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spk06: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Mamma Mincini's third quarter fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. If you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the two. If you're using a speaker equipment, please lift the handset before making your selections. This conference is being recorded today, December 14th, 2021. And the earnings press release accompanying this conference call was issued at the close of the market today. On our call today is Mama Mancini's Chairman and CEO, Carl Wolf, President and COO, Matthew Brown, CFO, Larry Morgenstein, and Greg Flesnick. CEO of MZ North America, Mama Mancini's investor relations firm. I would now like to turn the conference over to Greg to read a disclaimer about the following statements.
spk01: Thank you, Operator. Before we get started, I'll read a disclaimer about forward-looking statements. This conference call may contain, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal security laws regarding Mama Mancini. Forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements that express the company's intentions, beliefs, expectations, strategies, predictions, or any other statements relating to its future earnings, activities, events, or conditions. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, and projections about the company's business based, in part, on assumptions made by management. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may and are likely to differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to numerous factors discussed from time to time in this report and in other documents which the company files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, such statements could be affected by risks and uncertainties related to factors beyond the company's control. Matters that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, among other factors, the loss of key management personnel, availability of capital, and any major litigation regarding the company. In addition, this conference call contains time-sensitive information that reflects management's best analysis only as of the date and time of this conference call. The company does not take under any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events. information, or circumstances that arise after the date of this conference call. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Carl Wolf, the company's chairman and chief executive officer. Carl, the floor is yours.
spk04: Okay. Thank you, Greg, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'd like to welcome you to our third quarter fiscal 2022 financial results conference call. The third quarter of fiscal 2022 was our highly focused acquisition effort. We have notably advanced a significant internal effort to explore potential acquisition. Our focus is on companies with complementary products in the perimeter of the supermarket, as well as exceptional operational and financial metrics. It seems like there's a little bit of static on the line. The ability to realize new distribution opportunities relationships, and push an existing product through our already robust distribution network and attract evaluation is our chief goal. We hope to announce our first major acquisition in the near term as we move through our due diligence process. If completed, this would dramatically increase our sales and EBITDA. We anticipate financing the acquisition with our cash on hand and bank financing with the goal of minimizing any dilutions. As a reminder, I myself am the largest shareholder of MMMB. More to come on this front. Given our growth expectations and the revenue from our near-term acquisition targets, we believe Mama Mancini's has the potential to approach $100 million in annual sales within 18 months, establishing us as a truly national platform company. We continue to innovate our core product line as well, as we will soon begin to ship a major new line of ready-to-eat meals in up to 11 varieties. Due to the immediate labor shortages facing retailers, we believe that this line will have great success. Our new convenience meatballs-in-a-cup product will launch for testing in the first quarter at an attractive $3.99 price point. The high protein content of 16 grams and very modest calories are attractive attributes to health conscious consumers. This product has the potential to efficiently service the exciting convenience store, supermarket, and university food service opportunities. We have added to production capacity to handle 10 to 12 million in incremental annualized sales. In addition, we are about ready to begin first supply to Amazon Fresh, representing our first direct-to-consumer online sales. We believe this will be a large opportunity for our Beyond or Mama Mancini's plant-based meatballs. This will start as a smaller account, though could be significant over time. This is based upon a cooperative marketing program with Amazon Fresh and historical comparables from other companies. Our growing sales are a result of our high-quality and innovative new products, and our effective multi-pronged marketing efforts. These have historically included radio campaigns, social media efforts, and continued work with QVC. I'd like to touch on a few of these now. On the social media side of things, we continue to maintain a robust reach, engaging new customers and encouraging repeat purchases. To date, we have over 500,000 likes and continue to geo-target likely consumers who live within five miles of of specific retail locations. Our QVC efforts have seen record success as well, with Dan Mancini's live pitches driving impressive sales on their platform. As many of you are aware, we were winners for three QVC Consumer Choice Awards, Best Meatball, Best Sauce, and Most Trusted Brand. Perhaps most notably, a Mama Mancini's product was named the coveted today's special value deal on QVC for December 8th, securing approximately five hours of airtime throughout the day. This will drive expected sales of $2 million spread throughout fiscal 2022 and 23, inclusive of auto delivery customers. QVC is North America's largest direct-to-consumer marketer and is available in over 100 million homes throughout the U.S., In summary, we believe the foundation building this quarter will lay the road for a successful 2022. We believe that we maintain significant potential to begin shipping several exciting new product placements to Tier 1 retailers in the near term, and we believe we are poised for a return to margin expansion by year end as several margin improvement initiatives come into play. I would expect sales to grow to $11.5 to $12 million in the fourth quarter, up from $9.4 million in the year-ago period, and up from $10.9 million this quarter. We are particularly excited by the growth opportunities facing the potential acquisitions we are evaluating today in calendar year 2022, made possible by leveraging our national network of Tier 1 retailers and club store accounts. I'd now like to turn the call over to Larry Morgenstein, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk through some key financial details from the third quarter.
spk07: Larry? Thank you, Carl. Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 increased 12.1% to $10.9 million, as compared to $9.7 million in the same year-ago quarter. The increase in revenue for the third quarter was a result of major new business with Whole Foods and Publix. Gross profit totaled $2.7 million or 25.2% of total revenues in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 as compared to $2.9 million or 30.1% of total revenues in the same year-ago quarter. The lower gross profit margin in the third quarter was due to higher cost of protein, cost of freight, and all elements of supply. The company expects gross margin will improve by fiscal year-end as commodity prices normalize and higher production volumes will result in higher plant operating efficiencies and significant price increases come into effect. Operating expenses totaled $2.7 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 as compared to $2.1 million in the same year-ago quarter. As a percentage of sales, operating expenses totaled 25.1%, in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 as compared to 21.9% in the same year ago quarter. Operating expenses in the third quarter were affected by over $300,000 in increased logistic expenses, higher marketing expenses of approximately $100,000, which were introductory demonstration expenses for a new rotational retail item at a major national retailer, as well as over $150,000 and increased corporate infrastructure expenses in the third quarter, including higher director fees, costs related to the company's NASDAQ listing, increases in corporate management to handle new acquisitions, new management systems, and recruiting costs. Pre-tax income for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 totaled zero, as compared to $0.7 million in the same year-ago quarter. Net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 totaled zero or zero cents per diluted share as compared to a net income of 0.7 million or two cents per diluted share in the same year ago quarter. Cash and cash equivalents as of October 31st, 2021 were 4.5 million as compared to 1.8 million in the same year ago quarter and 3.2 million as of January 31, 2021. The increased cash balance balances benefited from 2.7 million increased cash flow from operations from the year-ago quarter, and $1.3 million from the beginning of last fiscal year. We do not anticipate raising any additional equity capital at this time and are confident the cash on hand, combined with our cash generated from operations each quarter, will be sufficient to sustain our core operations as we grow. This completes my comment. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Matt Brown, our President and Chief Operating Officer. Matt?
spk05: Thanks, Larry. Plant operations worked well through a challenging period of inflationary commodity prices, both in raw materials and packaging, as well as skyrocketing freight costs and some signs of sustained supply chain interruptions. We successfully planned for and managed longer packaging supply lead times without customer interruption, and expanded our network of both material supplies and logistic companies to provide greater price competition and greater reliability, which are now showing benefits. Q3 2022 will be long remembered as the period where operations made aggressive preparations for its bright future. I will highlight several examples. In order to accelerate continuous improvement in setting and achieving performance metrics, We have hired a new director of operations with great experience in organizing and structuring workforces to achieve efficiencies in food processing environments. We felt adding a fresh challenging viewpoint to our management team would be helpful as we structure for the next level. Our director of operations, Jorge Blanco, is already making a positive impact. Consistent with our policy of replacing fully depreciated inefficient core machinery, We replaced one of the three multi-vac machines, adding both capacity and reliability to our ready-to-eat or RTE room, which wraps all of our food products. In preparation for the imminent launch of our new and exciting Meals for One product line, we completed plans and began construction of our new assembly room, specifically designed for efficient processes to support new business volume. This new room was achieved by relocating our staff room to plant space previously used by our professional staff. The new product will begin rolling off the lines this month. We also have been very busy finalizing preparations for our new Meatball in a Cup snack product line, which we are presenting to convenience store chains and C-Stores now. We are very excited about this product design, which includes six half-ounce meatballs and sauce in a microwavable cup. We plan to sell this in cases of 12 and widely distribute frozen across the nation. Finally, throughout Q3, we completed preparations for going live on Oracle's NetSuite system, a new enterprise resource planning, or otherwise known as an ERP system, replacing our financial management, procurement, manufacturing, and inventory management functions. As a footnote, we are now live on the system, and while expectedly making some operational adjustments, we are seeing the benefits of this new integrated capability that it's bringing to the company. Finally, as Carl mentioned, we continue to look towards vertical integration through the acquisition of companies that not only align with our core competencies, but also align with our plant capabilities. We believe we have taken the steps necessary to prepare our management team for opportunities to gain leverages in cross-company product expansion and management of potential efficiencies. At this point, I will turn the call back over to Carl for some final notes before wrapping the call up for Q&A. Carl?
spk04: Thank you, Larry and Matt. As I noted in my opening remarks, the business continues to fire on all cylinders with our acquisition efforts progressing notably. We have laid the foundation for an incredibly strong growth trajectory in fiscal 2023. I firmly believe we are still in the early innings of Mama Mancini's growth trajectory and increasing prominence as a public company. We will continue to scale operations and drive forward our acquisition efforts. We are poised for continued success on all fronts and look forward to seeing what the future holds for our building brand. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator to begin our Q&A session. Operator?
spk06: Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the two. And if you are using speaker equipment, you will need to lift the handset before making your selection. Our first question will come from Howard Halpern from Taglish Brothers. Please go ahead.
spk02: First question relates to, I guess, the gross margin that you anticipate improving over time. What do you think the lag time is between the price increases and them accepting it and the leverage that you're creating also within within the plant, if you could add some color to that over the next few quarters.
spk04: I think this quarter is partial, and the next quarter should be pretty close to complete. What happened this year is that in prior periods where there was a spike in protein prices, they backed down as consumer had resistance, et cetera. Well, this year there wasn't any back down. Have you read the Tyson report? Their protein prices were up about 35% on average, and their sales were down around 15%, and their profits doubled. So anyway, the resistance didn't develop among consumers, and so the price increases stuck and actually went higher. So chains were reluctant to accept price increases based upon prior years, and the projection was it's transitory. I think someone has heard that word before. And so anyway, that is not the case, and chains have pretty much thrown in the towel and accepted price increases readily. So we are getting the prices through. Most of them will occur – January one through mid to late January. Um, also, um, there, uh, was, uh, we are really spending a lot of time on freight. Freight was $300,000 higher on way out, but about a hundred thousand dollars on way on the way in. So we are spending a lot of time on managing that. So it, it affected us both ways. Okay.
spk02: And in terms of your acquisition pipeline, if you could just add a little bit more color, but in particular, are you looking at acquisitions that are geographically close to where you currently are and acquisitions that will enable you to take your ready-to-eat product offerings to the next level?
spk04: All that. We're looking for acquisitions that at first are geographically close because we find the biggest opportunities in private companies that have proven their worth but are not distributed nationally. So that gives us the opportunity to distribute them. Also, by being local, it allows us to manage them. We like products in the same... perimeter of the store area, which is growing very rapidly. And so, anyway, I think we have great opportunities there, very high-value opportunities.
spk02: Okay. And the acquisition candidates will have extra – allow you to create extra capacity for your current plans for your, you know, your new product offerings? Yes. Yes, they should. Okay. And one question.
spk04: The bigger opportunity in the short run is to expand their existing products into our distribution.
spk02: Okay. And just sort of an update question. You know, throughout the year you talked about, you know, initial product placements with customers, you know, new customers or expanding within customers. Have most of those placements taken place or could we expect more initial throughput through your system?
spk04: Well, we had one major rotation with a national club store chain this summer and that was also part of our problem through October, and that was part of the problem because we were on a fixed price, and that hurt and couldn't raise the price, and also had a high introductory marketing expense. However, the product did extraordinarily well, and now that it's out of rotation, we're getting tons of consumer requests for where can we find it. And it's a branded product. So we're very optimistic. So we pay the price and the costs for developing a new major customer in the Mega Millions range on a yearly basis if that occurs. The other customers have been successful in the placement and have made more. This is a time of year you don't get new placements. You get them in the beginning of the year. However, in the Ready to Eat Meals for Once, We do have a major placement. The first orders are going out this quarter in a major customer. And we think there will be many. First, indications are very, very strong that this will be a major, major line for us.
spk02: Okay. And just one final question. Are you having any trouble finding employees to come to join the Mama Mancini's team?
spk04: No. We're okay on labor. We're okay. We have a good work environment, and we have a lot of minority workers who are mainly Hispanic who are very hardworking. In that community, we have a very good reputation. Okay.
spk02: Well, guys, keep up the great work.
spk04: Thank you.
spk06: Again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. Our next question will come from Bill Lapp. Please go ahead.
spk04: Hey, Bill.
spk03: Oh, Bill Lapp. Okay, you recognize me. Hi, Carl.
spk04: Sure do.
spk03: Yeah. Carl, a little disappointed you're moving so slowly on this acquisition. I mean, you've got paralysis analysis, it seems to me. How long is it going to take? I thought you had one candidate you were pretty sold on and you were just completing your due diligence. How far along are you on that candidate?
spk04: Very far along. Until we sign the contract, which is, we think, very imminent, we cannot announce it.
spk03: Okay. When you say a contract, not a letter of intent, a definitive purchase agreement, right?
spk04: Yes.
spk03: Okay. So you're waiting until that definitive purchase agreement is before you announce it, right?
spk04: There's a lot to do in the final stages of an acquisition. Okay.
spk03: Yeah, I know.
spk04: In terms of completing all the compliance and changeover details, et cetera.
spk03: So basically, you've reached an agreement, you're papering it, and when that's all done, it should be coming forth shortly. Is that correct?
spk04: We have not signed an agreement.
spk03: No, but I mean, is there any open issues that could cause it? No, not yet.
spk04: We don't think so. However, again, anything can happen at the last minute. There's always things that come up that have to be resolved.
spk03: Okay. So would you say, based on your knowledge now, it's 30 days, 60 days, what would you say, you know, subject to those tomorrow? Okay. Well, you may need it. The stock's $1.56, $1.63. Is that a good time to buy it? Yeah.
spk04: So you know.
spk03: Now, the other thing I was trying to understand is, did you forecast a $100 million run rate, or what did you open up your remarks? I know you did.
spk04: With the growth rate of a major acquisition or potentially others, and our own growth rate, we envision ourselves potentially being a $100 million company within 18 months.
spk03: With 18 months. And can you give us any feeling about this acquisition, how much sales that would add, assuming you make it? I mean, you may not make it, but would it be a $20 million revenue?
spk04: It's very significant sales.
spk03: Huh?
spk04: It would be very significant sales.
spk03: Okay.
spk04: It would be very significant.
spk03: Okay.
spk04: I can't really say much more about it.
spk03: No, I understand. I'm not trying to pressure you. I'm just trying to, you know, you've been going along with these things so long. You know, it just takes, you know, a lot of time. I appreciate that.
spk04: This is not unusual.
spk03: No, I understand. And you want to do it right. You don't want to get it wrong.
spk04: When you deal with a private company, you have to do more intensive due diligence and work.
spk03: Right.
spk04: I respect that. It's just the nature of it.
spk03: Yeah. No, I understand because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Okay, so is this quarter, I don't know if you've said that, but do you forecast making a profit in the fourth quarter, or didn't you make a projection?
spk04: I think we will. I think we will, but it's still very early in the quarter.
spk03: Oh, that's right, because your quarter will end in when? January 31st. Okay, so you've got another 45 days. Okay. Now, Chuck, you were talking with Howard about and you mentioned that in October you couldn't raise the prices, but you did a lot of work and you got those customers that are calling you and wanting the product. Did you retain the client? Did you retain that store? Okay, so they've created more of a demand, so the store needs you because they're getting a lot of calls for the product. Is that correct?
spk04: Well, that's part of it. The other part of it is that the some clients resisted the price increases based on last year. Last year, prices spiked very heavily because of supply problems of factories and COVID. And they went up very high, but then they backed off very, very quickly. So a lot of the chains felt that the same thing would happen again, that there would be a lot of resistance. So it didn't happen. And right now, everyone is assuming that It's not, as our government says, transitor.
spk03: Okay. Now, this new product with the meatball six in a cup, how much are you going to sell that for? How much is that going to be sold for?
spk04: Generally speaking, it's 50% of the retail.
spk03: Okay. And do you have an existing order for that now?
spk04: No, we will have packaging in-house in the next week, because we had prototypes, and we had a lot of issues dealing with that in microwave properly. So we didn't want to book anything until we knew that it worked very well, and we believe it does. The volume on that, at this point, It's unproven. But there is a very big marketplace for protein. There's two markets in convenience stores, one for snacks and regular soda and so forth. But there's a very big market for kind bars and alternative drinks and protein, beef jerky. And so we're appealing to that market. which really makes it a universal product. The beauty of our product is that it can go out on a hot case, which has very high volume. It tastes excellent. It's very easy to use. It's high in protein. It's 290 calories for a 7-ounce serving, which is very modest. And it has antioxidants. So we think there's a lot of interest in it. How well it will actually do in the marketplace, we do not know yet. But if successful, it could be millions and millions of dollars in business.
spk03: But how are you going to pull it through? Are you going to be advertising a lot? How are you going to get awareness?
spk04: On a convenience store item like this, it's totally impulse. But we do already have quite a recognition. But it's an impulse item.
spk03: Okay. So the people that come in to buy that, do they microwave it there or do they take it home and microwave it?
spk04: They have a choice. We have two different types of customers. They're going to microwave it in the store, put it out on a hot counter, ready to grab and go, like breakfast or sandwiches, a burger. So now you're going to get an alternative to a burger for a high. So that's very effective. Since he's there, the volume is through the roof. The other thing is that it's behind the counter, and you water it, and they microwave it for a couple minutes, and they have the product ready to go. And the third one is you take it home or you microwave it in the store. Take it home and microwave it in the store.
spk03: Have you had any test runs, any beta sites of it all with the product? No, no, no.
spk04: Okay, because we don't know yet. Okay, so in other words, this is a beta site. We are limiting our whole team based on the interest. We'd like to go out to several prospects who have interest, and we're limiting it because in case we have to tweak it or have issues.
spk03: Right, you've got to test it first.
spk04: Right. The whole marketplace. We do know the packaging is very attractive. We're very happy with that. We'll probably be posting that on a press release soon once we have the actual product.
spk03: So when do you think this will occur? When do you think you'll have it at the site to test or whatever you're going to do? Hopefully in the month of January. Month of January. Okay. All right. Well, good luck, and keep up the hard work, and I hope you're feeling okay. All right? Thank you. All right. Thank you.
spk06: This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Carl Wolf for any closing remarks.
spk04: I want to thank everyone for participating in this conference call, and we want to let you know that once... COVID restrictions decline, we will actively participate in investor shows and conferences. We look forward to continuing updates on our progress. Thank you.
spk06: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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