Avitar, Inc. to Supply Save Mart Supermarket Chain With ORALscreen(TM)

April 02, 2001

CANTON, Mass., April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Avitar, Inc. (Amex: - news) announced today that they have agreed to supply ORALscreen, the world's first onsite oral fluid drugs of abuse test, to Save Mart, a California-based food store chain. Save Mart, a supermarket chain with stores throughout California, is converting all pre-employment testing from a lab-based urine test to ORALscreen.

``Hiring in the retail food industry is always a challenge because of the limited number of qualified applicants available. We believe in the benefits of screening all applicants for drugs, but we had a lot of problems with our lab-based urine tests. The results often take several days to get back, and we found we were losing a lot of good applicants to other companies,'' said James J. Pucci, Ph.D., Director of Risk Management and Food Safety for Save Mart. ``Since ORALscreen results we available in minutes, we can offer employment right on the spot and avoid losing desirable candidates. By implementing ORALscreen immediately, we can now provide our customers with better service and achieve significant savings in both time and money for the Save Mart organization,'' added Pucci.

``We recognize that ORALscreen, with its immediate onsite results, provides a competitive advantage to industries like retail food and convenience stores. We're excited that we could help Save Mart by greatly improving their method of employee selection,'' stated Michael J. DeFeo, Vice President of Marketing for Avitar. ``Our sales efforts in this market segment continue to pay dividends both for Avitar and our customers by providing a more competitive drug testing practice,'' added DeFeo.

ABOUT SAVE MART

Save Mart, headquartered in Modesto, CA, is a privately held company and operates retail food supermarkets. Save Mart revenues for FY2000 is estimated at $1.5 billion. Save Mart has approximately 7,300 employees in 97 retail locations, marketed under the names of Save Mart, S-Mart Foods and Food Maxx throughout the state of California.

ABOUT AVITAR

Avitar, Inc. (Amex: - news) headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts, develops, manufactures and markets innovative medical devices based on proprietary core technologies for two distinctive markets: oral fluid diagnostics and customized polyurethane applications used in the wound dressing industry. Oral fluid diagnostics includes both the drugs-of-abuse testing market estimated to be worth $1.5 billion encompassing the corporate workplace and criminal justice markets and the $20 billion clinical diagnostics market. Avitar's products include ORALscreen(TM), the world's first non-invasive, rapid, onsite oral fluid test for drugs-of-abuse, and HAIRscreen(TM), a laboratory based hair for detecting long-term drug abuse. Additionally, the company manufactures and markets HYDRASORB(TM), an absorbent topical dressing for moderate to heavy exudating wounds.

In 2001, the company formed strategic partnerships with DIPRO Diagnostic products GmbH and Pinkerton Security Group and acquired Texas-based BJR Security Service provider of canines trained to detect narcotics, explosives and firearms for markets that include education and the oil and petroleum industry.

For more information, see Avitar's website at avitarinc.com.

This release contains forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties including the development and marketing of new applications and other risks that are detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.