Riviana puts $15M into Tennessee facility

Rice and pasta maker Riviana Foods is investing in itself. Fresh off the sale of  its Ronzoni dry pasta brand to a Post subsidiary, the Houston, Texas-based company is putting $15 million toward improving production and expanding the instant rice capacity of its production facility in Memphis, Tenn.

Alongside renovating and updating its existing processing lines, as well as controls and the rice transfer system, Riviana also is replacing a line dedicated to producing instant brown rice. It is being replaced with state-of-the-art equipment. All the efforts are aimed at growing the facility’s reliability, volume output, productivity and efficiency, as well as the sustainability of the production process. Riviana expects the efforts to be complete by the third quarter. 

"This is an exciting time for Riviana and our employees as we continue to improve our operations to meet or exceed customer needs in the years to come," said Enrique Zaragoza, president and CEO of Riviana. "In addition, we look forward to many more years of successful partnership between Riviana and the community."

As it continues to lead in private label and branded rice products — which include Minute, Mahatma, Success, Carolina, Comet, Adolphus, Blue Ribbon, Rice Select, Gourmet House and Tilda — the company has steadily decreased its presence in dry pasta. Besides the Ronzoni sale in late March, the company also unloaded the majority of its branded pasta portfolio last fall in a deal with TreeHouse Foods. Currently, the company makes the pasta brands Olivieri and Garofalo.