SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA, U.S. — David Hutchinson and Robert Smith have been named to new positions at NutraCea. Hutchinson will become senior vice-president of operations while Smith has been named senior vice-president of business development.

Hutchinson has spent the past four year at NutraCea in various operations, quality assurance and technical services positions. In his new capacity, he will have management responsibility for all of NutraCea’s U.S. plant operations, quality assurance and technical services as well as operational oversight of the company’s Brazilian rice bran bio-refinery, Irgovel.

Prior to joining NutraCea, Hutchinson worked with BiOriginal Food and Science in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, overseeing Canadian product regulatory compliance while also serving as an operations and technical consultant on flaxseed oils, marine oils and encapsulated neutraceutial products. Earlier, he worked at Riceland Foods in Stuttgart, Arkansas, U.S., where for more than a decade he specialized in rice bran oil process modifications aimed at developing new ways to isolate functional components present in rice bran and rice bran oil.

Smith joined NutraCea in March, and his primary responsibilities include providing technical sales support, managing third-party technical sales support providers, leadership of NutraCea’s research and development activities and management of the company’s intellectual property portfolio.

Before joining NutraCea Smith was director of business development at HerbalScience Group. He also has directed research and development programs at Global Protein Products Inc. and PhycoGen Inc., and has led research projects at Dekalb Genetics, a Monsanto Co. Smith was research assistant professor at the AgBiotech Center at Rutgers University and did post-doctoral work in plant molecular biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Hutchinson and Smith will join NutraCea’s senior management committee and will co-manage NutraCea’s participation in the previously announced joint development agreement with DSM, which is aimed at developing technologies to enzymatically extract and concentrate protein from rice bran.