Benson Hill, Inc.

Good morning. Thank you for attending the Benson Hill second quarter 2022 earnings call. My name is Jordan and I'll be your moderator. All lines are on mute for the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I'd now like to pass the conference over to your host, Ruben Meyer, Senior Director, Investor Relations with Benson Hill. Ruben, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jordan, and good morning. We appreciate you joining us to review our second quarter and year-to-date earnings results and the exciting news we have announced today that advances the achievement of our strategic objectives. With me are Matt Crisp, Benson Hill's Chief Executive Officer, and Dean Freeman, our Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings release in Form 8K. These documents, as well as a presentation, which we are referencing during the prepared remarks, are available on the investor section of the Benson Hill website. Comments today from management will contain forward-looking statements, including Benson Hill's expectations of future financial and business performance, current guidance about 2022 annual results, and our 2025 financial targets, as well as industry outlook. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and are not guarantees of performance. We caution you to consider these risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward listing statements. Such factors include those referenced in the cautionary note included in our Form 10-K and 10-Q filings, press release, and other filings with the SEC. Also during this presentation, we'll be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to GAAP is available on our earnings release and presentation. I will now turn the call over to Matt, who will give an update on the business and recent developments.

Thanks, Ruben, and good morning, everyone. As some of you may have seen earlier this morning, we announced a long-term strategic licensing partnership with ADM. We look forward to talking more about this exciting news during our call today. But first, we want to note how 2022 continues to shape up as a dramatic year of change for the food system itself. If you turn to slide four, the macro forces we talked about at our April Investor Day, skyrocketing food inflation, food supply chain disruptions, environmental impact, and food-driven health implications remain disruptors of the status quo, which are intensifying the sense of urgency for the change we see today. As we shared with you at that time, and as exemplified by this morning's announcement, we believe the evolution of the food system is well underway, supported by a growing number of established agri-food companies, as well as new venturants. At the center of this new paradigm remains the consumer, who is demanding better food options that are more nutritious, sustainable, traceable, and accessible. It is important to reiterate that we fundamentally believe innovation is deflationary, evolutionary, and capable of significant sustainability improvements. As you can see on slide five, our innovations are two-sided, underpinned by both technological advancement and an integrated go-to-market approach. Together, this synergistic combination enables our mission to set the pace of innovation in food through our efforts to drive adoption and to achieve scale of our proprietary solutions with partners in an expedited format. For our actions and performance since last year, we are proving how to run new trains down old tracks in the food, edible oil, and aquaculture markets, and to do so in a way that increases speed without a derailment. This requires innovative thinking about how each link in the food system can work together. Now, turning to slide six. Our business innovation is a three-step playbook. Step one positions us with a channel to market and to build relationships with customers, which help inform the development of new products enabled by our CropOS technology platform. Step two introduces our new innovations into that channel with the goal of introducing and establishing these Benson Hill ingredient products in the marketplace. Step three is where we form partnerships and licensing agreements to further broaden our market reach and to scale the adoption of our innovations. We have discussed this approach with you previously, but it's worth repeating as it reinforces the commercial strategy of our proprietary soybean portfolio underway today, as well as efforts in Yellow Pea that we are undertaking in the coming years. We have also shared with you previously the strong interest and ongoing engagement with prospective licensing partners across the markets we serve. As you can see on slide seven, our agreement with ADM moves us to step three of our playbook by combining our soybean seed innovation with ADM's current and expanding processing infrastructure, as well as their capabilities as a protein ingredient leader to serve the growing plant-based markets. Here are some key features of this partnership. First, ADM will exclusively license Benson Hill ultra-high protein soy in North America to produce and commercialize protein concentrates, texturized protein concentrates, and texturized flour containing 60% to 65% protein content, as well as protein isolate products. ADM is a market leader in these categories, which are an ideal fit for our soy genetics. ADM will utilize its current and planned protein ingredient manufacturing capacity designated for human food to process Benson Hill's proprietary soy. That includes leveraging the sizable investment that ADM has planned for its Decatur, Illinois production and innovation facilities. To put into perspective what this scale means for Benson Hill, the acres required to fill this capacity on an annual basis in the next three to five years will be greater than all of the cumulative acres Benson Hill has contracted for planting over the last three years since we began to commercialize our proprietary soy portfolio. Third, we will cooperate to engage ADM's existing network of U.S. farmers to help source proprietary Benson Hill soybeans to fuel this collaboration. This enables rapid expansion of the farmer network with access to our technology, giving farmers the opportunity to participate in the seed-to-fork revolution that this partnership exemplifies. We and ADM are also aligned around the importance of on-farm data collection to provide important insights to our farmer partners while maintaining the integrity of the traceable closed-loop production system for the benefit of our customers. Data collected in collaboration with farmer partners will further improve the capabilities of CropOS to bring more value back to the farm in a way that better connects them with the end consumer. Fourth, through this collaboration, ADM will bring to the market an expanded and more diversified portfolio of proprietary ingredients to serve the alternative meat, meat extension, alternative dairy, specialized nutrition, and other markets in North America. The products will include current ingredients from Benson Hill's TrueVale portfolio, as well as proprietary ingredients enabled by Benson Hill and CropOS that are not currently available on the market. Our products in this diverse portfolio of ingredients will provide a compelling value proposition to customers, bringing enhanced functionality, traceability, and sustainability attributes. In some cases, the products will also feature the significant energy and water savings of our ingredients, as shown on slide eight, and similar to those offered in our current clean, fresh ingredients. Turning to slide nine, we are enthusiastic about what our companies can deliver and believe that together we will make an impact that neither of us could achieve alone. It is this kind of licensing arrangement that brings innovation to the next level. evolving from one mega commodity system to deliver more customized ingredient streams that serve the plant-based protein markets with efficiency of scale. It is a proof point that the seed-to-fork evolution is underway and that our CropOS platform is the engine to help drive it. For the sake of clarity, let me specify now what is not within scope of the partnership. Not included are ultra-high protein and high protein flour products within our TrueVale soy ingredients portfolio, our proprietary soy meal for animal markets, including aquaculture, our high oleic oil ingredients, and anything related to yellow pea or other ingredient portfolios. Benson Hill will continue to market the aforementioned ingredient products. And of course, we maintain the ability to market our entire ingredient portfolio outside of North America. I would like to take this time to also note that we have decided to sunset the TruVail brand name. Going forward, we will use the name Benson Hill Ingredients for all of our products, and the portfolio of products with ADM will be co-branded by both companies. We believe this partnership represents a pivotal milestone that validates our strategic playbook and will meaningfully contribute to our commercial plan, which supports our previously stated financial targets, including becoming profitable in 2025. While financial terms are not being disclosed, we can share that the agreement includes value sharing on all products delivered from Benson Hill Genetics, technology access fees for the use of Benson Hill proprietary soy, and milestone payments upon achievement of certain commercial objectives. This alignment with an industry leader represents a win-win scenario for both parties, and we are eager to engage with the ADM team to leverage what we do best, genomic innovation in the seed, and commercialized ingredients that are made better from the beginning. We will continue to execute our closed-loop business model to absorb greater capacity at our Creston and Seymour facilities along the lines of our previously discussed plans. As a result, we will continue to grow the proportion of proprietary ingredient solutions in adjacent human food-related markets and other markets domestically and elsewhere. One example, on slide 10, is in the edible oil market, where we remain well-positioned with our Berry Brain cooking oil, sourced from Benson Hills proprietary soy. Berry is a more sustainable alternative to other vegetable oils like canola by using significantly less land, reducing CO2 emissions, and conserving water. Furthermore, this product boasts a healthier oleic fatty acid profile than commodity soy oils, and a longer useful life in frying applications, which reduces our customers' operating costs. We are sold out of our inventory from our 2021 crop and are already forward-selling inventory that will be derived from our 2022 crop. We recently announced a regional supplier agreement with St. Louis-based Schnuck Markets, along with its network of more than 100 grocery stores. And we're also seeing an emergence of demand in Europe, where there are shortages of heart-healthy, high oleic oil for human food markets, given supply chain challenges coming out of Ukraine. Another example, shown on slide 11, is in the aquaculture market, where activity is ramping up to supply our ultra-high protein soy meal, sourced from the U.S. for the trout market and also for northern European salmon producers and feed suppliers. Our commitment to the aquaculture category provides an opening for Benson Hill to also become a global commercial player. As these milestones and progress reflect, the headway we are making in the ingredients business is real and continues to gain momentum ahead of our expectations. Year to date, we are executing well on our priority to gain share across multiple segments, as evidenced with year-over-year ingredients revenue growth of 332% to $160 million, and we are on track to deliver organic growth in excess of 80% as we increase our revenue guidance for the full year. We believe that we are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accelerate the adoption of plant-based foods, which requires a more consumer-centric food system. The most impactful investments that we can make against this thesis right now is in our ingredients business. As such, earlier this year, we announced the suspension of R&D for our fresh segment. While we believe seed innovation in fresh produce can support the rapidly emerging food is health movement, it is important that we press our advantage and fully commit to higher value product opportunities and ingredients. This has led us to the decision to explore strategic options for our fresh business. I will conclude my remarks after covering two other topics, starting on slide 12. We completed the planting of our proprietary soy varieties for this growing season after delays that were caused by a cool, wet spring. Our colleagues and farmer partners worked tirelessly to make up for the lost time, and for that, we are grateful. This is the time of year when we now engage farmers for our 2023 planting season. What's different this year is that we can offer a stronger value proposition due to the assets we have in place now, as well as a major validating commercial partnership with an industry leader. neither of which we had at this time last year in addition we are ideally positioned to be more deliberate with our farmer engagement efforts across the ice states and to optimize our supply chain in the primary north american soy growing regions in fact last week i had the chance to meet with several of our current and prospective farmer partners across missouri and iowa and in the next few weeks i'll have the opportunity to do the same in indiana and illinois This process of listening and learning from farmers informs how we invest in innovation and build a more resilient and connected food system together. It's also energizing to hear directly from stakeholders who are eager not only to bring more value back to the farm, but to help connect more with the consumer demand for the benefit of their families, land, and society. Now turning to slide 13. We recently published our 2021 ESG report. This culminated from months of effort, and I hope you'll find that its content meet expectations for transparent reporting. But most importantly, we hope it further validates that our financial success is inextricably linked to social and environmental KPIs. We have established corporate governance best practices to ensure we operate with transparency and with an unrelenting curiosity to learn and continually improve. This ongoing effort is overseen by the Sustainability and Governance Committee of our Board of Directors. We have also established processes for ESG reporting across our operations, including completing our first materiality assessment, as well as GHG Scope 1 and Scope 2 inventory assessments. Our role enabling seed-to-fork innovation gives us a unique opportunity to catalyze social and environmental impact across our supply chain. Being a pure play ESG company means that as we scale our product, we not only deliver financial performance, but also realize positive social and environmental impact beyond our walls and fields. Our closed loop traceable production model offers a unique competitive advantage. And as we seamlessly leverage data from the farm through ingredient production, to support the sustainability goals of our customers, which now more than ever is front and center for CPGs and the private sector. Our ESG report further highlights our clean crush ingredients and strategy, which in the case of multiple of our proprietary soy-based ingredient products, enable significant reductions in water and CO2 emissions. I invite you to read the ESG report at BensonHill.com backslash impact. to understand better the scale and types of positive impact that we expect to deliver as we grow. With that, I will turn the call over to Dean for his perspective.