I love bargain stocks, especially when they're hitting 52-week lows. Still, it can be instructive to also look at stocks that are riding high. For one thing, they can make good sell candidates. More optimistically, we may be able to find a few companies that can continue their upward climbs.

In this series, I'll be searching industry-by-industry for stocks reaching 52-week highs. That way, we'll be able to make a few quick comparisons among semi-related companies.

There are 24 industry groups as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). Food, beverage, and tobacco is one of them.

Below are the top nine companies in this space (by market cap) that are within spitting distance of their 52-week highs.

Company

Recent Price

52-week Low

52-week High

P/E Ratio (Trailing)

Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO)

$61.01

$49.50

$61.75

19.0
Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM)

$59.47

$2.00

$59.85

15.5
Pepsi (NYSE: PEP)

$65.05

$58.80

$68.11

16.4
Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD)

$61.24

$43.19

$64.77

22.0
British American Tobacco (AMEX: BTI)

$76.28

$29.10

$39.24

17.4
Companhia de Bebidas Das Americas (AMBEV) (NYSE: ABV)

$133.65

$87.63

$143.53

22.6
Kraft Foods

$32.47

$26.30

$32.61

18.0
Altria (NYSE: MO)

$25.06

$17.80

$25.23

14.0
Diageo

$72.96

$55.90

$75.37

17.8

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and Yahoo! Finance.

I recently used Coca-Cola as an example of a stock Warren Buffett owns that you may want to steer clear of. Not because it's a terrible company. In fact, it's a great company. He just bought in at a much better price and it's currently fairly to slightly richly valued. There are better opportunities out there.

I've highlighted both Philip Morris International and Altria in our 11 O'Clock Stocks series. They've both gone up a bit since then, but they're each the type of unloved stock to keep on your radar. Read about them here and here.

If you are interested in reading more about any of these stocks, add them to My Watchlist to find all of our Foolish analysis on them.