Riviana invests $80.6M to expand ready-to-serve rice facility

Riviana Foods is investing $80.6 million to expand and renovate its processing and packaging plant for rice products in Memphis, Tennessee.

The project will add about 65,000 square feet to the plant, and involve renovating approximately 20,000 square feet. This will boost the plant’s current production capacity for Riviana’s Minute rice microwaveable cups and add new production capacity for ready-to-serve pouches of its Tilda, Carolina and Mahatma brands. The expansion will add around 80 full-time jobs. 

Construction is slated to begin in first-quarter 2023, with the plant beginning to use its new production capacity in the first quarter of 2024.

“We will be in a stronger position to meet or exceed customer needs of looking for simpler, better and more nutritional food options,” Riviana President and CEO Enrique Zaragoza said in a statement. 

This marks the seventh, and one of the largest, expansion projects at the Memphis plant since it opened in 2006, according to Riviana. More recently, the company invested $15 million in 2021 to improve production and increase instant rice capacity. And in 2019, it announced a $27 million investment to double output. 

Riviana Foods, a Houston-based subsidiary of Spanish food giant Ebro Foods, is doubling down on rice after selling a majority stake in its branded pastas to TreeHouse Foods in 2020 and its Ronzoni dried pasta brand to Post Holdings’ private label unit in 2021. This past February, the company announced it would purchase the assets of specialty rice maker InHarvest, adding to its manufacturing footprint in the Western U.S.