PHOENIX — Kerry Inc. has agreed to acquire the cereal ingredients business and certain related equipment of NutraCea, currently in bankruptcy. The transaction is valued at approximately $3.9 million plus the cost of NutraCea’s inventory related to its cereal ingredients business.

NutraCea on Nov. 10, 2009, filed for court-supervised protection to restructure its operation under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

NutraCea said the assets to be sold include certain equipment located at its Phoenix plant as well as related customer and supplier lists and purchase orders related to the cereal ingredients business. Neither the Phoenix plant itself nor any of the manufacturing assets located at NutraCea’s Dillon, Mont., facility are included in the transaction, the company said.

“The sale of our cereal ingredients business to Kerry is a further step in the repositioning of NutraCea, as we concentrate on our core businesses of stabilized rice bran, rice bran oil and nutraceutical and pharmaceutical applications derived from stabilized rice bran,” said W. John Short, chairman and chief executive officer of NutraCea.

As part of the agreement, NutraCea has agreed that it will not process or sell certain products for a period of five years from the closing of the asset purchase agreement.