Innovation turns rice into bread

TOKYO - Japan's consumer electronics maker Sanyo has launched the world's first cooker that can turn rice grains into bread - an innovation that it hopes will be a hit across Asia.

The machine can mill a cup of rice grains into rice flour, then mix it with water, gluten, yeast and other ingredients to bake a loaf of bread in four hours, Sanyo Electric said.

The Gopan machine will be exported to other Asian countries next year after its Japanese launch in October, "mainly to China and Southeast Asia, which share the culture of growing rice," said spokeswoman Liu Yingying.