1401 Basmati Rice

≈ 7.60 mm Pusa — firm grain for Sella programmes

Pusa 1401 sits alongside 1509 in the value tier of the basmati family, at roughly 7.60 mm average milled length and cooking out to around 15 mm. What distinguishes it in the trade is grain firmness rather than length: 1401 holds its structure well through parboiling and milling, which is why a large share of the crop moves as Golden Sella and Steam rather than raw white, and why parboiling mills favour it for head-rice yield. It contracts on the standard basmati sheet — broken ≤ 1% or ≤ 2%, moisture ≤ 13%, variety purity ≥ 95%, ageing 12–18 months, crop year declared — and carries the same aroma family as its Pusa sibling.

Buy 1401 where the rice will be parboiled, cooked in volume and held: institutional biryani and pilaf programmes, catering, canteen and camp feeding contracts in the Gulf and South Asia, and private-label Sella lines competing on price. Its firmness is a genuine operational advantage in a kitchen serving over a long window — it resists going soft in a holding cabinet better than a softer-grained raw white. Where it does not belong is a premium display pack, where 1121 or 1718 carry the length, or a raw-white aroma-forward programme, where Traditional Basmati is the product. Between 1401 and 1509 the practical difference is narrow and often comes down to which mill has allocation at the better price in a given week; where they diverge is that 1509 arrives earlier in the season and 1401 tends to perform slightly better through a parboiling line. CBIL contracts against SGS grading of average milled length, broken, moisture, admixture and crop year at load port, in 25 kg and 50 kg PP bags, container-load, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms.