12/19/2023

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

You may recue if you have further questions. Thank you. Match works. You may begin your conference.

speaker
Veena
Investor Relations Host

Thank you. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and the recording will be available on OrganiGram's website 24 hours after today's call. Listeners should be aware that today's call will include estimates and other forward-looking information from which the company's actual results could differ, so please review the cautionary language in our press release dated December 19, 2023 on various factors, assumptions, and risks that could cause our actual results to differ. Further, reference will be made to certain non-IFRS measures during this call, including adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, and adjusted gross margin, among others. These measures do not have any standardized meaning under IFRS and are intended to provide additional information and, as such, should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. Our approach to calculating these measures may differ from other issuers, so these measures may not be directly comparable. Please see today's earnings report for more information about these measures. Listeners should also be aware that the company relies on reputable third-party providers when making certain statements relating to market share data. Unless otherwise indicated, all references to market data are sourced from high fire in combination with data from weed crawler, provincial boards, retailers, and our internal sales figures. I will now introduce Bina Goldenberg, Chief Executive Officer of Organic Grain Holdings, Inc. Please go ahead, Ms. Goldenberg.

speaker
Bina Goldenberg
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. With me today is our Chief Commercial Officer, Tim Enberg, and Chief Strategy Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer, Paolo De Luca. By way of reminder, Paolo serves as the company's CFO for over two years, including calendars 2018 and 2019. I'd like to take a moment to thank Derek West for his contributions to Organigram in his time as our Chief Financial Officer. All of us at Organigram wish him the best of luck as he takes time to focus on his health and recovery following a recent surgery. Additionally, as you likely saw in our press release yesterday, we are pleased to announce the appointment of Greg Guyot as our new CFO as of January 8th, 2024. Greg joins us from FINA, where he held the positions of CFO and CEO. Previously, he was CFO at Greenspace Brands and held various senior finance positions at Kingset Capital and Sears Canada. We look forward to welcoming Greg to the team in January and would like to thank Paolo for stepping in as interim CFO in Derek's absence. We will now discuss Organigram's performance for Q4 and full year fiscal 2023. We are pleased with Organigram's progress throughout fiscal 2023, and I'm proud to say that we have continued to differentiate ourselves as Canada's leading pure play cannabis company. Despite a challenging regulatory and competitive landscape, which did contribute to a reduction in our bottom line during the second half of fiscal 2023, we have grown Organigram's market share through an unwavering focus on the consumer. our strong marketing and sales expertise, and of course, our keen focus on industry-leading innovation. As you may have heard, Organigram won the coveted Kind Magazine Innovation of the Year Award once again this year with our revolutionary Ripstrip hash. We previously won this award for our Joltz ingestible extract product. These awards are truly a testament to our strength in developing disruptive new products that are designed specifically to meet the needs of our consumers. As anyone in the industry will tell you, branding and marketing are challenging in the Canadian landscape due to regulations, and as a result, the consumer has been predominantly motivated by price and THC potency. This is one of the many difficulties that every LP in Canada faces. However, the engagement Organigram is seeing with its Shred brand stands out with a community of loyal consumers who affectionately refer to themselves as Shredheads. Shred is even in the final round for Adcan's Social Media Brand of the Year, an accomplishment we're very proud of. The success of this brand is owed to online and retail marketing and continued product innovation within the brand, including our revolutionary Ripstrip hash, whole flour-derived THC V gummies, and our continued success in milled flour, where we command over 50% of the market. Consumers are increasingly seeking quality, novel, and differentiated experiences, which Shred has built its reputation of consistently delivering. We've seen an impressive growth in several categories in fiscal 23 compared to the prior year. Ship sales in gummies have doubled, propelling Organigram to the number one position in this category during Q4, and a leading position in pure CBD gummies, achieving over 50% market share nationally. Earlier this year, we challenged the Health Canada determination stating that our JOLTS ingestible extracts, one of our higher margin products, were improperly classified and subsequently removed from the market. The company made an application for judicial review. The federal court granted the application and determined that there was a breach of procedural fairness by Health Canada. The matter was remitted back to Health Canada for redetermination. In the meantime, and pending the outcome of final redetermination, JOLTs, which are now a patented Organigram product as of September, are back in market. Earlier this year, we shifted our focus to growing our share of pre-roll category, as ready-to-consume cannabis products are rapidly gaining momentum with Canadian consumers. To achieve this, part of our 2023 CapEx plan included commissioning Cantos rolling and CME packaging machines, which together are capable of producing over 2.8 million pre-rolls per month. The response to our tube-style pre-rolls has been incredible. Consumers are impressed with everything from the aroma, packaging, and flavor, down to the rolling tightness and airflow of these joints. As a result, our pre-roll ship sales growth between 2022 and 2023 was 54%, bringing us from the number 10 market position in Q3 2023 to the number three market position in the category by the year end. The pre-roll category has seen 21.5% year-on-year growth. This growth has been driven primarily by two segments, infused pre-rolls, which grew 125%, and tube-style pre-rolls, which have grown 30%. Looking at the sales over the last three months, ending November 30th, Organigram had the second best sales per SKU of tube-style pre-rolls, indexing at nearly two times the market leader. And since launching IPRs in Q3, we have achieved the number four market position in the month of November. Now, we did absorb some order fulfillment challenges and cost inefficiencies during the ramp-up in the second half of 2023. due to a decision we made to accelerate the launch of these products to hit key seasonality. Given our clean balance sheet and cash position, we were able to make this competitive decision to increase penetration of the Shred brand into these key growth segments. We are already seeing improved fulfillment and throughput in our pre-roll production processes. Our aim is to continue to expand our pre-roll share while optimizing production to improve our margins in fiscal 2024. As we have said, consumer preferences are evolving, and we are beginning to see purchasing decisions that are driven more and more by preference for differentiated experiences. As the Canadian leader in innovation, we are extremely excited about our lineup of new products for 2024. Part of this lineup is supported by our first U.S. strategic investment into Phylos, conducted earlier this year. With exclusive access to Phylos' whole flower-derived THC-V, We plan to bring this novel cannabinoid to consumers in a variety of formats. It's important to note this is not synthetic THCV. Our THCV products will be enhanced by the natural entourage effect we see with other minor cannabinoids derived from extraction or included in flour with high enough concentrations. In 2024, Organigram customers will be able to experience whole flour-derived THCV in edible, vape, and flour formats. Our shred and THC-V gummy have been in market for only five months, and we are already our seventh most popular gummy out of a portfolio of 13 by the end of the year. The experience of THC-V is reported to be characteristically different from THC in that it has appetite-suppressing qualities and a more focused and energizing sensory experience. We anticipate that the introduction of THC-B in additional formats will help familiarize this novel cannabinoid for Canadian consumers. And according to Canatrack, a large consumption tracking study, THC-B awareness is already starting to build in Canada, which is very exciting. Beyond the benefit of THC-B, our investment in phylos has enabled us to begin the process of transitioning a portion of our facility to more advanced seed-based production through the completion of trials. Seed-based production is the preferred growth method in mature agricultural industries as it results in lower cost grow operations and more robust, stabilized genetics. OrganiGRAM intends to establish itself as a Canadian leader in seed-based cannabis production as we roll out this initiative. Our goal is to convert 30% of a garden to seed-based by the end of fiscal 2024, delivering significant cost savings to the organization. Another target area for Organigram in fiscal 2024 is growth in the vapes category. Organigram made a strategic investment in GreenTank in fiscal 2023 in exchange for 18 months of exclusivity for their revolutionary hardware. We are gearing up for launch of our whole flower-derived THC-V vape, as well as vapes outfitted with GreenTank's cutting-edge vaporization technology, which reduces clogging, improves flavor and performance, and which we believe will increase the perceived potency cost of our vapes compared to other products in the market. There is a tremendous opportunity for OrganiGram to excel in vapes. We intend to compete much more aggressively in this category in 2024. Part of OrganiGram's corporate DNA as a leader in innovation has been supported by BAT's $221 million investment into OrganiGram in 2021 and the resultant product development collaboration taking place in our Moncton facility. I'm pleased to say that we continue to make progress on fundamental science and formulations that will form the basis of our products moving forward. Our nanotechnology formulation is being studied in a clinical setting with pharmacokinetic studies underway, which will provide Organigram with the ability to make claims regarding the onset and half-life of these products. Other work streams are also underway to develop innovative technologies in the edible, vape, and beverage categories, in addition to new disruptive inhalation formats. BAT's support has been a critical differentiator for Organigram. We have observed other strategic investors in the space over the years deploy significant capital only to sit on the sidelines. Furthermore, many large strategic investors elected to opt out of providing further capital. On the other hand, we have seen our relationship with BAT evolve into something far more collaborative and complementary. This support was further demonstrated by BAT's recent follow-on investment of $124.6 million into Organigram, announced on November 6th. Approximately $83.1 million of this new investment is earmarked for Jupiter, a strategic investment pool managed by Organigram to increase its global footprint. while the remaining $41.5 million is allocated to general corporate purposes. This investment is a win for Organigram, its shareholders, and the industry in general, as we have shown that strategic capital is available to companies that show strong governance and disciplined capital stewardship. With no debt, capital for global expansion and general corporate purposes, as well as improving operational efficiencies, Organigram is positioned for long-term sustainable growth on the global cannabis stage. Now, I'd like to provide an update to the guidance we previously gave regarding our intention to achieve free cash flow by the end of calendar 2023. This timeline has been impacted by the acceleration of THC inflation in the Canadian marketplace and delays in international shipments that we believe would resume in Q4. Regarding THC inflation, we are still seeing an alarming level of fraudulent THC levels in flour products, supported by selective testing and lab shopping. Some milled flour products are now claiming over 30% THC, which we know is truly an unbelievable claim. Organigram continues to work with industry stakeholders to raise awareness of the THC inflation issue. and to advocate for the consumer by working to establish guidelines for THC testing that contribute to a fair and even playing field for licensed producers. We applaud both Health Canada for their cannabis data gathering program and the OCS for their recently announced temporary THC testing efforts to uncover THC fraud. And we look forward to seeing positive changes taking place in the market because of our joint efforts to address this growing concern. On the international front, OrganiGram had a record year, shipping $18.9 million in flour versus $15.1 million in 2022, an increase of 25%. However, in fiscal Q3, we experienced a slowdown in international exports due to newly enforced testing requirements in Israel. We believed historical export volumes would resume in Q4. However, we experienced delays relating to cultivar selection and shipping challenges. Our lower Q4 international sales did impact our margins, but we anticipate stronger demand for our products on the international stage as shipments to Australia and Israel are expected to resume in fiscal 2024. We will also begin building our export volumes to Europe as we sign two new supply agreements with Sanity Group in Germany and 4C Labs in the UK. The potential for distributing our exclusive THC-V cultivars abroad is also very exciting. Lastly, our EU GMP application for our Moncton facility has been submitted and we are expecting an audit process to begin in the new year. This is expected to shorten the turnaround time to get products in the hands of international medical patients while expanding opportunities to new markets. Beyond direct international sales, the creation of the Jupiter investment pool is expected to reward us with additional exposure to international markets. by providing us with a wider array of strategic investment opportunities in the U.S. and other legal jurisdictions. Operationally, in Moncton, fiscal 2023 was transformative. We harvested 87,000 kilograms, up from 54,000 kilograms in fiscal 2022, a 61% increase, and executed game-changing CapEx. We have invested in a variety of efficiency-improving and cost-cutting projects that will result in significant savings in fiscal 2024. To recap on some of these initiatives, we have internalized some of our testing requirements. We implemented remediation in-house. We commissioned rapid drying machines, which has decreased drying time from seven to 10 days to two days, while increasing the available footprint in our facility for hang-dried flour. We automated our shred packaging, which reduced head count. Our new Cantos pre-roll machine is producing tube-style pre-rolls at scale, and our new speed mixer has allowed us to infuse our milled cannabis for infused pre-rolls with distillate, diamonds, and botanical terpenes in a one-step process. With this $29 million 2023 CapEx spend behind us, we are now focusing on dialing in some of the newer processes we have put in place to drive further efficiencies. In fiscal 2023, we realized approximately $4.3 million in savings related to these initiatives. In fiscal 2024, these enhancements will deliver an additional $4.6 million. And the conversion of a portion of our garden to seed-based production, along with other initiatives, are estimated to realize an additional $5.3 million in savings to bring the total aggregate savings in fiscal 2024 to $10 million. At our hash and craft cannabis facility in Lac Superieur, we just completed our first harvest resulting from the expansion of the facility. The 30,000 square foot expansion is complete with four net new grow rooms, three drying rooms, a 5,000 square foot warehouse, and large packing area. We launched red rip strips, holy mountain and woola pressed hash, trombone black afghan hash, and high alpine hash in fiscal 2023. Our hash production earlier this year was about 100 to 150 kilograms of hash per month, up to a peak of 350 kilograms per month in Q4. Our focus at Lac Superior for fiscal 2024 will be on our continued performance in hash and optimizing our garden to produce high quality, high margin craft flower. And on that note, I'd like to turn the call over to Paolo to discuss our financial results for Q4 and fiscal 2024. Thank you, Veena.

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