ASX Runners of the Week: Wide Open, Pacific, Forbidden Foods & Olympio

The ASX has finished off an uneasy week of trading on further shaky footing, as bank stocks continued to release weak December data and United States consumer sentiment began to sour.

Shipping logistics giant WiseTech - which exploded into prominence post COVID-19 lockdowns as global trade routes went into turmoil - endured another week of public lambasting, which saw tens of billions of dollars wiped from its market cap. This week’s pandemonium came at the hands of four board directors, who quit on Monday citing “intractable differences” around founder and former-CEO Richard White’s role at the company.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is… Wide Open Agriculture

Following revelations about the founder and largest shareholder’s not-so-private-life in October last year, White stepped down as CEO to the company he helped build - only to come roaring back in style this week as its new executive chairman.

In a departure from February’s flavour of the month gold stocks, and despite another all-time-high gold price on Monday, this week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runners of the Week list was overrun by two Australian sustainable and health food companies.

Wide Open Agriculture Ltd (ASX: WOA)

260% up (from 0.5c to 1.8c)

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is sustainable foods company Wide Open Agriculture. The company jumped out of the blocks on Tuesday, announcing its high-protein lupin isolate powder had received approval from China’s customs administrator for export into the giant Chinese market.

China’s plant-based protein market was valued at a staggering US$4.2 billion (A$6.76 billion) last year. It is predicted to continue as a massive growth market and is currently fetching a handy 12.4 per cent compound annual growth rate.

More than $4 million Wide Open shares were traded this week, pushing the company’s share price to a high of 1.8 cents per share on Wednesday, up a massive 260 per cent from a close of 0.5c last week.

Wide Open says its lupin protein isolate has proven commercial applications including as a base for protein powders, plant-based milks, yoghurts and ice-creams. The company intends to sell the product into plant-based dairy markets.

It is also marketing an alternative tofu product, which utilises lupins instead of soy.

As China’s increasing middle-class prioritises health and fitness, plant-based protein shakes are becoming popular amid a booming gym culture - not dissimilar to the boom western fitness industries experienced throughout the 2010s.

The company will now provide product samples to Chinese food and beverage distributors and continue its discussions on further Asian market saturation.

It seems this small, WA-based innovative, sustainable foods company is uniquely positioned to convert its industry knowhow into servicing what could potentially become the world’s largest health foods and fitness market.

Pacific Edge Ltd (ASX: PEB)

125% up (from 6c to 13.5c)

Fast-finishing Pacific Edge took out silver on the week’s Runners list. The cancer diagnostics company’s share price surged on Friday after the American Urological Association (AUA) included its Cxbladder Triage test as the standard of care in the association’s clinical guideline for managing patients at risk of bladder cancer.

Pacific’s share price saw an instant re-rate on the news on Friday morning spiking to a high of 13.5c, up a massive 125 per cent from the same time last week when it closed at 6c per share.

The company’s Cxbladder test uses a urine-based biomarker that can rule out bladder cancer in at-risk patients by detecting blood in their urine. It eliminates the need for an invasive and uncomfortable bladder cystoscopy.

The cystoscopy procedure involves a doctor inserting a cystoscope camera along the urethra and into a patient’s bladder – which understandably most patients would prefer to avoid. Pacific’s tumour marker technology means those with intermediate risk factors can do just that – and get their all-clear much faster.

Pacific was recently worth nearly $1 billion but has had a tumultuous few years.

US Medicare administrator Novartis announced Cxbladder would no longer be covered from April, which saw Pacific’s share price tank to below a $50m valuation in recent weeks.

AUA positions Cxbladder Triage as the only urine biomarker backed by “Grade A” evidence from a recent randomised control trial, enabling its inclusion in the association’s standard of care guidelines for future treatment. The guidelines were last revised five years ago.

Could this news be the start of things to come for the company?

The AUA’s resounding stamp could be the turnaround Pacific needs to see its product return to clinical use and even return the company’s $1b market valuation.

Forbidden Foods Ltd (ASX: FFF)

100% up (from 0.55c to 1.1c)

Forbidden Foods charged into third spot on the Runners podium this week. The health foods company was issued with a “please explain” notice by the market overlords at the ASX on Wednesday, after the share price closed up 80 per cent on a day when no news was released to the market.

Forbidden Foods major shareholder Steve Smith with the company’s recently acquired oat milk range, Oat Milk Goodness – OMG.

Forbidden Foods promptly replied to the good people down at the ASX, noting that it had recently completed a successful capital raising to major shareholders, including top shareholder of the recently acquired Oat Milk Goodness range (OMG), Australian cricket legend Steve Smith.

Forbidden’s shares finished off the week for a high of 1.1c, up a more than handy 100 per cent for the week, on nearly $1m of stock traded.

Other than being only one of four men to smash more than 10,000 runs for Australia, it would seem Smith knows a thing or two about health food products and has been backing his oat milk business on market. A change of substantial notice on Tuesday highlighted the star batsman had been buying even more shares on market post the recent capital raising.

Forbidden Foods says the recently acquired OMG is the only Australian oat milk on the market that does not contain recently maligned industrial seed oils, which have been linked to chronic health problems and inflammatory diseases.

The OMG range is actively pursuing international expansion opportunities, with an initial focus on India, which is a major growth market. Management is off to Delhi next week, where they should be able to comfortably leverage Smith’s profile in the cricket-mad nation’s burgeoning health products market.

Olympio Metals Ltd (ASX: OLY)

92% up (from 4c to 7.7c)

Gold junior Olympio Metals just missed out on a podium finish on the Bulls N’ Bears Runners of the Week list.

The company’s share price flew up on Wednesday after it announced the acquisition of an 80 per cent interest in the Bousquet gold project in Quebec, Canada.

It was inevitable that our Runners list would feature at least one goldie, after the yellow metal touched a record A$4650 an ounce price on Monday.

Olympio’s share price spiked to a high of 7.7c on the announcement, up a considerable 92 per cent from the previous week’s close, on more than $500,000 of stock traded.

Olympio says its Bousquet project in Quebec is just a stone’s throw from both its Rouyn-Noranda gold mining centre and the Bousquet Mining Camp, which includes the more than 15-million-ounce La Ronde and 2.4m-ounce Westwood gold mines.

The company believes high-grade gold mineralisation at Bousquet is quartz vein-hosted.

Numerous visible gold intersections were historically recorded across its prospective project area. One standout intersection noted 9 metres of mineralisation running an impressive 16.96 grams per tonne gold from 178m at its Paquin East prospect.

Olympio says the project consists of numerous drill-ready targets.

The company will begin drill permitting immediately to test what it says are multiple geophysical IP anomalies in the historical data.

Olympio’s price has come back from its spike. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts, as the sub-$5m market capped gold and copper minnow should be drilling in no time within a world-class region endowed with the flying commodities of copper and gold.

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