rice into puffed rice and selling it. Salted, dampened rice is dropped into hot sand and puffs in about thirty seconds. One number governs the whole trade: a kilo of rice yields roughly 900 grams of muri, so a kilo of muri needs about 1.1 kg of rice. Coarse rice is Tk 50-55 a kilo, so the rice alone costs Tk 56-61 for every kilo of muri sold. Add the frying wage and the fuel and it becomes clear why a machine mill keeps only four to six taka a kilo. Survivors go one of two ways: very high volume, or hand-fried muri sold as the pure article. Muri fried with nothing but salt and water fetched Tk 90 wholesale and Tk 120 retail in Jhalokathi in February 2026, while Muladuli muri in Pabna sold at Tk 160 locally and Tk 200 in Dhaka and Chattogram supermarkets; packet machine muri was Tk 60-70 at the same time. That gap is the price of a reputation for purity. Demand multiplies during Ramadan and is ordinary the rest of the year, and falls in the monsoon when muri goes soft. Capital is small, but rice must be bought every month: frying two maunds a day means buying fifty maunds a month. Muri is on BSTI's compulsory certification list, so a packet carrying a brand name needs a CM licence.

Unit economics

ItemRangeEvidenceSuggest a correction
Monthly working capital৳1,00,000 – ৳1,60,000Editorial estimate
Selling price৳60 – ৳160 / kgMarket quote
Variable cost৳65 – ৳100 / kgEditorial estimate
Gross margin7% – 38%Editorial estimate
Time to first revenue7 – 30 daysEditorial estimate
Break-even time1.5 – 6 monthsEditorial estimate
Cash cycle3 – 15 daysEditorial estimate
Waste / loss10%Practitioner verified
Daily capacity40 – 75Editorial estimate

What you need to start

  • A clay or brick stove, a large iron pan, frying sand, sieves, a basin for salting and damping the rice, scales, and big plastic drums or tins to hold the muri.Equipment
  • Bangladesh Food Safety Authority registration, compulsory for packaged food producers: Tk 1,000 new, Tk 500 renewal, valid three years, under the Food Safety (Registration and Licensing) Regulations, 2026.Licence
  • BSTI CM (Certification Marks) licence. 'Muri (puffed rice)' is item 69 in the agricultural and food products section of BSTI's compulsory list, standard BDS 1796:2008, and is required to sell in your own branded packet. The fee could not be verified.Licence
  • Trade licence from the union parishad, municipality or city corporation: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000 by trade type.Licence
  • Judging the sand temperature by eye. Too hot and the muri burns; too cool and it does not puff, so the yield falls.Skill
  • A steady supplier of coarse muri-grade rice, a source of firewood or husk fuel, and a sack and packet supplier.Supplier
  • A shed with somewhere for the smoke to go, plus a separate dry store. Muri pulls water out of the air, so it cannot be kept in a damp room.Workspace

How the work runs

  1. 1Decide first which muri you will make - cheap machine muri or hand-fried pure muri. The price and the buyer are different for each.
  2. 2Find where muri-grade rice comes from. Muladuli fryers use coarse 'mota' and 'ghigoj' rice brought from Barishal and Noakhali.
  3. 3Set up the stove, a large pan, the frying sand, sieves and a dry store room. In a damp room muri goes soft overnight.
  4. 4Take the trade licence from the union parishad, municipality or city corporation.
  5. 5Register with the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority as a food producer - fee Tk 1,000, valid three years.
  6. 6If you will sell in your own branded packet, take a BSTI CM licence. Muri is item 69 on the compulsory list, standard BDS 1796:2008.
  7. 7Write down how much rice went in and how much muri came out each day. Below 900 grams per kilo, something is wrong with the rice or the sand temperature.
  8. 8Fix with the neighbourhood grocers and the market wholesaler how many kilos they need each week, and when you get paid.
  9. 9Do not use urea or hydrose. Mixing them in to whiten and crisp the muri is prohibited under section 23 of the Food Safety Act, and pure muri fetches the higher price anyway.
  10. 10Start stocking rice and booking fryers at least two months before Ramadan - that one month is the year's biggest sale.
  11. 11Cut production in the monsoon. In damp air the muri softens and comes back to you.

Seasons

  1. JanNormal
  2. FebHigh
  3. MarHigh
  4. AprNormal
  5. MayNormal
  6. JunNormal
  7. JulLow
  8. AugLow
  9. SepNormal
  10. OctNormal
  11. NovNormal
  12. DecNormal
HighNormalLow

Where it fits

  • Strong fitCumilla · A 'muri village' going six decades; 50-60 maunds are fried daily in Ramadan and sold straight to wholesalers.
  • Strong fitDhaka · The big wholesale markets including Karwan Bazar are here, and supermarkets sell pure muri at up to Tk 200 a kilo.
  • Strong fitJhalokathi · Over three hundred families in twenty villages fry muri, sending a hundred maunds a day around the country.
  • Strong fitPabna · An old hand-frying cluster in Muladuli and six neighbouring villages in Ishwardi, where the muri sells at Tk 160 a kilo locally and goes abroad in the Hajj season.
  • PossibleBarishal · A source of the coarse rice muri needs, so the raw material is close and cheaper.
  • PossibleBogura · The trading centre of the north, with cheap rice and a strong wholesale network.
  • PossibleChattogram · Supermarkets pay the premium price for pure muri and city demand is large.
  • PossibleNatore · Next to the Pabna cluster, sharing the same rice supply and wholesale links.
  • PossibleNoakhali · Muri rice also comes from here, so frying locally saves the freight.
  • PossibleTangail · There are long-standing frying families and the town market buys by the maund.

Risks and cautions

  • HighWorking capital: The margin is only a few taka a kilo, so money comes from volume: in the Cumilla muri village four to six taka a kilo is left after costs. Rice is bought first and paid for later, so frying two maunds a day means buying 2,000 kg of rice a month, leaving Tk 100,000-160,000 permanently tied up in rice. A five-taka rise in the rice price wipes out a month's profit.
  • HighDemand: A large part of the year's sales falls in the single month of Ramadan, when demand multiplies, and collapses right after Eid. Over-buying rice before Ramadan and then missing the sale leaves the rice sitting, and muri does not keep long.
  • MediumSpoilage: Muri draws moisture from the air and goes soft. The loss is worst in the monsoon and in a damp store, and shopkeepers send soft muri back. The broken muri at the bottom of the sack has to go at half price.
  • MediumCompliance: Many mix urea or hydrose in to make the muri white and crisp. Section 23 of the Food Safety Act, 2013 prohibits putting chemicals harmful to human health into food, and a section 23 offence is cognizable and non-bailable. It cannot be settled with an administrative fine; the case goes to the Food Court.
  • MediumDependency: You cannot match a machine mill on price. Hand fryers in Jhalokathi get Tk 400 for frying 50 kg of rice while cheap machine muri takes the market. Without building a separate reputation for purity, the work slowly becomes wage labour.

Sources

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