000436 eMerge Drive Towards “New Beef Economy”

Sebastian, FL - eMerge Interactive, a business-to-business company focused on the $40 billion U.S. cattle production industry, announced it has been granted ISO 9001 certification by the Bureau of Veritas Quality International. This approval represents further demonstration of the company's commitment to process- controlled Value Chain Integration of the cattle industry.

“Our integrated business solution was created to fundamentally alter the beef-production process and to create significant new value in the product itself,” said Charles Abraham, eMerge's chief executive officer. “ISO 9001 certification represents another step in our strategy toward reaching these goals.”

The company's strategy for implementing a national Value Chain Integration system has three key components: an efficient and scalable e-marketplace, a software infrastructure for information management, and value-enhancing technologies. The result will be a comprehensive system enabling the one million participants in the beef production industry to communicate quality- and profit- building information on a national level.

Granted by the Bureau Veritas Quality International, ISO 9001 certification covers processes that lay the foundation for beef-quality certification on a national scale. Certification has been shown to improve product value and increase profits for every segment of the beef industry.

The ISO 9001 scope covers eMerge Interactive activities such as the provision of business-to-business e-commerce cattle sales services, internet- based system software development, the design, manufacture, service, distribution, and installation of optical and infrared diagnostic imaging equipment and the formulation and distribution of animal feed supplements. As the company launches new products and services, they will be certified under the existing scope or audited under a scope extension by the BVQI.

“It's not common for a company in our phase of development to be able to meet these requirements, but we saw it as critical to our efforts to develop a national beef marketplace, continued Abraham. “It's also an important component of our corporate strategy to create and aggressively grow a world- class organization.”

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