A fast and sensitive method using hydride generation (HG) with ICP-MS has been developed for the separation and detection of inorganic arsenic (iAs) in foodstuffs. The iAs measured values in 31 commercial rice products all fell below the current legislative maximum level (ML) of 150 µg/kg set by China. Comparing the results obtained by HG-ICP-MS and HPLC-ICP-MS showed comparable limits of detection were achieved. HG-ICP-MS is ideally suited to the large scale screening of food samples, such as rice, as analysis can be performed in a fraction of the time typically required by a conventional HPLC-ICP-MS approach, with no compromise in analytical performance.