NutraCea Opens Louisiana Facility, Signs Distribution Agreements

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif.—NutraCea opened a new rice bran stabilization facility at Louisiana Rice Mill (LRM) in Mermentau, La. LRM will supply raw rice bran from its rice milling operations to NutraCea, which will use its proprietary processing technology to produce stabilized rice bran and other value-added products. NutraCea anticipates the opening will boost its total annual capacity of stabilized rice bran to approximately 40,000 tons.

According to Brad Edson, chief executive officer (CEO) of NutraCea, the company will also open another Louisiana facility before the end of 2007, which will help the company satisfy its sales commitments and provide opportunities for further strategic growth.

NutraCea (www.nutracea.com) also announced it entered into a distribution agreement with all European members of the Azelis Group SA, a multi national conglomerate, opening distribution for NutraCea’s stabilized rice bran products in more than 27 countries in eight regions of the world. “These distributorship arrangements are strategically very important for NutraCea,” Edson said.

“Over the last year it has become increasingly clear that the demand for Stabilized Rice Bran is international in scope, but it has also become apparent there is value in leveraging off of large existing distribution networks, locally established throughout the world, to service that demand. Agreements such as this allow us to build cost effective sales and distribution channels within the specific countries that we are servicing.”