Michael W. Rice

Mike Rice died on 10 October 2026 at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, surrounded by his family. He was 84. Utz Brands announced his death on 14 October 2026. No cause of death was made public.

Utz chief executive Howard Friedman called him "a true Utz icon whose contributions to the company are too numerous to count", and board chair Dylan Lissette said no other individual had contributed so much to the success of the business over the previous 50 years. The company said his death would not affect its planned return to private ownership, announced in July 2026, under which the Rice and Lissette family and Intersnack Group would each own half of Utz.

Visitation was arranged for 30 October 2026 at Kenworthy Funeral Home in Hanover, with a memorial service on 31 October at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Hanover. The family asked that memorial gifts go to the Hanover Area YMCA or a charity of the donor's choice.

Michael W. Rice was born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, on 4 October 1942, the son of Francis Xavier Rice and Arlene Utz Rice. His mother was the daughter of Bill and Salie Utz, who founded Utz in 1921, making potato chips in their home kitchen. His father joined the company in 1938 after marrying Arlene and later became its president.

Rice grew up in the family business. From the age of 11 he spent summers unloading 100 pound burlap sacks of potatoes, and he worked a range of jobs at the company after school and at weekends. He graduated from Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1965 and earned a law degree from George Washington University Law School in 1968.

After law school Rice was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar and worked briefly for Control Data Corporation in Virginia before returning to Hanover at his parents' request. He formally joined Utz in 1968 and became executive vice president in 1970.

In 1978 he succeeded his father as president and chief executive officer. He expanded Utz beyond potato chips into pretzels, cheese curls, popcorn and other salty snacks, oversaw major manufacturing investment including a 300,000 square foot addition to the High Street facility in Hanover in the 1980s, and extended distribution into Richmond, Norfolk, Philadelphia and Delaware and then across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. He chaired the Snack Food Association in 1982 and served on its board for many years.

Rice became chairman and chief executive in 1992. Utz began serving national retail customers the following year, entered the New York City market in 1996 and opened a new Hanover distribution centre in 1997. The company later added regional brands including Zapp's, Bachman, Good Health and Golden Flake, and by 2009 had annual revenues above 500 million dollars.

In December 2012 he became executive chairman, handing day to day leadership to his son-in-law Dylan Lissette, who became chief executive in 2013. After Utz became a public company in 2020 through a combination with Collier Creek Holdings, Rice served as director and chairman emeritus of Utz Brands until retiring from the board in August 2024, after which he remained an adviser.

Rice was married for 60 years to Jane Epley Rice. They had a daughter, Stacie Rice Lissette, and a son, Matthew Rice, and at his death had six grandchildren and a great-grandchild. He was a keen traveller but always regarded Hanover as home.

He served on the boards of the Hanover Area YMCA and Hanover Hospital and was a founding member of Sageworth Trust Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 2001. In 2017 he and Jane established the Rice Family Foundation to support education, health and the well-being of families in the Hanover community. Announcing it, they said their grandparents and parents had believed in giving back a meaningful part of their success.

Rice is credited with building the manufacturing capacity, product range and distribution network that turned Utz from a Central Pennsylvania and Maryland chip maker into a national snack company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. His motto, "Take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves. Pay attention to the details," is still repeated among Utz employees, and the company's Rice Distribution Center in Hanover carries his and his wife's name.