Conrad Rice Mill Inc & Konriko Company Store

Conrad Rice Mill Inc & Konriko Company Store KONRIKO Company Store Offering a wide range of products manufactured by CONRAD RICE MILL INC as well as Louisiana products and other souvenir items.
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We offer a guided tour of the mill that includes a 20 minute slide presentation. We accept walk-ins for our tours and if you are a group of 20 or more call us and schedule a tour. We always have one of our rice mixes cooked and fresh coffee brewed to sample. Our sauces and seasonings are always available to sample.

This past Sunday, Father's Day, was the 21st day of June, the longest day of the year. I so look forward each year to th...
06/23/2026

This past Sunday, Father's Day, was the 21st day of June, the longest day of the year.
I so look forward each year to the days getting longer and warmer.
In the heart of winter, when the days are short, cold and damp and grey, the promise of longer days ahead helps keep my spirits alive with longing for those sweet days of spring and summer. Days where you can stay outside until 8pm with lots of light and shade from the old oak trees.
Some how when the longest day of the year arrives I get a small but sudden shutter of the impending darker days ahead.
Yet the memory of cold dark days fades quickly as we still have many long days of summer still ahead of us.
The sudden shock of daylight savings time also enters into this. To lose an hour of daylight just as winter approaches is a shock to my system.
Many places in the world live with short days of daylight much of the year. I was in Finland in June, some years ago, and was surprised to see daylight almost all day, like until 2am or 3am. But, the downside for Finland is their winters are long and cold and dark. It must be a mind set of not knowing any other life, but I'll take our hot and humid days with lots of sun light every time.
Our evening meals in the summer are usually light and quick, a sandwich or sometimes even just a bowl of cereal. The weekends will find us grilling and enjoying the fruits of our Son's summer garden. He is growing cantaloupes this year. They are sweet and delicious and filling. HIs cucumbers and tomatoes are the best. There is not a better tasting salad than one of home grown, fresh off the vine, summer vegetables.
If you don't feel like making a big meal these summer evenings come by our KONRIKO Co Store at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia, LA. and pickup a few of our fresh frozen Cuban or BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches for your home freezer. Just pop them in the oven for 20 minutes or so and you will have a filling and delicious meal. One you can sit out on the back porch and enjoy as you watch the daylight slowly fade.
For those summer fresh home grown salads there is nothing like a light dusting of one of our KONRIKO brand seasonings to help enhance the flavors mother nature has so kindly provided.
Our KONRIKO seasonings are available at all the grocery stores here in Louisiana and in HEB's in Texas and Publix stores on the eastern seaboard.
Come visit us, take our tour of our historic old rice mill and enjoy the long lazy days of summer.
Hope to see you soon !!

I hope you all had a great Father's Day celebration. We spent much of the weekend watching one of our grandson's play ba...
06/22/2026

I hope you all had a great Father's Day celebration.
We spent much of the weekend watching one of our grandson's play basketball.
Whoever would think of basketball in the summer? Not me, yet the serious high school basketball programs play all year round. I guess it is to keep their skill level up. Also gives the coaches a chance to see what the competition will look like once the season starts.
I know everything costs more now, but they charge from $10 to $20 a person to get into the games, and the games are well attended by parents and grandparents, like us. Seems like a lot of $$'s to me, but what do I know about how they finance their programs.
Back in the day, basketball was considered a "non contact" game. Well, that has gone out of the window. The amount of contact, pushing and shoving on the court is heavy, and the ref's don't call most of it. The game has really changed. The skill level of the players has also changed. Lot's of fancy drippling between the legs, passes behind the back, three point shots, you name it, today's players are very good and it takes a lot of commitment to make a team and get minutes.
One thing that is very obvious in the team we follow, Catholic High of New Iberia, La. is that they have a very loyal fan base. No matter where the game is located, no matter how far from home, the Catholic High fans show up and support the team. Lots of school spirit and lots of pride in the team and the Community.
Developing a loyal following of any type is a long term game. You have to be consistent, have a good product and stand behind the product.
That is one of our big challenges here at KONRIKO. We are a small Operation that doesn't have the big bucks to conduct major ad campaigns, so we have to work harder to be on the grocery store shelf. We do that by being competitively priced, making a superior product with top notch ingredients. We do not put MSG in ANY of our items. All of our KONRIKO brand products are gluten free, non gmo, don't use highly processed ingredients. I guess you could say our 114 years of continuous operation is based on making quality products.
On the sandwich front I will be making Cuban and BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches mid week, will let you know tomorrow the time and date I will be cooking them, in case you want one hot off our panini machine.
Stop by at our Operation at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia and take our tour of America's Oldest Operating Rice Mill. We give them all day long Monday-Saturday and the tour is approx 40 minutes long.
Hope to see you soon here at our old, but chugging along, Rice Mill and Seasoning blending Operation.

I mentioned earlier this week that I was out and about in rural St. Martin Parish. This is the Parish that borders Iberi...
06/19/2026

I mentioned earlier this week that I was out and about in rural St. Martin Parish. This is the Parish that borders Iberia Parish to the north and where we lived for the past 50 plus years, before moving to New Iberia, La about 2 years ago.
I use to sell Farm Bureau Insurance back in the day and my territory was the St. Martinville and surrounding rural area. Since we mainly sold farmers I got to know all the back roads in the Parish.
As I was driving down memory lane this past weekend, I decided to drive the Catahoula Rd that goes from St. Martinville to Catahoula. Catahoula is a cool little town that sits on a small body of water very near the Atchafalya swamp.
As I drove down the highway I was noting the "stations of the Cross" that run from Oak and Pine Alley to Catahoula. More about the Stations of the Cross later, as it is a story unto itself.
A road sign caught my eye, one I had not seen or been on for many years...the Isle Labbe Road.
I turned onto it and began to wind along the twisting old road, past the Durand house and then a sweeping 90 degree turn to the left. It is as if I had driven into a time warp, having driven back into the early 1900's.
The road is shaded by towering Live Oak trees covered in Spanish Moss. The moss was hanging down, almost to the ground and gently swaying with the wind.
That is when I noticed an old Acadiana style home, Cajun style house, sitting back about 150 feet from the road on the right hand side.
The weathered picket fence ,made from old cypress recycled lumber, was laddered down with spanish moss that was turning black. I stopped. I had to find out what they were doing with all the moss on their fence.
When I turned into their driveway the home owners came out to greet me. Turns out it was a young couple who were redoing the old "Cajun Style" house and were bent on living a simpler life, like their ancestors had lived.
They told me they had gathered the spanish moss from the trees on their property and were going to make a mattress for their bed from the moss.
Back in the early 1900's, moss gatherers were a cottage industry among the hard working cajun population. The moss gatherers would take long poles with a hook on the end of the pole and pull down the air plant, ie, spanish moss, to the ground and collect it to sell. The moss was used to stuff mattresses and was pretty good at making a comfortable bed.
The moss had to be dried as it was almost 80% moisture. The preferred way to dry the moss was to drape it over a fence and let the sun dry it out. In the process the moss turned black.
Once you had the most dried you would sell the moss to the mattress companies.
By 1927 over 1200 carloads of spanish moss were gathered, shipped and sold to make mattresses for a value of about $2.5 million, or $40 million in today's dollars. A very sizable amount of money and a great way for the hard working Cajun Farmers to make extra money.
The Moss has to be "ginned" by the mattress companies, which simply meant washed and all the little sticks and debris from the trees removed. About 1974 the last moss gin closed as foam mattresses took over the market.
As the young couple told me how they were going to dry and clean their moss for stuffing a moss mattress I was thinking how neat their were. Living a life between the "old ways" and still enjoying modern things like electricity and refrigerators instead of "ice boxes"
I left the young couple to their tasks and went on down the road looking at the sugar cane crop, cattle and horses, etc.
In the back of my mind I could not stop thinking about this couple. I will have to go back and visit them in a few months to see how their mattress project is going.
Boy, how I love living in S. Louisiana. No place like it in the world. The food is great but the people are what makes this part of the world so very unique.
Hope you will come visit our old rice mill at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia, La and let us take you back 114 years to when we were founded....still milling and blending the old fashion way, which we think is still the best way.
Hope to see you soon, tours from 9am to 5pm Monday-Saturday, year round.

I am much more involved in the production of our KONRIKO brand products than I use to be. Different times require adjust...
06/18/2026

I am much more involved in the production of our KONRIKO brand products than I use to be. Different times require adjustments to an Operation and that is what we have done.
We now produce way more cases of products, more efficiently, than ever before.
Our blends are double and triple checked for accuracy. Our weights in the cans and rice bags are very accurate, ( we actually over pack slightly due to the high humidity here in Louisiana), our packaging equipment is very well maintained. We just finished running over 7 thousand cans through the process and I believe we only had one or two cans not seal properly. If you don't maintain the equipment you will be stopping constantly to fix it. You have to stay ahead of repairing and replacing worn parts.
The real key factor is people. If you don't have a team working together you are working uphill. We are blessed with a superb packing crew, tour guides, office staff. Are we just lucky, yes to some extent luck does play a role, but I believe we have set goals and a good framework that we work in. Everyone knows their job and what is expected of them and then does it.
Since we are producing at a very efficient level I will now have time to go on the road and sell some seasoning deals to our local stores, which is what I will be doing today.
Look for our KONRIKO Creole Seasoning to be featured at very competitive prices in your favorite grocery store in the very near future.
Made a few Cuban and BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches yesterday, so we have a little inventory ahead of us. Will make more next week.
I sure wish you would come by our old rice mill and let us show you how we make KONRIKO brand products the very best we know how. We give tours from 9am to 5pm Monday-Saturday, year round. We also know the best places to eat and visit in the area, too.
We are located at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia, La and we will be waiting for you to come visit us, so don't disappoint our Tour Guides, they want to share KONRIKO with you !!

First things first, before I forget, we will be making Cuban and BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches, TODAY, around noon. If you ...
06/17/2026

First things first, before I forget, we will be making Cuban and BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches, TODAY, around noon.
If you want a hot sandwich give us a call at 337.364.7242 to reserve one or just stop in the KONRIKO Co Store at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia, to get one. There are one of the best values in town...$5 for a Cuban and only $3 for a BBQ Pulled pork sandwich.
Not making that many this week, more next week, so the number available will not be too great today.
Finished up our orders, as planned, yesterday. Will finish putting the Bill of Laden's on the various pallets first thing this morning.
I have mentioned a few times we have a very prolific mommy cat here at the Rice Mill.
She drops a litter a couple of times a year. The current litter is 5 kittens, plus we have a litter of 4 kittens at home.
The kittens at our home have captured my Wife's heart. She will watch them nurse on their Mom or watch as they feed out of a communal bowl of cat food.
They really are cute and she has named them all. In addition to the litter and their mother we have adopted an older cat, don't know if it is a male or female, we call Racoon Tail, as you would expect the cat's tail looks like a racoon. I think racoon tail was someone's house cat at some point as he/she really wants to come in the house....not happening.
Our Black Lab Daisy doesn't know what to make of all the feline visitors, she just ignores them and continues on her schedule, she doesn't have time for all the cat silliness.
I have noticed our Visitor count through the KONRIKO Co Store seems to be increasing slightly, which is a good thing. It is raining most afternoons and our tour of our historic rice mill is a dry, cool place to be.
The tour takes about 40 minutes followed by a session of KONRIKO brand product sampling. I never put a watch to it, but I think the average visit is more along an hour to an hour and a half.
We love to engage with you and learn more about your home town, share our favorite places to eat and what there is to see in our Iberia Parish.
Tours on the hour from 9am to 5pm Monday-Saturday, year round.
Look forward to meeting you soon.

06/16/2026

Yesterday was one of those days you feel like you have received a reward for good behavior.
We were visited here at the Mill by two lovely and wonderful people that my Wife and I only knew from posting on facebook, back and forth.
We spent some quality time together and got to know one another's life stories. What a great pleasure it was to meet someone in person and find they were even more enjoyable and pleasant to be with then I would ever have thought possible.
Our Office manager returned yesterday from a weeks vacation. I think she is ready to go on another vacation after finding her desk piled high with paperwork and just stuff. For an office that is trying to go paperless we sure seem to generate a lot of dead tree biproducts.
We will finish off the last big order we have inhouse today and ship it tomorrow. The larger orders we have been receiving are way larger than anything we had received in the past.
While I was intimated by the larger orders I also found out we could handle them and handle them pretty efficiently. I guess the old saying of " you don't know what you can do until you have to do it", is true. Well, it is here anyway.
Looks like we will be making some more Cuban Sandwiches, most likely Wednesday or Thursday, around noon. Will let you know first thing tomorrow morning, as it depends on how production goes today.
I haven't mentioned this but we have two pretty new tour guides who are really going to be a great addition to our Operation. We are really proud of our tour guides. They are professional in their demeanor and can answer just about any question you throw at them about Rice, Conrad Rice Mill and the local community and Iberia Parish. Come meet them, we give tours from 9am to 5pm Monday - Saturday, Year round.
This past weekend I was out and about in St. Martin Parish. I traveled down a rural road little traveled by anyone other than those who live off it. I'm talking about the Isle Labbe road, mid way between St. Martinville and Catahoula, La.
If I get time tomorrow or later this week, I want to share with you what I found on this back road of St. Martin parish.
In any event come visit us here at America's Oldest Operating Rice Mill located at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia and let us entertain you and feed you some of our many KONRIKO brand products.
Hope to see you soon !!

Our Office Mgr returns from vacation today, after a weeks absence. I'm looking forward to her return as a lot gets put ...
06/15/2026

Our Office Mgr returns from vacation today, after a weeks absence.
I'm looking forward to her return as a lot gets put off or others have to cover her duties and there always seems to be some confusion on how things were done.
The trouble with taking a vacation, at a small Company like ours is you come back to a ton of things to catch up on.
I am expecting out of state visitors this week. Folks who have been loyally following our facebook posts and saying very nice things about our KONRIKO brand products.
Really looking forward to the visit and putting a face to the person we have been communicating with for so long.
The weather person on the local TV says we are in for a rainy week. No surprise there, as we always have a 20% to 30% chance of rain every day in the summer, along the gulf coast.
It has been hot and humid, which is normal for us. The grass is growing so fast you can almost see it getting taller.
I have 3 hibiscus plants that got hit hard by the cold weather this past winter. They are coming back up from the roots but no blossoms yet. The baby satsuma trees are flourishing with lots and lots of new leaf growth. One tree has about 7-8 oranges on it, the others nothing this year.
I think if we can have a normal winter, one not down in the 20"s I can get a decent crop of fruit off these trees...I certainly hope so.
Finishing up on a big order tomorrow. Hope we get some more orders in as we are about caught up with our stack of orders...need some more orders, big time.
Just put a pork roast in the oven to make more Cuban sandwiches this week. We got slammed on this past Friday and stocks are super low. No fear, I will get that situation fixed by mid to late this week.
Don't forget tours are on going of our old historic rice mill. Tours take approx 40 minutes and are given Monday -Saturday from 9am to 5pm, year round. pretty good tour, if I say so myself.
We are looking forward to your visit to our Mill at 309 Ann ST here in New Iberia, La.
Come hungry cause we have lots of great KONRIKO samples for you to try.
Hope to see you soon !!

Friday's are busy days. It is the last full day of the week the Mill is running. On Saturday only the KONRIKO Co Store i...
06/12/2026

Friday's are busy days. It is the last full day of the week the Mill is running. On Saturday only the KONRIKO Co Store is open.
That means payroll checks have to be ready and signed, orders for the next few weeks have to be reviewed and planned for and put in the production schedule.
Most of these tasks don't take too long to do. After all , we have been doing them for a number of decades.
One of the areas that I most worry about is the order I need to place for our spices that we will need to make the next weeks orders with.
That means we have to tally up all the orders for a total number of cases of each item we make and have on order.
Then we have to weigh or inventory all the ingredients we have on hand.
Once we have a total of what we will need and what we have in inventory we know what we have to order in order to full fill our inhouse orders.
Sometimes this gets a little complicated if an ingredient is not available or doesn't come in on the order. Then we have to start hunting around to find the missing ingredients, which can be a little stressful.
All in all it usually works out pretty good. The key being, " be prepared", which I think maybe the boy scout creed. Being prepared is the answer for just about everything in life, marriage, jobs, education, you name it. A "prepared" person will be a successful person, that's a fact.
We, my Wife and I, are covered up in kittens right now. We have a litter of 4 here at the Mill and another litter of 4 at home.
Baby, just about anything, is cute and fun to watch. Seeing a kitten attacking their Mothers tail is comical as is watching them play with one another. They are now big enough to start venturing out and about. Will not be long before the mommy cats will ween them and they will be on their own...I'm ready for that to happen sooner than later.
If you are a fan of our Cuban or BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches we will be making them hot and fresh today, starting around noonish. Once they cool down they will go into our KONRIKO Freezer. If you want us to keep a hot one for you give us a call at 337.364.7242 or come by around noon. They will be ready to go. The cost is one of the best deals in town, $5 for a Cuban and $3 for a BBQ Pulled pork sandwich.
While you are in the store check out our Bay Island Secret Sauce and our other KONRIKO brand product. We have samples for you to try waiting for you.
If you have time, take the tour of our historic rice mill, takes about 40 minutes.
In any event , we are looking forward to meeting you,.
Hope to see you soon!!

We wrapped yesterday's seasoning production run with a record amount of cases being made, wrapped and awaiting pickup by...
06/11/2026

We wrapped yesterday's seasoning production run with a record amount of cases being made, wrapped and awaiting pickup by our Customer's trucks.
Everyone pitched in and kept the cans rolling off the line. One of the special things about our production crew is they can keep the light hearted banter going on among us even while keeping a steady, efficient work flow going. Not an easy thing to do, but they do it effortlessly.
While we were running I still have to keep the business part of our Mill going. Most of the emails I get are easily deleted, but you still have to go through them.
One I got yesterday told me our next order of seasoning cans were ready to be picked up, just send $5K.
I was expecting this order any day so it is not a shock to get the email.
Since we do keep a pretty close eye on money coming in and going out were are prepared for this.
However, a friend once told me managing a small business, like ours, is like trying to juggle 5 or 6 balls at one time. Keeping the balance of cash in and out is a game, not for the faint of heart. Never seems like the in and out of the cash flow works like you want it to.
I have been tackling the old cash flow issue for over 50 years, so I don't expect it will go away. We will just have to keep beating the bushes for new and more orders to fuel the machine and keep it all going.
Truth be told, while this can be stress forming, I kind of like the challenge, but don't tell anyone....I want them to believe how stressed out I am, not.
In addition to getting our seasoning production done yesterday we also got the pork roast cooked and broken down ready to make sandwiches. Also got the bread cut and sliced and ready to go.
I will be making our Cuban and BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches Friday, tomorrow around 11am. If you want a hot sandwich come by the KONRIKO CO Store around noon tomorrow, Friday, and pick one up. We are located at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia, LA.
Cuban sandwiches are only $5 and BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches are only $3. Heck of a value for a really great sandwich.
Don't forget, when you come to pickup a sandwich, to check out our Bay Island Secret sauce and pick up a can of our Gravy and Sauce Thickener. Two great products only made by KONRIKO.
If you are traveling though our area or looking for something to entertain your kids, come take our tour, given on the hour from 9am to 5pm Monday-Saturday, out of our KONRIKO Co Store. Really good tour, well done, very educational and entertaining.
Hope to see you soon !!

If you read these posts you know I get to work pretty early, like around 5:15am to 5:30 am. It is still dark when I arri...
06/10/2026

If you read these posts you know I get to work pretty early, like around 5:15am to 5:30 am. It is still dark when I arrive at the Mill so I am always looking over my shoulder, checking out the shadows, for anything that doesn't belong there.
This morning, and this morning is no exception, there were two people walking down the side of the Mill then down the street, both pulling roller bags and each with a dog on a lead.
That seemed sort of strange to me. Where were they going at dark thirty, why pulling luggage and each with a dog.
On my drive to work I only occasionally see what I believe to be homeless people, as we don't seem to have much of a problem with that here in New Iberia.
I understand the bread and chips trucks driving around early in the morning as they are delivering to their grocery store customers. Same for the waste trucks and other service operators. I just don't get this movement of individuals moving around, never seeming to talk to one another. Where are they going. Spooky.
I just put the pork roast in the oven for the sandwiches we will make, most likely on Friday noon.
My first thought when I entered the production area, where our kitchen and oven are located, was how many pallets of seasoning we have stacked ready to be wrapped.
We made over 750 cases of various seasonings, on a semi automatic production line, yesterday. It amazes me how a well oiled production crew can get so much done in a day.
All of this production was done in addition to making and blending a couple of different seasonings, changing the line from 5oz cans to 2.5oz cans, erecting and taping two different sized cases.
Yes, it takes some coordination but it also takes a work ethic second to none. We are blessed to have those kinds of folks to work with.
Seems our Visitor side of the business has picked up in the last 2 weeks. Not sure why , but we are certainly glad to see their handsome, smiling faces.
Our tour takes about 40 minutes followed up with a sampling session of our many KONRIKO brand Products. Tours start in the KONRIKO Co Store at 309 Ann St here in New Iberia, LA. The store opens at 9am and tours are on the hour till we close at 5pm.
Will let you know for sure what day I will be making the Cuban and BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches, but as of now, I think noonish on Friday.
Come see us and let us show you around our old rice mill. I think you will find it interesting and the tour professionally done.
Hope to see you soon !!

Address

307 Ann Street
New Iberia, LA
70560

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+18005513245

Website

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