RiceBran Technologies

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the RiceBrand Technologies First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Rob Fink. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, and welcome to the RiceBrand Technologies First Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. Hosting the call today are Peter Bradley, Executive Chairman, and Todd Mitchell, Rice Branch Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. I want to remind participants that during the call, management's prepared remarks may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Management may also make additional forward-looking statements in response to your question study. Therefore, the company claims protection under safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from the results discussed today, and therefore, we refer you to a more detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainty in the company's filings with the SEC. In addition, any projections as to the company's future performance represented by management's estimates as of today, April 28, 2022, and the company assumes no obligations to update these projections in the future as market conditions change. This webcast and certain financial information provided on the call, including reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures, are available at ricebrandstech.com on the investor relations page. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Peter. Peter, the call is yours.

Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon to everyone. During 2021, we successfully developed and began implementation of a strategy to put rice bran on a path to sustainable growth and profitability. This strategy shifted our focus to higher added value ingredients and takes advantage of our unique ability to utilize rice bran as healthy alternative traditional ingredients. We are aligned with secular healthy living catalysts and our domestic manufacturing capabilities make us increasingly attractive during a period of disruption to the global supply chain. You have begun to see these benefits in the shift in our financial results as revenues are growing and we move towards positive adjusted EBITDA. Our strong first quarter results reflect structural changes within the company and much progress putting the mistakes of prior management behind us as we build a platform for profitable growth. We have successfully increased the focus on value-added products, including new products, introductions, and strengthening our market reach with our distribution agreement with AIDP. We're driving volume growth and higher capacity utilization in our core SRP business and making strong inroads into the companion animal space, as well as strengthening our logistics capabilities. We have also made steps tremendous strides in driving strong growth and improved profitability at both MGI and Golden Ridge. With these structural enhancements complete, I am confident 2022 will be a year of further progress as we accelerate this transition, fully aligning our organization on focus on profitability and enhance our go-to-market strategy further partnerships. We will invest in revenue streams where we generate higher levels of profitability and de-emphasize areas where we do not. We have a streamlined operation and address the issues that have hampered execution, so incremental revenue should continue to leverage as further improvements in profitability enable us to transition to positive adjusted EBITDA as revenue continue to grow, and our product mix shifts away from more of our commodity business. With the company's transition well underway and our focus moving towards a value-added ingredient strategy, we have reached an inflection point where a change in our governance makes sense. Today, we announced that Gene Heggy and Will Black will be joining our board of directors. Jean is the founder of Hege and Associates, a food industry consultancy that provides strategic marketing counsel to companies and trade associations involved in consumer food, food ingredients, and the ag tech sectors. And she is a spokesperson for the United Soybean Board. Jean retired from DuPont Nutrition and Biosciences after a 33-year career in food ingredient marketing, culminating in serving as global marketing lead for DuPont's Protein Solutions business unit. Will brings over 35 years experience in the global health and nutrition industry to our board. He has served in sales and marketing leadership roles with Chromadex, a bioscience company focused on healthy aging nutraceuticals, and the COO of Natreon, a proprietary botanical ingredient company. Will was also Global Head of Marketing of Human Nutrition and Health for DSM Nutritional Products, a leader in the development of new nutraceutical ingredients and the world's largest manufacturer of letter vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids. Will also held senior roles at DuPont Nutrition and Health. Gene and Will will bring Ricebrand significant consumer-facing sales, marketing, and product development expertise. Their expertise and relationships will be invaluable as we develop and go to market with value-added ingredient offerings in the companion animal, equine, and human market. Jean and Will will be replacing Ari Goodanson and Beth Brunner, who have resigned from the board. We'd like to thank Ari and Beth for their significant contributions during this transition. Gene and Will join as the company is on the verge of a significant and positive financial transition, which is evident by our first quarter results. This transition is being driven by stronger sales initiatives, higher capacity utilization, and better operational and realistic execution, all of which translates into enhanced customer relations, which will serve to which will continue to serve as a positive catalyst for growth and transition to positive adjusted EBITDA. I'll give you some more detail on our progress in a minute, but let's first have Todd run you through the quarter in more detail.