RiceBran Technologies

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Rice Brand Technologies first quarter 2021 earnings call and webcast. At this time, all participants have been placed on listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Rob Fink. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the Rice Brand Technologies First Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. Hosting the call today are Peter Bradley, Executive Chairman, and Todd Mitchell, Chief Financial Officer. I want to remind everyone listening today that during the call, management's prepared remarks may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Management may also make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions today. Therefore, the company claims protection under the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from those discussed today, and therefore, we refer you to a more detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties in the company's filings with the SEC. In addition, any projection as to the company's future performance represented by management includes estimates as of today April 28, 2021, and the company assumes no obligation to update these projections in the future as market conditions change. This webcast and certain financial information provided on the call, including reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures, are available on the company's website at Rice Brand Tech on the investor relations page. With all that said, I'd now like to turn the call over to Peter Bradley. Peter, the call is yours.

Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. The first quarter provides evidence that we're on the right path. As discussed in our prior earnings calls, our strategy is to move the business towards specialty ingredients. We will do this by expanding our SRB derivatives business and introducing new high added value high margin ingredients derived from rice and other small and ancient grains, while optimizing our milling assets to support this business with a superior cost structure. Phase one of our transition to this strategy was to turn around operations at Golden Ridge and deliver improved financial performance. And we made significant progress in the first quarter on both fronts, which Todd will address in greater detail in a moment. Phase two of our transition will shift our focus to being a company that delivers differentiated, high value add specialty ingredients. And underneath the improved financials in the first quarter, operating and sales trends validated the initial steps of the second phase. By simply reorienting our sales focus, we drove a 40% year over year increase in our core SRB ingredients business, with sales of SRB derivatives, our highest value ingredient, up over 200%. The progress we have achieved in this transition in the last two quarters gives me confidence that 2021 will be a year of marked financial improvement for Rice Brand. Our strategy aligns us with healthy living trends, our products are compelling, and I believe significantly underperform their market potential. In the coming quarters, you will see us grow these products and introduce new ones, transforming Rice Brand into a high growth, high margin specialty company. I will provide more thoughts on how we're going to execute this transition, but first let's have Todd run you through the first quarter numbers in more detail.