Menlo Park, California
December 7, 2000

Landec Corporation today said that field trials for its soybean/wheat Intellicoat Relay Crop(TM) System demonstrate that its patented polymer seed coating technology could increase farmer profitability by up to one third or greater per acre compared to planting a single crop of soybeans or wheat.

Landec Ag, the agricultural subsidiary of Landec, recently completed field trials that involved 40
farmers and 1,000 acres. On average, the relay cropping generated incremental income in the
range of $30-$50 per acre compared to a single crop of soybeans and $55 to $80 compared to a
single crop of wheat. The proprietary Relay Crop System allows farmers to plant and harvest both
wheat and soybeans on the same acreage in one year in areas of the farm belt where traditionally
only one crop could be grown per season.

"The Relay Crop system results were excellent,'' stated Tom Crowley, president of Landec Ag.
"Harvesting two crops using Landec Ag's Relay Crop System provides farmers with two incomes
-- one in July for wheat and one in October for soybeans. For the typical soybean farmer, our
field trial results represent a 20-35 percent increase in net income per acre while for the typical
wheat farmer net income per acre could increase from 50-70 percent.

"In these difficult times for farmers, this system could be a terrific benefit in helping farmers survive and prosper. Relay cropping also enables effective crop rotation to enrich the soil and provides year round crop cover to minimize soil erosion,'' he continued.

Jim Beuerlein, Professor of Horticulture and Crop Science at Ohio State University stated, "For a
long time people have wanted a reliable way of planting and harvesting two crops on their land in
the same year. These results demonstrate that it is not only possible, but economically very
attractive.''

The total potential acreage for the Relay Crop System in the targeted states such as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois is in excess of ten million acres. The company plans to expand next year's commercial field trials in these states.

Landec Ag also announced excellent results in its first year of testing using the Intellicoat® seed
coating technology for Early Plant(TM) hybrid corn. This new approach is designed to allow corn
farmers to safely and reliably plant hybrid corn 2-4 weeks earlier than typically possible due to
cold soil temperatures. The company planted the Early Plant hybrid corn in 7 locations in 6 states and demonstrated good chilling injury protection and good yields.

Based on these results, the company will expand the Early Plant hybrid corn field trial program to
over 200 farmers on 10,000 acres of farmland next year. Both the Early Plant hybrid corn and
Relay Crop soybean products will be coated at Landec Ag's pilot coating production facility in
West Lebanon, Indiana using its new continuous coating process.

In 2000, Landec Ag launched its first commercial seed coating product, Pollinator Plus(TM)
coatings, which greatly reduces the risk for seed companies in producing seed corn for their
customers. "Based on this year's commercial sales of Pollinator Plus and the recent field trial
results, we believe our technology has the potential to provide significant economic impact and risk reduction in sizeable segments of the agricultural industry,'' noted Gary T. Steele, president and chief executive officer of Landec. "We are hopeful that next year's results will lead to broader
commercialization of our product lines.''

Landec Corporation designs, develops, manufactures and sells temperature-activated and other
specialty polymer products for a variety of food, agricultural and licensed partner applications. The
company's temperature-activated polymer products are based on its proprietary Intelimer®
polymers which differ from other polymers in that they can be customized to abruptly change their
physical characteristics when heated or cooled through a pre-set temperature switch.

Company news release
N3180