New Animal Nutrition Plant Completed; Sales Underway

SCOTTSDALE, AZ--(Marketwire -07/24/12)- NutraCea (NTRZ) (NTRZ), a global leader in the production and marketing of value added products derived from rice bran, today announces the replacement of its legacy animal feed facilities with a new state-of-the-art animal nutrition plant at its Pelotas, Brazil-based subsidiary.

NutraCea's Brazil Segment rice bran bio-refining facility, Irgovel, is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2012. The company is currently adding new technologies and upgrading machinery and equipment in several product processes. The end result will be the addition of new and upgraded product offerings and an expansion of Irgovel's raw rice bran processing capacity to more than 100,000 metric tons per year. All projects, product improvements and additions, as well as the expansion of plant processing capacity, are expected to be fully online by the first quarter of 2013.

NutraCea President & CEO W. John Short commented, "This new, fully automated facility has replaced the old animal feed production plant that operated at Irgovel for more than 30 years. The successful start up of our new animal nutrition plant is a key milestone in the technology upgrades and expansion currently underway at Irgovel. These upgrades will contribute significantly to increasing sales and improving EBITDA in the coming months and years."

Irgovel President Alberto Brunelli noted, "Sales of our new and improved animal nutrition products have already begun. The implementation of these new blending and compounding technologies allows Irgovel to significantly improve product quality for our customers while adding new product offerings to our existing animal nutrition portfolio. We are now able to compound and pelletize high quality feeds that include liquid components such as molasses, along with the traditional dry blended components that include vitamins and minerals. We are now offering improved, higher value feeds that will allow us to enter new markets, including the high end equine market in Brazil, in the coming months."

When the current projects and capacity expansion are completed, Irgovel expects to significantly increase sales of its high quality, high value compounded animal nutrition products.