Sherwood Brands Inc. (AMEX:SHD), a manufacturer, marketer and distributor of branded confectionery products and gift items, today announced that it expects to report approximately breakeven results on about a 66% increase in revenue to approximately $42.0 million for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2000. For fiscal 1999, Sherwood reported a net loss of $1.3 million, or $0.34 per share, on revenue of $25.3 million. The company expects to report audited results for fiscal 2000 in a few weeks. Uziel Frydman, president and chief executive officer, said: "Just 2 months into the new fiscal year, orders for the year already exceed $42.0 million. With this strong start, we currently plan for sales in fiscal 2001 to be substantially higher than fiscal 2000, continuing the strong revenue growth trend we have reported for the past several years." Frydman continued: "We have hired more than 80 people this month at our new 440,000 square foot manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Mass., on our way to a target of about 200 employees at this facility. "We are pleased by the high quality and availability of labor in the New Bedford area. Labor and other costs at all of our facilities are meeting our expectations, which is allowing us to efficiently manage production scheduling without having to resort to the costly measures that affected our profitability in fiscal 2000. "In addition, Sherwood will benefit from the strength of the dollar in the form of advantageous costs for finished goods we source in Europe, and we expect that the recent increase in fuel costs will have a negligible impact on the company. "While our industry remains highly competitive, because of the continued rapid revenue growth that we anticipate and our greatly improved cost structure compared to last year, we are planning for a profitable fiscal 2001."