Five and Under

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SURE up again!
SURE is about to rise above the "Five and Under" category. Here's an important PR from today:
Surebeam shares jump after USDA decision on meat
Monday October 28, 12:48 pm ET


NEW YORK, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Shares of Surebeam Corp. (NasdaqNM:SURE - News), which provides systems that kill food-borne bacteria, jumped on Monday, one business day after a federal agency said it would allow irradiated meat to be served in millions of schools by the end of the year.



"School programs are a large customer base in the food service arena, and hopefully this will lead to growing volumes" for Surebeam, said Mark Jordan, an analyst with A.G. Edwards and Sons.

Shares of San Diego-based Surebeam were up 55 cents, or 14.1 percent, to $4.44 in midday trading on the Nasdaq stock market after reaching a session high of $4.55. The stock has nearly tripled during the month, returning to levels it hasn't seen since July. But the shares are still far from their 52-week high of $16.75, reached on Oct. 29.

The approval of irradiated meat in school lunches, which was announced on Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "is an additional sign of the fact that you're getting more broad distribution and more broad acceptance of irradiated products," said Jordan, who has a short-term price target of $5 on the stock.

Surebeam uses electron technology to irradiate food. The company's products are sold in close to 4,000 supermarkets around the country, according to a Surebeam spokesman.

The company, which was spun off from Titan Corp. (NYSE:TTN - News) on Aug. 5, has yet to turn a net profit. Jordan said he doesn't expect Surebeam to be profitable until late 2003.

The USDA approval is the latest in a string of positive developments for the company, analysts said. Several grocery store chains earlier this month signed contracts to carry Surebeam's beef products.

Those contracts, along with the USDA's recent stamp of approval, mean that the public is getting used to the idea of electronically irradiated food, said Stephen Levenson, an analyst at Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co.

"We thought the big hurdle would be consumer acceptance," he said, adding that some customers might be wary of food labeled as "irradiated."

But consumers "have come to understand what it means, and they've come to be concerned about contamination and bioterrorism," said Levenson, who has a 12-month price target of $7 on the stock.

He noted the recent breakout of listeria, a bacteria that killed at least seven people this month and was linked to turkey that had been distributed by Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (NYSE:CHX - News) to schools and state agencies nationwide. That led to a recall of 24.7 million pounds of fresh and frozen turkey products.


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