NutraCea Opens Phoenix Facility and Processes Baby Cereal Orders

Bringing a baby cereal plant to full capacity while maintaining safety and ensuring product quality and consistency takes enormous effort. We planned the Phoenix plant to be capable of operating at capacity in the second quarter.

12/02/2009 NutraCea, a world leader in stabilized rice bran (SRB), nutrient research and technology announced that the company's Phoenix Facility is in the final stages of testing equipment and training personnel and has begun cereal production and new customer sampling.

As indicated in the 3rd quarter conference call, the Dillon plant was running at approximately 30% capacity due to the installation of equipment needed to satisfy safety and product quality in domestic and international baby cereal customers. Dillon is now operating in excess of 90% capacity.

Currently the Phoenix facility capacity is 2,700 tons and the company expects capacity to exceed 5,000 tons by the end of the second quarter 2009. Future expansion plans for early 2010 will bring capacity of this plant to 7000 tons.

"We adjusted the ramp up at the Phoenix facility in order to ensure that all phases of production are running smoothly and to further guarantee the consistency and quality of our baby cereal and stage 2 products," said Leo Gingras, Chief Operating Officer of NutraCea. "Production is running smoothly and meeting our high quality standards so over the next few months we will be phasing in customers, while bringing on additional capacity."

Gingras added, "Bringing a baby cereal plant to full capacity while maintaining safety and ensuring product quality and consistency takes enormous effort. We planned the Phoenix plant to be capable of operating at capacity in the second quarter."

Kody Newland, Senior Vice President of Sales for NutraCea, commented, "Now that the plant is operational, we are now aggressively seeking new customers and discussing projects with customers who've been waiting for this plant to open. It's important to note that baby cereal is one of the most scrutinized products in the world and the process of bringing on new customers for our facility typically follows an involved process that includes product sample runs and onsite inspections. This is a beautiful and state of the art facility and will play an important role in NutraCea's future in the baby cereal market."