Organigram Holdings Inc.

Good morning. My name is Rob and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Organigram Holdings third quarter fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, just press the star 1. Thank you. Craig McPhail, you may begin your conference.

Good morning and welcome to Organigram Holding's earnings conference call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and a replay will be available on Organigram's website. Further, reference will be made to certain non-IFRS measures during this call. including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted gross margin. These measures do not have any standardized meaning under IFRS. Our approach to calculating these measures may differ from other issuers, so these measures may not be directly comparable. As such, these non-IFRS measures are intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. Please see today's earnings report for more information about these measures. Listeners should also be aware that in making certain statements relating to market share data, the company relies on reputable third-party data providers. I would now like to introduce Bina Goldenberg, Chief Executive Officer of Organigram Holdings, Inc. Please go ahead, Ms. Goldenberg.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. With me is Derek West, our Chief Financial Officer. For today's call, we'll discuss the financial results for the three months ended May 31, 2022. and I will provide a general business update. We will then open the call for questions. In the third quarter of fiscal 2022, we achieved our fourth consecutive quarter of record year-over-year revenue growth. This progress speaks to our ability to build enduring, recognizable brands and innovate to create consumer demand in multiple segments of the cannabis market. As well as top-line growth, we continue to secure a growing share of the market. According to high-fire data as of July 5th, in the third quarter, we held the number three position in the Canadian recreational market with a 7.8% share, up from 7% in Q4 of fiscal 21. We saw further momentum in June with an 8.5% share, with only 50 basis points separating the top three Canadian LPs in June. We are confident that our consumer-focused strategy will enable us to continue to vie for market leadership. Our Shred Milk flour products are the top sellers in Canada, with Funkmaster, Tropic Thunder, and Narbury holding the number one, two, and three positions. We also hold the number three position in the gummies category in terms of sales, and are number two in terms of volume sold. This includes Shredum's Gummies and Bonjour, our large format CBD infused soft chews, both benefiting from new product introductions. Edison Jolt, our unique high potency THC lozenge, maintains its position as the top skew in the capsules and mints category. In the third quarter, we added two new flavors to the Jolt lineup, Electric Lemon and Arctic Cherry, and both quickly took top 10 positions in the category. According to Brightfield Research, a survey of over 3,000 cannabis users conducted in calendar Q1 of 2022, our three largest brands, Edison, Shred, and Big Bag of Buds, all have net promoter scores of over 80, which shows that when Organigram builds brands, we build ones that resonate and win with consumers. The key to our growth strategy is to introduce new products to our lineup based on consumer insights and leveraging our brands. In the last quarter, we extended the Shred brand with products in the flour, vape, and derivative segments. ShredX KEEP infused blend was launched in March. This product combines KEEP with Shred milk flour and is now available in seven provinces. ShredX Vape are 510 cartridges that were also introduced early in the quarter and were well received. With this launch, we have made gains in the vape segment, moving to the number 12 position in the category from number 22 back in January. Shred Dankmeister XL Bong Blend, a unique grind of shred milled flour designed for bong and pipe users, was launched very recently in Ontario. Initial consumer reaction has been positive, and we plan to roll it out to all provinces. We also added two sour and three pop flavor extensions to the shred and gummy line, which has helped contribute to our overall third market position in that segment. Now, our Edison brand has had additions in flour and derivatives. Besides Edison Joltz mentioned previously, the cherry limelight strain was introduced through our in-house genetics program and made available in flour and in live resin-packed cartridges. In May, we also added a novel product to our Bonjour Wellness brand. CBN Bedtime Blueberry Lemon Soft Chews combines the cannabinoid CBN, which is reported to have sedative properties, with CBD and THC in a lemon blueberry flavor. Moving on to our international business, in Q3, we made $1.3 million worth of shipments to Canitrec and MedCan in Australia. Subsequent to quarter end, we made another shipment to Canatrack worth $1.8 million. And this month, we made a shipment to CanDoc in Israel worth $3.3 million. We expect to make further international shipments in fiscal 2022 and are working on potential opportunities to expand supply arrangements into Europe, leveraging our capacity from the expansion at Moncton. Now let's look at operations. We are finalizing the 4C expansion at our Moncton Cultivation Center, which is substantially complete, and already 20 of 29 cultivation rooms are online, with the remaining rooms expected to put in use next month. With harvests from the initial rooms filled back in May, the first harvest will occur this month. Once complete, the total annual capacity at Moncton is estimated to be 82,000 kilograms. Environmental enhancements are currently in place in about 66% of the facility and should be fully implemented by Q1 of fiscal 2023. These will further enhance yields and flower quality based on results obtained from cultivation rooms already benefiting from these upgrades. As a result of our continuous improvement, yield per plant was 132 grams in Q3 compared to 117 grams in Q3 of last year. and we are targeting 150 grams once the enhancements are complete. In Winnipeg, during Q3, we installed and commissioned our packaging and excise stamp automation and are now averaging 4,000 packaging units per hour. This improved throughput will drive improved margins and support our increasing GONI demand. We are also making progress with the LAC Superior facility acquired in December. It currently has 6,800 square feet of cultivation area, which is being expanded to 33,000 square feet. This expansion, expected to be completed by the end of the calendar year, will increase the annual capacity to 2,400 kilograms of flower from the current 600 kilograms and 2 million package units of hash from the current 1 million. We have committed $13 million towards the expansion in order to support increased hash and craft flower demand from the facility. In Q3, we expanded distribution of Trompe en Hache to five provinces, achieving full distribution across the country. In addition to being the top hash SKU in Quebec, we have the number one SKU in PEI in New Brunswick in the latest 13 weeks, the number two SKU in Ontario, while approaching top five in BC, Alberta, and Nova Scotia. We also launched Laurentian Craft Flour into Ontario. The Biolab construction at the Centre of Excellence was completed in the quarter, and advanced plant science research and consumer-focused research on CBD and other cannabinoid edibles have commenced. This research, part of the product development collaboration agreement with BAT, will enable us to continue to produce unique, exciting products for Canadian consumers and create proprietary IP that we can introduce globally. I will now turn it over to Derek to present the financial overview.

Thanks, Vida. Turning to our earnings results for Q3 fiscal 2022. Gross revenue grew 90% from Q3 2021 to $55.2 million, and net revenue grew 88% from the same period in fiscal 2021 to $38.1 million. These revenue increases were primarily due to higher recreational net revenue, which grew 105% from Q3 of the prior year. The cost of sales in Q3 fiscal 22 was $29 million compared to $23 million in Q3 of fiscal 21. The cost of sales increased as a consequence of the large increase in revenue in the period. We harvested approximately 13,000 kilos of flour during Q3 fiscal 2022, compared to about 8,400 kilograms in the prior year's comparison period, an increase of 57%. The key drivers for this increase from the prior year was yield for plant improvements and higher cultivation planning levels. On an adjusted basis, gross margin was $9.3 million, or 24%, compared to a negative 4% in Q3 of fiscal 2021. The improvement was primarily due to the higher overall sales volume combined with a lower cost of production. SGMA, excluding non-cash share-based compensation, increased to $17.5 million in Q3 2022 from $12.3 million in the prior year's comparison quarter. This was largely due to the increased employee headcount related to the acquisitions of EIC and Laurentian, and increased technology fees, including $1.4 million in ERP installation costs. In the quarter, we achieved a positive adjusted EBITDA of $583,000 compared to a negative $9.2 million in Q3 2021. The large improvement in EBITDA was a consequence of the higher sales and margins somewhat offset by an increase in SGA expenses. Based on our outlook for revenues, including growth from the Canadian recreational market and international sales, and reduced cost of production from efficiency gains, we expect to increase adjusted EBITDA on Q4 fiscal 2022. Net loss, which includes deductions for non-cash depreciation, was $2.8 million in Q3 of fiscal 2022, a reduction from the prior year comparison period's loss of $4 million. Net cash from operating activities was negative $6.4 million compared to $10.8 million in the prior year's comparison quarter, a reduction of $4.4 million. The current quarter saw an increase in both production and sales, which together increased the level of receivables and inventories, and this resulted in a cash outflow, despite Organigram achieving their second consecutive quarter with a positive adjusted EBITDA. Cash provided from investment activities for the three months ended May 31, 2022 was $52 million compared to cash used at $154 million in the previous year. The cash provided in Q3 was primarily due to a $68 million redemption of short-term investments offset by $17 million in capital expenditures. In terms of our balance sheet, At May 31st, 2022, we had $127 million in unrestricted cash and short-term investments compared to $184 million at the end of fiscal 2021. The decrease during fiscal 2022 is due to the company's investment in its working capital assets to support the growth and capital expenditures for facility improvements, which includes the purchase of the mansion and the additional investment in Hyacinth. This concludes my comments. I would like to turn the call back to Beena.

Thanks, Derek. To summarize, fiscal 2022 has demonstrated our success as a consumer-focused innovator. We are seeing a positive impact from consumer engagement, expanded distribution, and market share. With our increased cultivation capacity, economies of scale from Phase 4c expansion, and our investment in automation at all three manufacturing locations, We expect continual improvement in our bottom line. Thank you for joining us today. I look forward to updating you on our progress. And now, operator, you may open the call for questions.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Rupesh Parikh from Oppenheimer & Company. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So the area I want to touch on is international. So strong results this quarter, commentary very positive on quarter to date, what you're seeing there. If you could just remind us of the bigger opportunities you see on the international front going forward, and then how to think about the margin profile of your international revenue versus the rest of the business.

Certainly, and thanks for your question. So to start with, you know that international business is going to just have Higher margin because it doesn't have the excise tax that you have on the recreational business. So that right away, that extra impact, that just flows right through your business. So it's a strong margin. It is an important piece of our business. And we'll continue to explore further opportunities. As we mentioned in the last quarter and probably the last couple of quarters, We had been really tight on our supply. Our demand was outstripping our supply. And as a result, obviously, we built the expansion to the Moncton facility. With the expansion coming fully online, we're able to turn our focus to expand our customer base outside of our current customers. We obviously have a very strong partnership with CanDoc in Israel, Canatrack in Australia. We added one more customer this quarter with MedCan in Australia. And so we'll continue to look at other opportunities. As everyone knows, Europe is starting to look very promising with legalization comments coming from several countries. And, you know, with our excess capacity, we'll be able to capitalize on some of those opportunities.

Great. Thank you. I'll pass it along.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Partenu from Stiefel GMP. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Good morning. Good morning. I just wanted to touch on your gross margin profile in the quarter. You had a pretty impressive revenue growth here, strong rec sales, but it seems the gross margin declined quarter over quarter. Trying to unpack that and if you give some more color on the puts and takes there.

Certainly, Derek, this one is yours.

Thank you. Yes, there was a decline in the current quarter in terms of the adjusted gross margin at 24% as compared to 26%. But I guess a couple factors here, and also as a reminder, in Q1 of this year, we were at 18%. So the general trending has been positive. As Bina outlined, because of the excise tax, we look at our current quarter sheet and the excise tax is 31%. That's the weighted average for the company, but it is heavier on the flower categories for us than it is for the mix. So we end up paying more than 31% on average on our recreational flower in Canada. When we do the flower shipments on the international, we don't have that cost, and so that is a meaningful improvement to our margin. And if we had had the shipment that we get expected to occur during the quarter, we would have seen sequential growth in both our adjusted gross margin and our adjusted EBITDA. The shipment was made.

It was just delayed and occurred in early July. Okay, thank you. There was one more.

Yeah, there's one more factor as well. We have had a declining cost of production on an overall basis. But during Q3, we were also completing much of the environmental enhancements at the facility. And when we're completing that construction activity with those environmental enhancements, there is a bit of downtime. And so there was perhaps a bit of a delay on utilizing all of the ultimate savings that we do think will be realized on our overall cost of operating, our cost of production, which we'll start to see once we get into the fiscal 2023, once all the rooms are up and running at the new capacity. And we will see continuous improvements to our cost of production, which will improve our margins in Canada on all our REC flour. But even with that said, the international, without the excise tax, will likely always have higher margins than the Canadian REC businesses.

Okay, thank you for that. And a segue about the 4C expansion, you mentioned 20 out of 29 rooms are online right now. First harvest is coming very soon here. Could you talk a little bit about what you expect 4C to be incrementally accretive on margin you know, how high could we go with 4C? And you talked just now about, you know, this really being a big impact in fiscal 23. Could we start to see those impacts in Q4, or is this really only going to start seeing on the income statement in Q1? I'll take that, Pina.

Yes.

We are going to start to realize on that during Q4. And as a consequence, we just have more flower output. There is, you know, we are spreading out some fixed costs and putting non-cast appreciation over a larger segment of business, which will lower basically our cost of production for the flower categories. And it is just that even if you had meaningful improvements, in your cost reductions during Q4, much of those costs build into your inventory. It doesn't necessarily flow right away to the sale to your income statement. So that's sometimes why we point to Q1 of next year because it's really the inventory that you're producing in late Q4 that ends up being sold in Q1 of the next year. But the cost saving realization will be occurring in Q4 at a partial level because we are again planting in booms as we move along and opening the room. So Q4 will in and of itself be a transitional quarter. In terms of capacity, as Bina outlined earlier, we are essentially moving from 45,000 at the start of the year kilos in annual capacity of flower coming into Q3, we're approximately around 55,000 in annualized capacity. We're leaving fiscal 22 with approximately 82,000 of flower capacity once all the rooms are planted. We do believe we have upside to the 82,000 number if we hit the targeted yield that Typhina had referenced earlier in her remarks.

Is it possible to to perhaps quantify uh the drag that that 4c has had on on the gross margin um thus far you know what kind of that could that could maybe allude to a kind of pickup um once you know that expansion contributes well i would say that uh a large portion or 25 of our costs are essentially non-cash depreciation related the rest are

operating cash costs, and of that, a portion of it is fixed. So just taking your operational capacity from, say, the 55,000 kilos that we had on average in the quarter up to an 82,000 and not having to add significantly at all to the fixed cost component, it is going to have a meaningful, positive impact to our cost of production once we are operating at that level on a sustained basis, which will improve the margins in our flower categories. But our margins are positive in all our flower categories, and now we're just looking, of course, to improve them, and we feel that we will. And that's why we've given the guidance that we expect to have improvements to the margins in the future, quote-unquote, and onwards, along with the other dots. as we continue to realize the savings just from the economies of scale. But in addition to that, we think we can get more cost reductions from improvements to flowery yields. And ultimately, there's margin improvements that can come from mix within grants and provincial allocations. But that's not part of the cost structure element.

Thank you for that. I'll get back in the queue.

Your next question comes from the line of Aaron Gray from Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning, Anna. Thank you for the question. So first question for me, I had some real nice momentum on the top line, especially regarding adult use sales. Definitely outpaced what we saw in terms of the high-fire data. So just wanted to know in terms of whether or not there was some selling to potential buyers, and there might be some type of shifting that to go through the POS or maybe some lighter coming into the next quarter, particularly in terms of the adult use flow, which you can see the large sequential increase. So just to talk about some of the sell-in to provincial buyers and if there's any time in that one on there. Thank you.

Certainly. At this point, the provinces are pretty tight in terms of how much inventory they're going to take. They're not really interested in carrying heavy sell-in volumes like we've seen in the past. So in most cases, you're working off of two weeks of inventory. I don't believe we have the sell-in inventory. We actually are seeing the flow-through, and that's what you're getting with the high-fire data, really strong velocities in our business. I mean, we have some of the strongest sales per SKU in the market. Really, the offtake numbers that we're getting through iFire just shows that this is growing with our revenue. And so I really don't believe we have any of this selling. As a matter of fact, we've had some of our strongest recorded weekly sales numbers in this quarter already. So this is momentum behind our brands. I said in the previous calls, we had, because of limited available flour, we had limited how many markets we were selling our shred product. Back in last quarter, we were predominantly selling shred into only Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec. We've had a chance to start expanding that distribution into some of the further provinces and are now selling shred in all of our provinces. We know it has great performance because we've seen it in the markets we were already in. So we're very excited with the momentum we have. This provincial mix will help us on our margins because we know Ontario is the most compressed margin province. And it's just great for the brand to be able to be coast to coast. We had limited ability to do that in the past. So this increased momentum is about new distribution. It's about distribution on some new innovation that we're focusing on. But we're seeing the off tank.

All right, fantastic. Thanks for that, Collin. Second question for me, just on overall the pricing environment. I know there's a lot of operators that talk about some stabilization in terms of pricing of flour and certainly seeing less pricing pressure for flour versus other categories, but you're still seeing some of it. So I wanted to get your feel in terms of continued pricing pressure for the flour category going forward. And obviously, you guys are doing very well in terms of you know, market share gains, you know, are at least holding or gaining regardless, but your overall take in terms of continued price of pressure for the flower category. Thank you.

Yes, certainly. So, you know, we are the number one flower provider in the country. So it's a very important segment of our business. We've looked at this Specifically, our average selling price over the course of, you know, from Q3 of last year to each quarter of this year. And there was a decline between last year and the start of this year. We mentioned that in Q1, sorry, in Q3 of fiscal 21, average selling price was $2.12 and this quarter was $1.88 per gram. But when we look back at Q1, Q2, and Q3 of fiscal year 2022, on average, we've been sitting in that $1.80 to $1.90 average selling price. Obviously, there's some mix based on which brands you're selling, which provinces you're selling. But from our perspective, the cost compression in flour happened over the last couple of years and has stabilized. And that's not surprising because we've said You know, you have to get pricing in line with the illicit market to have that movement of consumers from illicit into legal, but we've reached that point. So this is kind of where I believe the pricing, especially in the value segment, needed to get, and we're not seeing further pricing compression in that flower segment.

Okay, great. Thanks for the call, and I'll pass them on.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ty Collin from A Capital. Your line is open.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Given the turmoil we're seeing in the cannabis retail landscape right now, I'm curious whether you're seeing any changes in how retailers are ordering and whether there are any risks or opportunities to think about given the challenges downstream.

Yes, so certainly I think you're pointing out to the fact that there is going to be some consolidation on the retail environment and we are seeing a certain amount of pricing deflation coming from the retail landscape as opposed to the LP landscape. My last comment was around the LP landscape in terms of average pricing sold in, but we're seeing in the actual data the impact of more value retailers out in the marketplace, some deflation, and it's going to lead to some obviously consolidation in the marketplace, especially in places where there is oversaturation. And many of us have seen that in key markets. So what do I think is going to happen? I mean, I think we're going to be in this situation where pricing, you know, it's going to push some of these, some of these mom and pop shops to either exit or they're going to get gobbled up by by retail chains. I think what we've seen in the last year is some of the regional chains becoming national, some of you know, the national chains getting stronger. And that's just part of the maturation of this industry. You know, I think at the end of the day, the bigger LPs are going to be able to build programs with the regional chains and national chains and get stronger performance than the kind of work that has to happen when you're dealing with a significant independent retail market. Now, this is going to happen over time. There's still a lot of independent shops now, and we have the greatest sales team out in the marketplace. They're out working with bud tenders and working with the independents But I think the benefit to the larger LPs is going to be establishing programs with the regional chains and with the national chains to really build out our business. They're going to want to deal with the vendors who could provide more than just one SKU or one segment, but the vendors who could provide a one-stop shop to them. And the nice thing about the Organigram portfolio is is that while we're very strong in flour, which is obviously the number one category, we've got strong presence in gummies. We're building our presence in vapes. We have very strong performance in concentrates coming from the acquisition of Laurentian back in December. And we're building out our extracts business. We have a great product in Jolt. So they're finding it easier to work with us because we could build programs around that POS in the stores that aren't just about one SKU. And I think that is an advantage to the larger LPs.

That's great, Collar. Thanks for that. And just for my follow-up, following up on a comment you made earlier in the call, you talked about the incremental international opportunities that might open up as the additional capacity from 4C comes online. I mean, are there any other new revenue opportunities to think about as that capacity opens up, maybe in white label and new product categories? I just appreciate any thoughts on that.

Yes, certainly. So as our capacity opens up, our primary goal will be to fill out some of the distribution gaps we currently have in Canada because we were We were really stealing from one pocket to the other as we were trying to balance the demand to what available capacity we had. So we're excited about having that so we could meet the needs and the demand of the Canadian consumer across the country. So that will be a priority of ours. But as we talked about and Derek talked about earlier, international business is good margin business and needs to be part of our mix. And we have a great relationship with some of our international partners in CanDoc and CanAttract. In terms of opportunities, look, if you look at how legalization talks are happening in Europe, especially Germany, as many of you are following, in the most cases, there is less capacity built to supply that market in Europe. There are some cultivation sites, but I think many of them shied off of building out heavy assets based on sort of learnings from the Canadian launch into legalization. And so we look at it as big opportunity to provide supply to some of those players in that market and recognize that we have enough volume that it could be a meaningful supply agreement, you know, as opposed to companies looking at buying, you know, whatever, 50 kgs once every three months. We'd be able to provide significant regular volumes. And so we'll be having those conversations, the supply agreements, because the one thing about international business you want to have is something a little bit more predictable that you guys could model. We certainly had less international volume this quarter than expected. And that really was all about just the timing issue on our Israel shipment, which has already been shipped out. But as a result of that, more business that is contracted supply agreements that could be a regular cadence and is predictable is where we want to get to on our international business.

Thanks for the questions and congrats on the quarter.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Bottomley from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for all the color here. I'm just curious on your assessment on where the industry is when we sort of look on the capacity side of things. You're one of the few LPs that is still adding incremental capacity on, and it served you very well. I think that Organigram is a good example of a company that hasn't over-allocated to its CapEx spend. with respect to the number of facilities, but we have seen some of your peers shutter even their flagship facilities. I'm just curious on where you think the industry is with the ability to continue to service sort of vertically integrated supply versus leveraging wholesale channels to eventually build brands where you don't necessarily need 100% of your own biomass.

Right, so a good question, but a couple of points to be made on that. So the first thing is a lot of facilities were built that were perhaps not built in a way to produce the high-quality product that needs to come out. So you've heard Aurora talk about their sky facility and could only produce THC in the 16% to 18% range. That's not going to cut it anymore. What we've been seeing with this market, a couple of years ago, hitting THC of 20% was a target. A year ago, it was 22% was a target. Now 24% or higher is a target. That sort of THC range continues to move. And if you've built a facility like we have in Moncton, which is indoor grow so you can control the environment, so this is consistent all year round, you don't have differences between summer and winter, you could control the environment to drive a high-yield, dry, higher THC, I think that makes you more competitive in the long run. You could meet the needs of the consumer changes and continue to operate efficiently. I think some of the facilities that were shuttered just weren't designed in a way that they could do that. You know, we have, if not the largest, certainly one of the largest indoor growth facilities in the world, and we're very proud of what we have in Moncton's And we can do that. And as a result, you know, as the market shifts, we're optimizing our facilities. We talked about the environmental enhancements. It continues to drive our higher THC that is expected. So, you know, what do we think about internal growth versus using third parties? I think, look, some of the third party guys are going to have challenges with meeting those increasing THC expectations as any grower would, and some are going to be very good at doing it. But look, as capacity gets shut down across the country and gets more in line with the needs of the market growth, controlling your own supply means you get the benefit of the cost savings, whereas As capacity gets tighter, some of these third parties could increase the cost and you don't control your destiny. I think it's not a bad idea to have a portion of your business outsourced so that you always make sure you're benefiting from, you know, if there's a cheaper supply somewhere, you get the benefit of that. And it certainly would be something as we look forward to more international business. If we have to go out and certainly buy some product to continue to fulfill some of our value brands, we will. That's a luxury we have. But having your own cultivation where you control your cost and you control your quality, I think is a competitive advantage. And we get that from our tremendous facility. We have a mountain. And that's really what differentiates us.

Understood. I appreciate that. And then just one more for me, just pivoting now to maybe U.S. optionality and your thoughts on how to strategically position yourself for, I think, an eventual opening of that market. I think a lot of consensus out there, it's getting a little messier with respect to when that timing might actually be. But given some other Canadian LPs that have either bought existing businesses that might be THC adjacent or some of the options we've seen or financial instruments purchased, Do you feel the need to execute on something in addition to what you've already done with BAT in maybe the next year or two? Or is Organigram waiting to get a little more color on exactly when and if something might actually change south of the border?

So, good question. I mean, we talk about this obviously often. You know, our key goal originally was establish a strong foundation in our Canadian marketplaces. We feel we are there and we will continue to benefit from that strength. But it is time for us to look outside of the Canadian borders. Whether the U.S. is going to be a primary goal or whether Europe is more interesting, perhaps legalization will happen sooner there than it happens in the States. I have said previously you know, we want to be a pure play cannabis company, so we're not going to be looking at, you know, adjacencies. And I'm not sure I believe in the whole optionality because, you know, it's legalization unpredictable. You don't know what you're buying into right now. So I would say that, you know, we would continue to look at the U.S. at ways to establish a presence there where we can. So obviously CBD has been something that several of our clients competitors have gone into and something that's open to us with our current listings. But it has to be the right fit and I think really we'll look at where it makes sense. What we have been known for at Organigram is prudent in terms of our approach, looking at the opportunities, making sure they're the right ones for our business. But expansion is outside of the Canadian Borders is important for us in the long term.

Okay, thanks again. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Federico Gomez from ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just to start off, are you seeing any significant impact of inflation in your supply chain? And if so, you know, How do you view your capacity to pass on some of these potential inflationary costs to your customers, just given the price and pressure that we're still seeing across the industry? Thank you.

Yes, thank you for the question. Look, there's no question we're seeing inflationary costs. Obviously, freight is going up, and we're obviously shipping products from Moncton across the country. On the freight side, one of the things we have done this year to offset that inflationary cost is leverage our Winnipeg facility. We have a warehouse in Winnipeg, and we are bringing product across from Moncton, cross-docking to pick up our gummies as we ship to Alberta and BC, and we're supplying the Manitoba orders straight out of Winnipeg. So we have some productivity initiatives that are offsetting the inflation costs on freight, maybe not completely flowing to the bottom line, but certainly more than offsetting them. In the case of procurement on consumables, this is something that we have put a lot of focus on this past year. As we grow bigger, you're able to leverage your volume. We have worked on RFPs with some of our key suppliers and have been able to offset those increasing inflationary costs with you know, better negotiations, working directly with suppliers rather than going through distributors. Now, you know, these initiatives that we've done in a lot of ways we had hoped would drive right to the bottom line, and some of them are being offset in part due to inflationary pressures. But I think we have more opportunities. We have a lot more productivity initiatives on our plate. And so at this point, I don't see that any kind of pricing increase is going to come through in the cannabis space. I'd love to see pricing, but the truth is, you know, right now is the time for us to stay the course. We're making positive margin, and I think it's going to be a bumpy ride for some of our competitors over the next couple of, maybe the next year or so, and We're going to stay the course, make sure that we are driving improved margins, and hopefully there will be some consolidation in the space, some players exiting, and the long-term prospects of the industry will get more profitable.

Thanks for the call. Maybe just a comment on your market share in edibles right now. It seems like it's increasing pretty rapidly. So where is that fast growth coming from? And would you expect that to continue so that you could potentially take on a leadership position there? Thank you.

Yes. So look, we have a new product called Every Quarter with the OCS. Obviously, they're the largest provincial board. We have been very successful in getting our innovation in. And so with each product call, we're able to look at our lineup, make sure we have an optimized lineup in each province. We have these relationships, top to tops, with other provinces as well, with Alberta, with BC in this last quarter. We've had some conversations there. And we've equally, with the acquisition of Laurentian, have been able to build that relationship with SQDC as well and have seen some planned increases in our planograms. And so some of this market share growth is simply increasing our distribution on some core items and the success of launching new products. And I just want to bring your attention to the fact that a quarter ago we said we had 90 products in market, and this quarter we said 85. So the message here is while we're launching a lot of products, we're not just leaving products that aren't performing out in the marketplace. We continue to optimize our lineup. We have one of the largest sales per SKU in the different provinces, and that makes the provinces want to work for us. They're efficient SKUs. Innovation is key in this category. We've put a lot of focus on innovation and continue to do that and have a lot more plans as we go forward. But I believe it's that the success rate we're having, other LPs might present 10 new SKUs and get two. We present 10 and get 9 or 10 of them in the market because we have strong relationships with our customers. We're hearing what they're looking for in terms of innovation, what gaps they have in their offering, and we have a great R&D team working on developing these products. And, you know, our cycle time from ideation to market is quite spectacular.

Thanks, Nina. Congrats for the quarter again. I hope I can thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Tammy Chen from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thanks. I just have a couple quick follow-ups here. First is, I thought I saw recently that Israel might have halted imports because two of the distributors didn't have the right permits or something like that. Do you know anything about that? Could that be a bit of a disruption for your Israel shipments for the next little bit?

So let me answer that by saying, look, the IMC in Israel has got ongoing support audit requirements. They keep changing and you have to be able to change with them. I have to say part of the delay in our international shipment was us needing to make sure we met all those audit requirements before we got that shipment out. So it is an ongoing thing that we pay a lot of attention to. We obviously have already shipped another Israeli shipment this quarter. It's not an interruption, but some of these regulatory changes do drive some delays that are a little bit unpredictable. We have a great partner in CANDOC. We're staying on top of these changes and continue to work with them to make sure that we meet everything that needs to be met.

Got it. Okay. I wanted to ask if you could elaborate a bit on this language you had in your, for your Cisco Q4 outlook that one of the drivers for sequential growth, you highlighted stronger forecasted market growth. And I just curious if you could elaborate on that, what you're seeing, is it more just seasonality? This is kind of more busy period of the year. That's what you're talking about, or are you seeing some more fundamental green shoots with respect to the growth trajectory of the market?

Yeah, so I think it's two things. There's certainly seasonality in the business as you get into the summer months, typically anyway. I think, you know, the last two years with COVID has probably restricted some of that growth. So there is going to be, we predict, rebound from some of the COVID restrictions and gatherings to see some incremental growth. So we think that's what's really going to buoy the market over this summer period. And so while there is increased growth from some additional retail stores, I think really the bulk of that comment was about seasonality and coming off what was a restricted period a year ago.

Got it. Okay. And if I could just squeeze in one last follow-up here. Your comment about the price competition that the retailers are now dealing with, it's not going back to the LPs. You said you feel and what you're seeing is not really further compression, especially on the flower side for the LP. So, like, can you just comment on that so you're not worried that with these new value strategies that some of these retail chains are doing, You're not concerned that it might ultimately flow back to the pricing that you're going to get?

Thanks. That's a good question, Tammy. And the reality is, look, I'd like to believe it's not going to flow back. I think we've already taken such a significant price compression on the LP side that it's going to be tough for any LP to be able to go any lower than what we've been supplying um given the profitability in the industry i think the retailers are now again they're going through a bit of a hyper competitive market and and there is some rationalization that's going to come and and it really isn't an lp issue it's their own decision on how they want to price their products um will some of it blow back look we we hopefully we will be able to provide them um some opportunities from um efficiency, you know, one-stop shop, you know, right kind of programs, education to their bud tenders and the like that helps from our end without making a move on our selling price. You know, we have strong presence right now in the value segment and it's, you know, this is about where you're going to go. You're not going to take I said earlier, we're not going to look at taking price increase, but certainly we wouldn't be very excited about pressure on price decreasing. This is a business that has to be sustainable. You have to be able to make margin on what you're selling. We have decent margin on our value brands, which allows us to compete in that segment. Obviously, better margins with some of the derivatives and in our Edison and more premium flower offerings. But, you know, it's a wait and see. I can't say what they're going to do. I do know that it is our, you know, we're not looking to take pricing for inflation, but we're certainly going to push back on further price compression given the marketplace. Got it. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Bond from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Andrew on the line for Owen Bennett. Thank you for taking our questions. So really detailed call so far, so most of our questions have already been answered, but maybe for you being an overall consumer strategy more generally. With continued market share gains and achieving top share positions in a number of categories, really mostly via organic growth, Obviously, it's a number of things coming together strategically that has helped lead to this, but just wanted to hear from you what one or two things specifically you think has been really key to Organigram's success in continuing to grow sales and market share while larger competitors have failed to do so.

Yes, certainly. So back to my consumer days, consumer packaged goods, the key to driving a business is consistent, consistently delivering the quality of products that you you put out in the marketplace. So you're meeting the consumer expectation. What we have shown with our shred brand in particular, is that we and we've talked to consumers, they say that every time they pick up, you know, a shred tropics under they get the same experience. It's great quality product, fresh product. So you know, you know, the challenge of being hand to mouth in our, you know, was that as we were harvesting, we were processing and shipping out immediately, our consumers were getting great quality, great fresh product. And, you know, we heard comments like, you know, even though the THC on our shred only says 20%, it gives them a greater experience than some of the products that they're buying that have higher THC. And that's just about being a consistent delivery. And I think that has helped that brand considerably. You know, we spend a lot of money on research to understand our consumers, to understand what they want from our brands. We've built out a portfolio of brands to meet their needs. Our innovation platform is based on that consumer insight. And so, you know, again, this is you know not uh unfamiliar territory in consumer packaged goods it's about understanding your consumer it's building your brand delivering consistent quality um and you're going to continue to build that brand a couple of years ago people said you know brands don't mean anything in cannabis and and they did it right i mean it was a new industry and brands take a long time to build and to build awareness and we are further challenged in this space because We could only talk to our consumers either online or in the retail stores. So it's challenging. But we're seeing our brands building. And I talked about our net promoter scores on our three key brands. We're watching awareness. We're watching our net promoter scores because when consumers are going to try something and they believe in the brand and they've had a good experience, they're going to come to that brand first. So it's baby steps, but brand building takes time, and we're excited about what we're doing. We're excited about the results that we're seeing. And when we talk to our consumers, they're reiterating that they're very impressed with the quality and consistency of our product.

That's great insight. Thank you, Bina. I'll pass it on. Your next question comes from the line of Douglas Ming from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thank you and good morning. Yeah, I'll just keep this short. With respect to the international market that you've commented on a couple times now, I'm just wondering before you go into other countries, are there any regulatory hurdles specific to your company that you need to address? And then as you look out into 23 and 24, how much of your new capacity, but looking at it from an aggregate perspective, would you hope to come from the international marketplace?

Okay, so on the first part of your question about regulatory, look, every country is going to have different regulation requirements. I mean, that has become clear. We have to do different things for our Australia partners and our Israel partners, and I don't expect anything different. from any new partners. We'll understand the regulations. We keep abreast of it. We have a great regulatory team that helps us understand what needs to be done. Again, we have the GACP certification out of our Moncton facility. We have the CUMCS certification. You know, we'll explore opportunities in Europe. If we need to be EUGMP out of our GUMMI facility, it's something that we're exploring. It was built to be converted to EUGMP, and, you know, if there's a business case, we'll do that. So great opportunities to continue to grow the business, but there's no question. There will be further regulations that we have to look at, and we feel we are nicely set up to deliver against those. In terms of your second part of your question, what percentage of our business down the road are we expecting to be international? Derek mentioned earlier that we expect to have an annual capacity of 82,000 kgs. Obviously, we will want to supply out of our facility and leverage all of our cultivation first. And so, you know, what is the demand out of our REC market, and then what is the opportunity we have to leverage into the international market? I would say that, you know, given the profitability of the international business, if there are opportunities that we could buy from third-party, other third-party cultivators at a good price, and we could redirect some of our higher-quality flower to international markets will do that but this is going to be one of those that you know the first priority is use what we grow and then you know if we have more opportunities you know find the opportunistic you know a lot of a lot of the our competitors that are talking about being asset light and not owning their own facilities they're taking advantage of where they could buy flour at lower cost we'll be in a great position to take advantage of that if the market is available and and take advantage of that by shipping some of our great quality product to other markets. But, you know, if the supply dries up, we know we have ability to supply out of our own site.

Okay, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Freeman from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Good morning, Bina. Good morning, Derek. And congratulations on the spectacular 2022 so far. And thanks for entertaining this marathon analyst question. I wanted to quickly touch on Laurentian. I wonder if you could give us a picture of its contributions to overall revenue and also how the capacity build-out is going there.

Right, so let me start with the capacity build-out. You know, as I'm sure many people have experienced, probably the build-out is a little bit slower than we anticipated given the challenges with supply chain over the course of the last couple of months. We still believe we'll have our expansion complete and online by the end of the calendar year, but I will say it's been a little bit more extracted in terms of the timeline because of those challenges. Laurentian has been strong for us in some ways. We obviously, as I mentioned earlier, increased the distribution of our Tremblay hash across the country and are seeing great performance of that SKU in all the different markets that we enter into. We had a significant innovation platform developed for Laurentian to build off of our core Tremblay hash SKU. There have been some delays in getting that innovation out to market because, in particular, the SQDC has delayed their planogram changes. we are sort of delayed a little bit in taking advantage of that innovation. But we expect Laurentian will deliver long-term based on our acquisition goals to deliver the revenue that we expected as well as the margins down the road. So it is a little bit of a delay from where we had hoped we would be in terms of the innovation, but we accelerated the distribution. So we got into the new provinces faster. So, one offset the other to a certain degree, but long-term innovation on top of this greater distribution should be a big benefit for us from that acquisition.

Okay. That's very helpful, Bina. Thank you. Maybe for Derek, we saw quarter-over-quarter SDNA escalate. Part of the reason you talked about increased headcount and the installation of the ERP system. if you could give us an idea of what we should expect for SG&A in the future, in the next few quarters.

I would say, obviously, the SG&A did increase as a consequence of ramping up in Winnipeg and the acquisition of Laurentian. So it's not just the headcount, but the overall operation of those facilities has a G&A element to it, which impacted the quarter. As well, we have the commencement of ERP classes that will run for the next six quarters at a minimum. I would indicate that there was nothing abnormal in the quarter on our SG&A. It just reflects mostly where we are as a business today to support the growth that we've already seen in our sales. Some other costs come early as you bring in the necessary staffing infrastructure in order to deliver at all levels organizationally and the sales and margins generally follow. So I would almost say it's a leading indicator as much as anything. So I would not say that there's anything abnormal, positive or negative in the quarter. that would result in, you know, a meaningful immediate change. And having said that, and going back to Bina's comments on inflation, there is, of course, an inflationary element that will come into play for us and our companies, frankly, that would have to also be considered. But again, nothing abnormal in the current quarter. So if you're just looking at the near term run rate, but overall, of course, we will be impacted like others with inflation.

Thank you very much. And if you'd entertain just one more. I wonder if you are satisfied with the innovation coming from within Organigram and your ability to address consumer data in all segments in Canada, or if you would be looking to add some capabilities inorganically within Canada in the next year or two.

So I would say to answer that question, we're very happy with the innovation work that's happening within our facility. We have the Center of Excellence built out. We have our own Organigram R&D team, as well as the project development collaboration with BAT. And the teams are working together. We're taking advantage of some of the learnings and applying it to some of the innovation projects. we have a full pipeline of new products based on, you know, customers are telling us they're looking for. So I feel pretty confident that we could deliver against that innovation platform with our current operations and R&D teams. So I think – so thank you for your question, but I think we are now over time. Operator, I think it's time that we – close down the calls and I want to just again thank everybody for joining us today. It's been a pleasure. We're very excited about the performance of our business. We're looking forward to updating you on our progress moving forward. Have a good day.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.