Local Bounti Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the Local Bounties First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Jeff Sonick, Investor Relations at ICR. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. Today's presentation will be hosted by Local Bounty's co-CEOs, Craig Hurlburt and Travis Joyner, President Brian Cook, and Chief Financial Officer Kathleen Valasek. The comments made during today's call contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical facts are considered forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions concerning future events. Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Some of these risks and uncertainties are identified and discussed in the company's filings with the SEC. We'll also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures today. Please refer to the press release, which can be found on our investor relations website, investors.localbounty.com, for reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Craig Hurlburt, co-CEO. Craig?

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. We started 2023 on a strong note with a first quarter performance that was consistent with our plan. As we move into the second quarter, our growing operations are progressing nicely. Most recently with the completion of our Georgia six acre greenhouse facility in April and the advancement of our new facilities in Texas and Washington. But perhaps most importantly, we put the financial resources in place to support our business for the long term. This was no small feat given the current economic environment. As we communicated on our last earnings call, we expanded our credit facilities with Cargill by up to $110 million, with simultaneously relieving cash needs to fund our operations. Just last week, we built upon that support with the closing of a $35 million sale leaseback transaction. This cash, combined with the cash available from our Cargill amendment, provides us with approximately $58 million of accessible cash to run our operations and scale up our business with the intent to reach break-even adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2024 or early 2025. Our entire team continues to push our national platform ahead into the future, constantly learning from our own trials and the mistakes of others to become the most capital efficient CEA platform in the industry. Travis will speak to some of the operational gains that we are realizing with our stack and flow technology in Georgia today, and also speak to some additional productivity levers that we will be implementing in the future. These are extremely exciting advancements, which demonstrate our unique ability to squeeze the most out of our assets to maximize revenue and cash flow while delivering long lasting, delicious, and sustainably grown products to over 10,000 locations nationwide. Our stack and flow technology continues to underpin our business model as the optimal capital efficient tool to enhance crop turns and maximize return on investment across a variety of CEA approaches. Beyond our greenfield expansions, the inherent flexibility of our approach also affords us other opportunities to achieve greater scale quickly through strategic acquisitions. We are proving that we can continue to drive top line growth and simultaneously generate healthy margins as we scale the business in a responsible, capital efficient manner. This is due in large part to the continued gains we are making with our stack and flow technology to drive improving unit economics, which our co-CEO, Travis Joyner, will speak to. And then our President, Brian Cook, will provide some further commentary around progress on our various construction projects before our CFO, Kathy, concludes with her financial review and financing update. I am so grateful to work with such a committed and talented team here at Local Bounty. Our success is a direct result of their collective efforts and I'm honored to help lead this business on behalf of our employees and our stakeholders. With that, I'll pass it over to my friend Travis.