RICEBRAN TECHNOLOGIES (NASDAQ:RIBT) Files An 8-K Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers

On June 26, 2018, RiceBran Technologies (“RBT”) announced that Dr. Robert Smith advised the RBT Board of Directors (the “Board”) on June 20, 2018, of his intention to retire as of December 31, 2018. On June 21, 2018, Dr. Smith provided his resignation as President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board, effective as of September 30, 2018. Thereafter he will remain with RBT as Executive Vice President – Special Projects, providing transitional leadership assistance and R&D/product development services through December 31, 2018.

On June 20, 2018, the Board appointed Brent R. Rystrom, RBT’s Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer and Secretary, to serve as RBT’s President and Chief Executive Officer, effective as of October 1, 2018. Mr. Rystrom will continue in his present officer capacities until October 1, 2018.

On June 20, 2018, the Board also appointed Dennis Dykes, RBT’s Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, to serve as RBT’s Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary, effective October 1, 2018. Mr. Dykes will continue in his present officer capacities until October 1, 2018.

Mr. Rystrom, 54, has served as RBT’s Chief Operating Officer since January 2018 and RBT’s Chief Financial Officer since March 2017. Mr. Rystrom brings over 25 years of business finance experience, including over 20 years of service as a director of research and senior financial analyst for several investment banking firms, including Piper Jaffray and Feltl & Company. From 2009 until March 2017, Mr. Rystrom served as director of research for Feltl & Company, a regional investment banking firm headquartered in Minnesota, where he managed research, institutional sales, and trading departments while providing research coverage on consumer products, retail and agriculture companies ranging from micro to large capitalization. Over his 11 years of service at Piper Jaffray he was named a Wall Street Journal “Best on the Street” analyst and a “Top 10” Retailing Industry Analyst from Reuter’s. Since 1997, Mr. Rystrom has also successfully acquired and managed a large portfolio of personal agricultural real estate assets, and from 2011 through 2015, he served on the customer advisory board of AgStar, a $10 billion agricultural bank based in Minnesota. Mr. Rystrom holds a degree in business finance from St. Thomas University.

Mr. Dykes, 49, has served as RBT’s Chief Accounting Officer since June 2017. Mr. Dykes served as RBT’s Vice President of Accounting and Compliance from May 2015 to June 2017 and Corporate Controller from May 2014 to March 2015. Mr. Dykes brings nearly 20 years of business accounting and operations experience in multiple industries. He served as corporate controller at Avella Specialty Pharmacy from 2013 to 2014. He served as territory manager at Carrier Commercial Service where he supervised all financial, sales and operations functions for four geographical areas from 2011 to 2013. Prior to 2011, Mr. Dykes served in several finance and operations leadership roles including a consulting practice focused on accounting, tax and legal transactions. Mr. Dykes holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in Accounting and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from St. Ambrose University and a Juris Doctorate degree from Whittier Law School. He is a certified public accountant in Arizona and Illinois and also a licensed attorney in Illinois.

About RICEBRAN TECHNOLOGIES (NASDAQ:RIBT)
RiceBran Technologies is a human food ingredient, functional food ingredient, packaged functional food and animal nutrition company. The Company is focused on processing and marketing of nutrient dense products derived from raw rice, an underutilized by-product of the rice milling industry. The Company has two operating segments. The USA segment manufactures and distributes stabilized rice bran (SRB) (for human food ingredient and animal nutrition customers) and derivative products. The Brazil segment extracts crude rice bran oil (RBO) and defatted rice bran (DRB) from rice bran, which are then further processed into fully refined rice bran oil for sale internationally and in Brazil, compounded animal nutrition products for horses, cows, swine, sheep and poultry and a range of human food and animal nutrition products. The Brazil segment consists of the operations of Nutra S.A. LLC subsidiary, whose only operating subsidiary is Industria Riograndens De Oleos Vegetais Ltda. (Irgovel).