The Cannabist Co Hldg

Q3 2021 Earnings Conference Call

11/12/2021

spk08: I call it life. One day when the light is glowing, I'll be in my castle golden. But until the gates are open, I just want to feel this moment. Whoa. I just want to feel this moment. Whoa.
spk14: Greetings and welcome to the ColumbiaCare third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Leanne Evans, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
spk01: Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining Columbia Care's third quarter 2021 conference call. With me today are Nicholas Vita, our chief executive officer, David Hart, our chief operating officer, Mike Livingstone, our interim chief financial officer, and Jesse Shannon, our chief growth officer. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release reporting our third quarter results, which we also filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities on CDAR. A copy of this release is available on the investor section of our corporate website, where you will also be able to access a replay of this call for up to 30 days. Please note that the remarks we make today regarding future expectations, plans, and prospects for the company constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, which we disclose in more detail in the risk factors section of our annual information forum dated March 31st, 2021, as filed with applicable regulatory authorities and posted on CDAR. We remind you that any forward-looking statements represent our views as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. While we may update any such forward-looking statements in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, except as otherwise required by applicable law. Also, please note that on today's call, we will refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA and gross profit margin, excluding changes in fair value of biological assets. These measures do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. ColumbiaCare considers certain non-IFRS measures to be meaningful indicators of the performance of its business in addition to, but not as a substitute for, our IFRS results. The reconciliation of such non-IFRS financial measures to their nearest comparable IFRS measure is included in our press release issued earlier today. With that, I will turn the call over to Nick Vita to get us started. Nick?
spk15: Thank you, Lee, and good morning, everyone. I am very pleased to be here with my colleagues to discuss another record-breaking quarter for ColumbiaCare. As you saw from our press release issued earlier this morning, we achieved record quarterly revenue of $132.3 million, a 144% increase year-over-year, and a 21% increase sequentially, as well as record gross profit, gross margin, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin. On every metric, we achieved exceptional growth both year-over-year and sequentially. To put it succinctly, it was a great quarter despite some of the regulatory headwinds we continue to face which David Hart will discuss in more detail in a few minutes as part of his operational review. We will get into the drivers of our growth as well as our revised 2021 guidance in just a moment, but first I would like to address where we are going as a company and how we intend to get there. It is hard to overstate the enormous growth potential in our industry as the market opportunity expands from medical to adult use. More and more states are opening and legislating moves forward, albeit slowly, at the federal level. The addressable market is huge, the opportunities are vast, and we are moving with a sense of urgency to capture that opportunity. So what specifically are our goals? We have four North Stars that define our growth. First, we intend to be the multi-state operator in the best markets with the best margins. Second, we are establishing a nationwide retail experience with cannabis as well as highly recognizable and sought after national product brands. Third, we are building unique and sustainable competitive advantages And fourth, we are leveraging data-driven decision-making to ensure customer loyalty and drive the highest returns on investment. So how do we intend to achieve those goals? We have five key strategies that we are executing against. Number one, grow our retail network in key markets, both organically and through acquisitions. We fully intend to be the top retail destination with brands customers are looking for. Two, we will leverage technology such as our proprietary Forge platform to personalize the customer journey gain mindshare, and create durability in those relationships. Three, we are positioning ColumbiaCare in key strategic markets ahead of adult use adoption. Four, we are investing in growth of our wholesale business to enhance both margins and prepare for cross-state distribution. And five, we are laser focused on driving EBITDA margin and free cash flow to create the positive flywheel effect of reinvesting for further growth. We have explicit goals, execute definitive strategies, and relentlessly pursue the opportunities before us. We have a great team and a great strategy, and I could not be more excited about how we can achieve this over the next several years with the foundation we have built. Now let's take a moment to hit the highlights on Q3 and discuss why our financial results are indicative of the progress we are making against our strategies. Let's talk about the retail network expansion. During the third quarter, we opened two new retail locations in New Jersey and Missouri, both of which are cannabis. Notably, at the beginning of the quarter, we closed the Canascend acquisition, formally adding four retail locations in Ohio. During the quarter, we also expanded the Boston location to add adult use and subsequently rebranded the location as cannabis. And in the fourth quarter, we closed the acquisition of Medicine Man, adding four Denver retail locations as well as a 35,000 square foot indoor cultivation facility. We have continued to progress on the rollout of cannabis and now have eight locations operational. We are working to convert additional stores to cannabis format in the fourth quarter, including our Florida portfolio, on our way to more than 80 cannabis locations in the next 18 months. On the technology front, we are leveraging data from our forest platform. to not only help the consumer find the right product, but also to generate customer loyalty and connection with cannabis and our product brands. We continue to see increased adoption of FORGE for mobile and in-use stores. Importantly, it gives us direct customer insight into the form factors and products most in demand, by location, and enhances our ability to market more effectively in the future. We are generating a strategic advantage as we gather data farther up the funnel to better understand the consumer which will in turn enable us to be more efficient and effective in how we address them. Now let's shift to our geographic presence and physical growth factors at both retail and wholesale. As a reminder, we are in 18 jurisdictions in the U.S. and Europe today, with 79 active retail locations and another 20 in development. We have 32 cultivation and manufacturing facilities and wholesale distribution operational in 13 markets. Most importantly, we are established where demand is building. including the critical states where adult use is coming online, namely New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. We've made significant investments in these markets, both through the GLEAP acquisition, which solidified our position as a leading cultivator, processor, wholesale supplier, and retailer in four markets, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as our acquisition of a 34-acre cultivation site on Long Island, New York, which is now operationally. During the third quarter, we commenced cultivation in West Virginia and have begun developing five medical dispensaries in the state, the first of which we expect to open during the fourth quarter. In September, we launched whole flower sales in Virginia and achieved record sales on the first day. More importantly, on November 8th, we opened an additional retail location in the suburb of Richmond, bringing our total number of active locations in the state to three, with nine additional locations in development. There are more than 33,000 patients in the state, with an estimated 1,000 new registrations each week. We anticipate the pace of registration will increase as the process is streamlined. We are ready to meet that demand as we have the largest cultivation, wholesale, and retail operations in the Commonwealth, including the largest delivery fleet, which we can use to reach the entire state. In October, we were the first cannabis company to launch whole flower sales in New York, and we will be harvesting from our Long Island cultivation facility later this quarter. We are pleased with the initial results from the Phase I of cultivation operations and look forward to providing incremental flower to the New York medical market. In New Jersey, we have additional cultivation capacity under development, which will be operational in line with the start of adult use. We are ahead of the curve in these critical growth markets as we add to our retail footprint, expand cultivation capacity, and build brands that will both create retail and wholesale opportunities. Finally, before turning things over to Mike to cover the results of the quarter in more detail, I would like to comment on our financial discipline. As we have been discussing, there are significant growth opportunities for ColumbiaCare that are unique to ColumbiaCare in the markets where we have scale and significant capabilities. We are taking a thoughtful and analytical approach to where we need to invest to drive growth and to drive profitability. As you can see in our results, quarter after quarter, we are driving to improve EBITDA margins, and this feeds into the flywheel of reinvestment and growth. You should expect to see ColumbiaCare continue our focus on profitable growth into 4Q in 2022, and be able to provide a unique story from an investment perspective. The results of the third quarter clearly demonstrated that we are effectively executing against our key growth goals, and we are carrying solid momentum despite pernicious regulatory delays, and we have a clear line of sight on how to capitalize on the growth opportunities before us. With that, let me turn it over to Mike to cover the third quarter results. Mike?
spk12: Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone. I'll provide a brief summary of the key financial results for the third quarter, as well as discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year. As a reminder, we are no longer using combined metrics as we close the Ohio transactions as of July 1st and now include the four dispensaries in our consolidated results. In order to provide apples to apples comparisons, we compare our Q3 2021 reported results to the combined results in prior periods. As Nick mentioned, revenue in the third quarter was $132.3 million, an increase of 21% sequentially and 144% year-over-year. The sequential revenue growth was primarily driven by growth in the Mid-Atlantic markets of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, as well as Illinois and Ohio. Adjusted gross profit for the third quarter rose 35% sequentially to $64.5 million. resulting in an adjusted gross margin of more than 49%, a 527 basis point sequential improvement, resulting from increased wholesale revenues in certain markets, and continued scale and yield improvements in Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey. Reported operating expenses were $61.5 million in the third quarter, as compared with $51.5 million in Q2. This increase was driven by increase in tangible amortization expense and additional operating expenses due to our acquisitions. Reported operating expenses as a percentage of reported revenue improved by 385 basis points on a sequential basis. Adjusted EBITDA improved 89% sequentially to $31 million. On a year-over-year basis, adjusted EBITDA increased 634%. We reached a record 23% EBITDA margin in Q3 and expect to see continued improvement in Q4. These results are demonstrative of our focus on improving margins that Nick spoke about. As of September 30th, 2021, our cash balance was approximately $117 million compared to $140 million at the end of the second quarter. Cash flows from operations for the third quarter was approximately $19 million, a record for ColumbiaCare. Capital expenditures for the third quarter were approximately $40 million, as we've accelerated our cap expense for investments in new markets of Missouri, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as cultivation expansions in New York and New Jersey, with ongoing improvements to operations in California, Colorado, and Ohio as well. Turning to our outlook for the year, we are revising our full year guidance to $470 million to $485 million in revenue, 46% adjusted gross margin, and adjusted EBITDA of $85 million to $95 million. This change is primarily driven by the impact of unanticipated regulatory delays throughout the year, which we've mentioned on prior calls, and increasing headwinds generating unfavorable pricing dynamics in key markets. For example, we were delayed an opening for adult use in Boston, Massachusetts, slower to receive approvals in New Jersey and West Virginia, and for dispensary expansion in Illinois than anticipated. The Medicine Man acquisition, which closed in November, was also later than we anticipated. In addition, as other companies have noted, we've seen wholesale pricing pressures in California and Pennsylvania, and increasing competition in Florida. That said, we do see continued momentum into Q4 and looking ahead to 2022, which David will discuss momentarily. We remain cognizant of the macro headwinds and will continue to be focused on improving profitability, even in markets where competition is increasing. Before turning the call over to David, I'd like to remind you that we are planning for our conversion to U.S. filer status and consequently GAAP accounting for financial reporting next year, 2022. We believe this timing will be optimal for our investors and analysts and enable us to provide 2022 guidance at the appropriate time on a GAAP basis. With that, let me turn the call over to David to cover our operational highlights. David?
spk13: Thank you, Mike. I will focus on important operational developments during the third quarter, particularly in our top markets. On a revenue basis, our top five markets alphabetically are California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as they were in Q2. On an adjusted EBITDA basis, the top five markets are now Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, with Maryland and Virginia replacing Colorado and Ohio this quarter as we've seen benefits of GLEAP integration in promising mid-Atlantic markets. Wholesale grew its contribution to revenue, reaching 20% in Q3, up from 15% in Q2. As evident from our increased capex spend, we are scaling cultivation and manufacturing across our portfolio. We added an incremental 30,000 square feet in Q3, with more than 800,000 square feet of additional capacity planned. There are ongoing projects to upgrade and expand capacity in many of our markets, which will result in improved efficiency, potency, and yield. In every market, we're improving our ability to cultivate and deliver high-quality flour from indoor to greenhouse to outdoor. Regardless of the setting, we are delivering high-quality, high-potency flour. As Mike mentioned, we have seen headwinds this year, including both regulatory and market-driven forces. In California, we are nearly complete with cultivation upgrades to increase yield efficiency and quality of production in light of wholesale market softness and pricing pressure that we've seen in 2021. Revenue was down 10% sequentially due to lower wholesale revenue, and gross margin was impacted by declining wholesale prices due to a transitory supply gut, as well as planned lower biomass output during cultivation upgrade efforts that we completed in early October. We received a license for hydrocarbon manufacturing in San Diego, and we are now extracting under that license, making the amber and 777 concentrates, shatters, and butters that people are looking for in the California market. We are awaiting approval for additional indoor cultivation capacity, which has proven to be more resistant to price compressions. On a positive note, we are seeing early indications of gross margin improvement into Q4 at the retail level based on leadership changes as well as menu and pricing optimization efforts. We're optimistic that the quality and brand recognition will be defensive should pricing pressures persist. In Colorado, we completed planned CapEx spend in the indoor facility in Q3. We are seeing the expected results in production, and they will start working their way through the system in Q4 and into Q1. We're seeing a significant increase in quality, potency, and yield for new products. We began our harvest at our outdoor facility in late Q3 and is on track to be the best yet with respect to yield and potency. We're excited about the closing of the acquisition of Medicine Man on November 1st, which adds retail and cultivation to our Colorado portfolio, solidifying our position as the most scaled retailer, cultivator, and manufacturer in Colorado. Massachusetts saw sequential revenue growth in the quarter of 6%, with adult use beginning at our downtown cannabis location in August. We are continuing the implementation of automation for post-harvest flower and pre-wool production to improve yields and reduce costs in what remains a capacity-constrained flower market. We continue to improve the supply chain and are shifting the product mix between in-house brands and third-party brands to drive both revenue and EBITDA in the market. In Ohio, we are currently expanding Canopy in advance of anticipated additional dispensaries coming online in the state. Ohio continues to be an attractive wholesale market, and our products are in almost every dispensary in the state. In Pennsylvania, we're moving forward with the expansion of GLEAF's cultivation capacity, adding 174,000 square feet to the current 100,000 square feet. Given the supply dynamics and pricing pressures we've witnessed in the market, we will take a phased approach to bringing the additional capacity online. GLEAF currently wholesales to more than 95% of the operating dispensaries in the state, including the three existing ColumbiaCare dispensaries. We are launching more in-house brands in Pennsylvania in Q4 and throughout 2020, such as 777, Classics, and Seed & Strength. In Florida, we generated significant improvement in gross margin quarter over quarter of nearly 1,700 basis points, despite the competitive discounting environment. Margin improvement was the result of continued scale and yield improvement in cultivation and manufacturing, as well as maintaining pricing discipline. We will be transitioning all locations in Florida to the cannabis brand in Q4 and continuing to innovate and bring new products to market in addition to new flower offerings. We had some standout growth in newer markets in Q3, with New Jersey increasing revenue by 45% sequentially and Virginia up 225% over Q2. We opened a cannabis in Deptford, New Jersey in August and expect our third dispensary in New Jersey in Q1 of 2022. We have 250,000 square feet of additional capacity and development to support medical and adult use markets in 2022. Virginia, between Columbia Care and GLEAF, has seen impressive top-line growth as well as margin improvement as the market matures and flower sales ramp. We now have three dispensaries operational with two more to open in Q4. We are actively pursuing additional locations to open a total of 12 in the Commonwealth. In New York, we saw a modest 4% sequential increase in revenue in Q3. We were the first operator to offer whole flour in the medical market in late October. We're anticipating the first harvest from our Long Island greenhouse in Q4 for sales in early 2022. We continue to roll out the rollout of product brands such as Seed & Strain, 777, and Classics throughout our markets. Seed and Strain is now available in nine markets and is our most widely distributed brand. In October, we launched Classics in five markets simultaneously, which was the largest single-day launch of a flower brand to date. We've proven that we have the infrastructure in place to deliver consistent, high-quality products across our markets, which has enabled us to establish brand partnerships. We recently announced a CBD line with Pitbull and are the exclusive cultivator and manufacturer for Mike Tyson's Tyson 2.0. we will be able to engage in additional relationships that fill gaps in our current portfolio. As Nick mentioned, we now have eight cannabis locations in operation, which are performing above our expectations. There are dozens of locations in the near-term pipeline, including in Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. We are excited to continue the rollout of cannabis as we see the impact and impression it has for consumers and patients. Let me now turn the call back over to Nick to wrap up before we take your questions.
spk15: Thank you, David. To wrap up our comments here today, I'm very proud of what the ColumbiaCare team continues to accomplish. The record results of the third quarter clearly demonstrate that we are successfully executing against our growth strategies and working with urgency to pursue the tremendous opportunities before us with strong and profitable growth. We deeply appreciate your interest in the company and we look forward to keeping you apprised of our continued progress. With that, I'd like to turn the call over for questions. Operator?
spk14: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question. One moment please while we poll for your questions. Our first question comes from the line of Aaron Gray with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your question.
spk09: Hi, good morning. Thank you for the question and congrats on the margin improvement there. First question for me, I want to go along the wholesale line. So 20% wholesale in the quarter up from 50% in 2Q. So two-part question. First, do you guys have a target in mind in terms of wholesale penetration over the next 12 months or so? And then second, Nick, you made a comment in terms of preparing yourself for cross-state distribution. So I'm wondering if you could expand on that comment in terms of maybe focus on certain markets like a Colorado or a California. Does that mean potentially making some investments to prepare for that over time or just any expansion on that comment would be helpful? Thank you.
spk15: Certainly. So let me first begin by I'll sort of set the stage for the wholesale commentary and turn it over to David to see if he has any additional thoughts. So we have given some guidance in terms of what we expect to see. I think at this point it's probably over the next 18 months. And our goal is really to drive over half the business towards the wholesale market. And that's a byproduct of three primary things. The first is that in most of our states, we're actually capped out. So in the limited license markets, we cannot have more dispensaries. So we have to expand into the wholesale market. we've made a considerable investment in infrastructure to be the most efficient, highest quality producer of the brands that we've produced. And I think, you know, what you saw on the Tyson 2.0, what you've seen in Classics and some of our other brands that we've rolled out nationally, that's the approach that we're taking to really introduce new high quality products that we believe will have a more durable pricing decline curve than let's call it, let's say, you know, what is currently in the marketplace. And so the third is obviously sort of just a a function of making sure that we take advantage of those brands effectively, both on our shelves and other shelves. And so all of those point to the fact that the focus on driving wholesale market share in a profitable way is something that we're looking at nationally and we're going to continue to look at nationally. In terms of the, let's call it the national scale and the way the landscape may change, I don't think we anticipate a cross-border, sort of interstate commerce happening any time in the immediate near term, but the investments we've made in places like Colorado and the methods of investments we're making in places like California and the investments we're making in places like New York are really driven to create hubs and centers of excellence so that we can future-proof the business. Right now we have an enormous amount of infrastructure in our portfolio, the return that we're getting on the dollars that we invest into that infrastructure are sufficiently attractive so that it makes sense for us to invest in these businesses to build our brands and build our scale and build our profitability and build our footprint and basically share of the mind of the consumer in each of the markets where we operate. But at some point, we're going to have to sort of take a very hard look, and this will be driven by sort of regulatory change at the federal level at the way we manage our business and the way we sort of optimize our own cost structure. So I'm sure it wasn't lost on anybody that the Republicans are now taking this issue on as their issue, which I find to be incredibly interesting. And that's the sort of dynamic that we've been waiting for. So now that the, let's call it the mini midterms are done and midterms are coming up, I think you're going to see a renewed focus on issues that many politicians consider to be low-hanging fruit, and cannabis happens to be one of them. So any changes, any benefit that we can get out of the political decision-makers between now and then, I don't expect anything comprehensive to happen, but I do think incremental changes that will be very positive for the sector and for ColumbiaCare specifically are going to materialize. But let me turn it over to David and see if you have any thoughts on those as well.
spk13: The only thing I would add is I think it largely depends on the timing from a regulatory perspective. We've clearly invested a lot in canopy expansion in markets where we know we're going to be capped from a dispensary perspective, and it's just basic math how much incremental flower and concentrate wholesale product we can bring onto the market, and it's a consequence of timing in terms of a regulatory pathway. The big markets in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York in particular will drive a pretty large uptick in terms of our percentage of wholesale revenue, the percentage of total revenue, and it's just a matter of timing and scale from a regulatory perspective.
spk15: Aaron, the only other thing I would add is what you've seen us focus in on, I think over the past several quarters we've guided people towards looking at that gross margin number. It's still a priority, but the number one priority for us is AdjustDiva.com. And the way we're going to get the right mix of revenue and the right use of our asset base to hit the type of EBITDA margins that we expect of ourselves, and I think the investment community expects of ColumbiaCare, so that we are a leader, not a follower in the just EBITDA margin performance, is to really focus on wholesale as well as our own retail distribution operations.
spk10: All right, great.
spk14: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Vivian Acer with Cowan. Please proceed with your question.
spk11: Hi, good morning.
spk14: Good morning.
spk11: So, Nick, given your comment just now around the importance of adjusted EBITDA, maybe we could double click on your guidance revision there, you know, well articulated in terms of a number of different moving pieces that are informing that negative revision. But maybe you could just dimensionalize it a little bit. you know, just the difference between or the implications of, you know, wholesale price deflation versus regulatory delays in opening retail locations in high margin markets. If you could just help us understand which are the bigger drivers of the negative version, I think that would be helpful. Thanks.
spk15: So let me – I'm going to break it into a couple of different components, and then I'm going to ask the team to kind of weigh in after I fumble my way through this because this is obviously – there are a lot of very, very sort of complicated relationships here. The revised guidance, starting at the top line, I think that we were hoping to have a larger, you know, I'll pick on Boston for a second, right? We thought we were going to have Boston online in first quarter 2021. That didn't happen until the end of the third quarter. We're seeing the type of performance we had expected out of Boston, but that one facility, if you look at over sort of a two and a half, three quarter sort of timeline, That's a gap that we had to fill somewhere else, and we felt that we could do that, which is why we never changed guidance. And we were actually accomplishing that because we saw strength out of markets, many, many other markets. I think the thing that became a compounding issue from a revenue perspective is that we've seen some stability in the Pennsylvania market wholesale pricing environment, and that's important. we've not seen any resumption of discipline amongst our competitors in Florida, and we are not going to play basically the pricing game to drive market share rather than margin. And so if you look at it on a national basis, I think that we have been successful at offsetting some of those headwinds, but a number of them have materialized faster and at the same time. So as a result, we want to make sure that we can hit the numbers that we have out there. So, for example, the supply chain disruptions we've had in building out our dispensaries in West Virginia or the issues we've had with the ZBA in the city of Chicago, some of those things were just out of our control. And I think that when we looked at the way the pricing environment in some of the markets where we thought we'd see a larger uptick materialize, they've improved, but they haven't improved to the degree we'd expect them Now, the consequence of that is the adjusted gross margin. And remember, this is a gross margin. This is a full-year gross margin estimate. So we started the year, you know, in the low 40s, and we're guiding up to sort of the, let's call it the 46% range instead of 47% range. If we saw a, you know, the reduction in gross margin, I think, is really a byproduct of some of the delays that we've seen from a couple of markets that would allow us to drive our efficiencies. So, you know, obviously, Florida, we've seen some spectacular performance. Illinois, we've seen some great performance. But Arizona has, you know, has been a pricing-constrained environment on the wholesale and retail side. You know, when we're sort of looking at the map right now, Pennsylvania has been the single biggest negative contributor on the wholesale pricing side. And obviously, that has a direct impact on our gross margins. Now, we're, you know, our goal when we revise guidance is to make sure we have guidance out there that we believe we can meet or beat. But I'm not, you know, please don't read into that. But from a margin perspective, we feel very good about that. I think that the adjusted EBITDA margin is really, you know, the dollar, sort of the dollars are just a reflection of the reduction of revenue. But we continue to see strength on the EBITDA line. We continue to see strength flowing into cash flow from operations. And if I had to sort of comment on where I think we feel most confident, it's really in our EBITDA margin and our EBITDA performance, because that we think is going to be the single biggest driver of value, both for our shareholders and for the company, as we look out over the next several quarters. I don't know if David or if Mike, you guys have anything that you'd like to add to that?
spk13: This is David. I would just echo the pricing pressure in Pennsylvania, both at the retail side and on the wholesale side, which is not news to anybody. It definitely came at us in sort of the later part of Q3. It has somewhat continued in Q4. The pricing stability in the wholesale market seems to have come back a bit to us. So I think there was a rush to the exits there at the end of Q3 in Pennsylvania. In California, the wholesale pricing continues to be unfavorable. We thought that Q3 would potentially be the low point of it, but it has trickled into Q4. There's been some stability, but it hasn't rebounded yet. So those two are definitely contributing factors in addition to the regulatory challenges in Illinois and Boston that Nick mentioned.
spk15: So, I mean, Vivian, one thing that I'm sure is not lost on you guys, but Historically, and this is something you've heard us say before, when we make significant investments in our supply chain, so, for example, in New Jersey, and we don't see the revenue pickup that we would have expected from the introduction of adult use, we still have to have all of those costs absorbed somewhere. And, you know, so whether that's West Virginia, whether that's New Jersey, whether that's, you know, Colorado, you know, you go through the markets where we've made considerable investments and we haven't yet seen that revenue, I guess, that lagging indicator of revenue, pick up once the CapEx is done and once the costs associated with the expansion of our canopy and our manufacturing capacity is completed. That drag, I think, is probably a real impact from an accounting perspective, but also positions us very well for significant improvements going forward once those facilities begin to hit their stride.
spk11: Understood. Thanks for the color.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Rektagi with ATB Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
spk05: Thank you and good morning. Nick, on the topic of New Jersey, could you provide some color, recognizing you're not providing 2022 guidance yet, but could you at least share some insight as to how you're framing up and handicapping the potential start of adult use in New Jersey as you look to your 2022 build? And perhaps then sort of expanding on that, any incremental thoughts you have on Maryland or Pennsylvania and the timing there, such that we can just sort of start to at least better triangulate our own thoughts and narrow down how to be framing up some of those catalyst type events in 2022 and their timing. Thank you.
spk15: Certainly. So in Maryland and Pennsylvania, I'll start with those. I don't think we expect any financial impact from adult use in either one of those markets in 2022. It is just not something that we've seen real progress in Maryland, but Pennsylvania, you haven't seen broad, bipartisan, bicameral support for any kind of initiative like cannabis conversion to adult use. It doesn't mean that there won't be political movement, but I think operationally and financially, it's unlikely that we see a real change to those environments. Now that's not such a bad thing from the perspective of Maryland, but in Pennsylvania we continue to see significant competitive, the landscape evolve from the standpoint of new dispensaries coming online and new cultivation facilities coming online. Our goal in Pennsylvania is really to be the most efficient, highest quality producer in the supply chain so that we can offer better value to our wholesale partners as well as their customers that come through our own dispensaries. Very much the same story in Maryland where we have a considerable wholesale business as well as we're maxed out from a retail perspective. In New Jersey, the political landscape changed. You know, I think that everyone was surprised that Governor Murphy had such a significant challenger for the gubernatorial race. The change in the Senate presidency is material. That, you know, I've always heard through the grapevine, and I'm not a pundit, but I've always been told that the most powerful politician in the state of New Jersey was the former Senate president. So it'll be interesting to see how that happens. You know, I think that the lesson that we've learned just, you know, being in the space for some time is to be a little bit more conservative on timeline. So I think we're expecting potentially the second quarter to be the timeline when you see New Jersey adult use come online. If it happens earlier, that's great. I hope that we are being conservative. But there are just a lot of political changes and a lot of things that have happened over the past several weeks that I think have a material impact on the way a lot of the decision makers kind of think about their political futures.
spk05: Thanks, Nick. I'll leave it there.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Owen Bennett with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
spk02: Hi, good morning. This is actually Derek calling in for Owen. Question on California. You say that your approval on additional indoor capacity in the state is delayed and we can just get some timeline on when you think that's going to come online. And in the release, you also indicated that there's early indications of huge improvements in California. So I was wondering if you could just dig deeper into those improvements on the gross margin side. That would be helpful. Thank you.
spk15: Certainly. So let me turn it over to David. And, David, if you get a chance, maybe we'll be able to talk a little bit about the impact of gross margins in Colorado because I think California and Colorado are probably two of the biggest negative contributors from a margin perspective.
spk13: Sure. So in California, we have a manufacturing location in San Diego that we're going through the permitting process with the city of San Diego to get approval to begin the construction. So from our experience, nothing has happened quickly in California. San Diego, we love being in San Diego. We obviously have two of our highest volume dispensaries in San Diego, as well as our manufacturing for the state of California. But it's a slow process. It's a long time to even get hydrocarbon extraction approval in San Diego. So we're running through the traps to get that approved. We have the space. We have the design. We've got everything required to move forward. We're just pushing through the permitting process, which takes time. So we haven't formally said when we think we'll get plants under lights in that facility, but it would be in 2022. It's a question of Is it first half of 2022, or do we get plants under lights early 2H? To be determined, but we are moving forward. We have seen less price decline in high-quality A-grade flower in California that's indoor. There's always a market and a bid for that material. If we're going to invest in cultivation, that's where we want to invest our dollars. With respect to gross margin, it's two things that are impacting Q4 early days in California.
spk00: One is
spk13: We did make some changes to the Project Cannabis stores that we acquired earlier in the year. It involves leadership change and menu optimization. Menu optimization being bringing in a different selection of products and a faster refresh rate and more competitive pricing. We've put a lot of heat and light on the retail side of that business. We have seen increased foot traffic and better margins. Less discounting and more foot traffic leads to an improvement in gross margin. We've also leveraged our team in San Diego from a retail perspective, and actually from Arizona, frankly, as well. So that, in addition to seeing incremental higher-quality flower coming out of our existing California indoor grow after we've made all of the renovations, so we're seeing that early days in Q4, better material, which has an immediate improvement in, regardless of where the pricing is, we're getting better pricing for that indoor, you know, higher-tacking flowers. Just to include Colorado, as Nick mentioned, there is a significant potential inflection point with gross margin heading into 2022 as we work through the existing indoor material we have in Colorado. We are seeing record yields coming out of our five-tier indoor grow that we've invested a lot of time, money, and energy into. And it's a matter of timing from an accounting perspective as we move through the legacy material that's sitting on our books and getting to the new material that's now being put into finished goods. So that's more of a timing issue than anything, but it should have a significant impact because when you do look at increased grams per square foot and the quality, it does a few things for us in Colorado. We put more of our own product on the shelf. which obviously delivers higher gross margin being vertically integrated, and you have more of it, frankly, to sell not only in our stores, but obviously the Medicine Man stores that we've just brought in-house and in the wholesale market. So positive developments, but it's a timing and an accounting issue in Colorado as we come towards the end of 2021 heading into 2022. Thank you.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Bottomley with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.
spk18: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking all the questions. I appreciate all the color in the press release and in the prepared remarks here. I'm just wondering if we could triangulate a little bit more, if possible, on GLM and some of the acquisitions that closed. There's been a couple that have actually closed a little bit sooner than what was initially indicated previously. on announcement and just with the overall outlook reduction, I'm just wondering how that business in particular did relative to your expectations and more on the top line, just given that obviously the margin profile has improved very healthily this quarter. So I'm just more interested on sort of the top line contribution of the markets that came online with that closing.
spk14: Okay, apologies. It does look like we lost Nicholas and David's line. Please stand by while we get that back online.
spk15: Matt? All right, so you guys are back. Yeah, Matt, sorry. I actually hit the volume button to turn it up a little bit, and by mistake I disconnected it. I thought I upset you. No problem. Yeah, exactly. I got a little flummoxed. So I think the question you were asking was can you explain how some of the early closes –
spk18: offset you know and some of the some of the early closes shouldn't be a positive impact to earnings rather than a resulting in a reduction in guidance that is that the yeah just wondering given the fact that we do have some some tailwinds there from those early closings how those businesses have performed relative to your expectation um given the fact that there's some offsets with some of the markets you already described um that have sequential pricing declines
spk15: You know, I think that we've talked about Pennsylvania for some time. That was the single biggest sort of financial piece of the GLEAP puzzle. It's not to say that that was the only piece, but it has been painful because GLEAP is such a significant participant in the wholesale market in Pennsylvania. And that's just one facility, right? We've seen softness in our dispensaries, too. And so it hasn't been relegated to sort of one side of the business. It's just that the market in Pennsylvania has changed, I think, materially so. And so we did get the GLEAP deal closed a little bit ahead of schedule. But, you know, that wasn't, you know, that, as it turns out, you know, we could not have predicted the scale and the speed at which the wholesale market and some of the pricing dynamics at the point of sale changed. And so, you know, that's, the offset to that is obviously Virginia, which has been great because GLEAP's, you know, the GLEAP assets are very, very significant producers. There are other ColumbiaCare assets, And that's been nice to see. Maryland, we've seen strength out of the retail side, but there's been a little bit of softness on the wholesale side. And Ohio continues to, you know, perform strongly. So, you know, if that's the single largest M&A contributor or let's say sort of source of both ups and downs, you know, I think that the delay with the Medicine Man close isn't great because Medicine Man is performing exceptionally well. We've obviously done some things both in California and Colorado, and we've made decisions to take facilities offline. We did that at the beginning of the year, believing that we would have all of these positive catalysts coming down the road, and that would be the offset for the margin declines and basically the performance declines that we saw in the facilities that we've basically restructured. And so, you know, there's always a bit of risk associated with making decisions like that. But in hindsight, it was the right thing to do. We have never seen more productivity out of our Colorado assets. I think it's going to be a significant game changer in the wholesale setting next year. I think the California price decline curve that we've talked about is least affected when you – And that's precisely where we expect our portfolio to trend towards because of the improvements we've made on the manufacturing side. So by luck or by design, we're ahead of those dynamics from a construction and rollout perspective, but we're behind in terms of actually commercializing the products that are coming off the line. And so that mismatch is causing a little bit of heartache, but we're actually very excited about both markets because of the types of investment that we've made to prepare for precisely the type of dynamics that we're seeing right now. It's just they came a little bit earlier than expected.
spk18: Understood. And just one more for me, and apologies, I lost my line as well during some of the prepared remarks, but I'm just getting some questions this morning on some of the specific nature of what's in the, there's a $75 million adjustment that goes into your adjusted EBITDA reconciliation for acquisition-related and settlement items. And I'm just wondering how much of that is accounted-related items versus one-time cash, just to get an idea of You know, the more material items that go into that adjustment.
spk15: So it's a few things, right? And basically, it's a kitchen sink line item that is being driven by accounting. But I think the short story is there's an acquisition in there. So we can't talk about it because it hasn't closed. But because of the way it's structured, we had to raise it. And then there is basically the closeout of a couple of prior existing relationships and sort of minority interests and some settlements. You know, we've disclosed some of the settlements in the past in prior disclosures. But effectively, it's got everything under one umbrella so that we could basically clean up the books and put it behind us going forward and have, you know, basically not have to talk about this stuff anymore.
spk18: Okay. Thanks again, everyone.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Semple with Echelon Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
spk03: Good morning and congrats on the Q3 results. Just looking for an update on dried flower products in both Virginia and New York, subsequent to the quarter. Have you seen any acceleration in patient demand in those states following dried flower approval and those products in the market? Are you seeing higher patient registrations or traffic in the stores? Just a fulsome update on those two states and how the dry flower approval is impacting the ramp.
spk15: So what I may do is just give a quick answer and then turn it over to David. But I think we've seen the form factor of preference in New York right now seems to be moving towards whole flower. So that's not surprising. There is a limit on the number of strains that are available, and I think that's changing day by day. So we're expecting that the market is getting better, but it is not accelerating the way one would think because, candidly, the operators haven't had the infrastructure and the regulars haven't had the infrastructure to go through the approval process to allow us to actually build a robust sort of, let's call it, diverse product pipeline and strain pipeline. And so that's a work in progress, but it is getting better. In Virginia, on the other hand, we have the largest infrastructure from a supply chain perspective. We're seeing wholesale and retail demand. I think the issue we're seeing in Virginia is twofold. Registration process has an enormous backlog and enormous delays and I think that's sort of keep creating a bit of a speed governor on the adoption curve. There is no shortage of interest in rolling the program, but it just hasn't had the regulators haven't had the ability to keep up with the pace yet and we're expecting some changes there that ought to be very, very positive. separately, there isn't a lot of access. And so one of the things you see in an early market is the rate of adoption actually is driven in part by the availability of access. And so the introduction of new dispensaries is a very meaningful component of that sort of what's called the slope of the adoption curve that we see materializing. But both markets, we're seeing positive dynamics. I think Virginia, you're seeing an accelerated version of what we're seeing in New York. But it doesn't mean that New York, we won't see a pickup of I think that the regulators are still sort of trying to get their feet beneath them. Remember, there's a process in New York where the commission really needs to drive the decision-making process, and they were recently appointed. So these things take a little bit of time, but it is definitely getting better. But let me see, David, if you have any thoughts on that.
spk13: Yeah, the only thing I would add is we've seen this in at least two of the markets most recently in Pennsylvania and in Florida. there's a multi-month lag between the approval of whole flour and the uptake of new patients coming into the market. And so we're seeing the early days of people coming in and those that are already in the existing program are clearly, many of them are switching from either concentrates or ground flour, as an example in New York, to whole flour. And in Virginia, we obviously had a huge first day and lots of momentum afterwards, but there's clearly a backlog of people that are coming into the system, and it just takes time. But it's impossible not to expect an influx of patients coming into those two programs like we've seen in others. It's just there's too many case studies out there to demonstrate what will happen in a three- and six-month look forward from when FLOWER becomes approved.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pablo Zuinnick with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please proceed with your question.
spk00: Thank you. Just a housekeeping question. On the press release, when you say the top five markets by adjusted EBITDA, you include Virginia there, but that's on EBITDA margins, right, not dollar EBITDA, I suppose. That's a housekeeping question. And the second one, obviously, the guidance for the full year implies a wide range for the fourth quarter, 135 million to 150, for my math. You said New Jersey starts in the second quarter, so just talk about the moving pieces that would help you hit the high end of that guidance for 4Q. Thank you.
spk15: So that is margin. You're correct. And I think the biggest variables that could impact 4Q, not necessarily in order, are stability of pricing in Pennsylvania on the wholesale side. And so if we see a resumption of the pricing dynamic that we had enjoyed prior to the third quarter 2021, I think you're going to see fairly significant, you know, a nice snapback. The second thing is the introduction and the commercial vision of the products that we finally see coming off the line in Colorado. And so, you know, if you remember in the first quarter, one of the things that we had a sort of a – One of the things that we highlighted in the first couple of quarters was the weakness in gross margin in Colorado because we took those facilities offline. And so we have higher margin product, higher quality product kind of coming into the markets right now in Colorado. And if we can commercialize that in the fourth quarter, that will have a significant impact. I think the third piece of the puzzle, obviously, and again, this is in no particular order, is just our ability to actually maintain – oh, you know what? And I apologize. I misspoke. The EBITDA is actually absolute dollars, not margin. So that was my bad. I misspoke. But the third is basically some stability in Florida. And I don't expect Florida to really see a significant change, but we've seen material improvements to our own operations that ought to be contributing to the improvements in gross margin, regardless of what the pricing dynamic looks like there. So if we can commercialize the products in Colorado that we have coming off the line, if we can stabilize California, and we're seeing sort of a glimmer of hope there, And then if we can really see the pricing dynamic in Pennsylvania stabilize, I think all those three, along with some of the other things, you know, less materially so, but along with some of the other initiatives we have ongoing all throughout the country, you should see a significant improvement. But let me see, David, if you have any thoughts on that.
spk13: Yeah, no, I think you covered it. I've got nothing more to add to that one.
spk14: Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Glenn Mattson with Lattenberg Thauman. Please proceed with your question.
spk04: Hi, thanks. Just real quick on Virginia. Nick, curious to get your thoughts on the expectations under a new governor and just the thought process of, you know, some people had expectations perhaps that Virginia would convert to adult rec sales more rapidly than is currently scheduled, given the fact that it's a kind of untenable situation with the um, ambiguity that down there. So, uh, just what you thought process is now given, uh, given the new governor and, and, and, uh, if you've, I don't know if you've spoke to the, um, you know, spoke to the, uh, the people there yet or not, but any color would be great. Thanks.
spk15: So we, we have, you know, we've, we've, I think we've, we've always taken the very balanced, um, approach to politics and certainly in election years, um, in Glenn Young King is, uh, is an ex Carlisle guy. So he's a, he's a market driven, uh, focused on the economic development of the state of Virginia. I think that there was more of a prioritization applied to this issue for the other candidate. But the fact is that there is bipartisan support in Virginia. There is bicameral support in Virginia. And this is something that has already been instituted into law. So I think that Will we see changes? It's very possible. Could those changes go and either slow things down or speed things up? Absolutely. We don't know the answer to that yet, and we're working on it. But one thing we do feel very good about is that you have a very rational legislator, legislative decision-making body, and you have a very rational person in the seat as governor. who is not made as a political footballer, who's really thinking about all of the tools in their toolkit to drive economic stability and economic success for the state of Virginia. So this should be an issue that they're focused on and they're excited about.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Graham Kreinler with 8 Capital. Please proceed with your question.
spk06: Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. You mentioned in the prepared remarks that Ohio is looking like it's shaping up to be a great wholesale market. I'm wondering what you need to see out of that market in order for it to look like a more robust vertical market where you can take advantage of the full supply chain there. Thanks.
spk15: So it's been a very strong – I'll give you my thoughts and I'll hand it over to David. It's been a very strong market both at the retail and the wholesale side for us. We happen to have one of the largest cultivation facilities in the state. And we have one of the broadest product portfolios available in the ultimate market. And so that's been a very good place for us to be. When you see new dispensaries come online, what's the first thing they need is supply. And there's always a lag in terms of the availability of supply when you have a limited license market environment like you do in Ohio. So I think that we're very happy about the way our dispensaries have performed, the way our margins have developed. We're very happy about the way the market has developed. It doesn't look like it's going to transition to adult use legislatively anytime soon, but the market itself continues to, I think, expand very, very well, particularly in the areas where we have dispensaries. And when we look at the nature of the wholesale relationships we have, they're very, very strong. So I don't think that there was an intentional exclusion of the retail side in that commentary. It was just a I think more of a comment on the fact that we've seen exceptional strength on the wholesale side, and both those in parallel are driving margin. But, David, what are your thoughts?
spk13: Yeah, I would just add that we've got incremental canopy under development that we're trying to finish and should finish in the early part of 2022, incremental canopy. We are scaling up the manufacturing. We did close that transaction, and we're actually building out the team. And from a retail perspective, we continue to see positive trends across the board. We do know that at some point in time there are going to be incremental dispensaries, and that's why we opted to lean into the cultivation manufacturing side to make sure we're positioned to be able to service the new dispensaries that are coming online because we are tapped out in terms of the number of dispensaries we can own and operate.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt McGinley with Needham. Please proceed with your question.
spk10: Thank you. My question is on what's implied in the fourth quarter in terms of operating expense growth. You noted that the gross margin rate would still be up on the fourth quarter, but it looks like your operating expense dollars would grow at an unusually high rate compared to prior quarters and compared to the revenue growth. I assume a lot of that's probably timing related, but how much control do you have on those expenses if revenue doesn't express much growth into 22? And if the dollars stay the same or even grow a little bit from here, it wouldn't seem like you would have very much EBITDA rate upside in the early next year. So I'm just hoping you could help me understand what's actually in those dollars and how variable they are.
spk15: I think that we actually have quite a bit of control over those, both from an SG&A and a COGS perspective. The COGS, if we go down just EBITDA, the improvements that we're seeing in Colorado and California should drive a significant amount of improvement in gross margin, just on the face of it. You know, the commercialization of West Virginia, right? I mean, think about it. We have all the costs in West Virginia, but we have none of the revenue. So just opening our doors there will have a profound impact the same way it did in places like Florida, right? We talked about this in the past. And so when you think about the markets that were EBITDA negative, they were New Jersey, they were West Virginia, they were Missouri, they were Utah, and Florida. I think those were the primary contributors. All of those were expecting to be contributing EBITDA next year, and so they won't be pulling the sort of the average down. They'll actually bring the average up. I think the concern about sort of how we manage those costs relative to our revenue growth You know, the revenue growth is really a byproduct of how long it takes the plants to grow. So it's predictable. And, you know, I think that the, you know, whether we're looking at sort of let's call it the corporate expenses as a percentage of revenue or SG&A as a percentage of revenue, both of those numbers should continue to improve materially. And so I don't think we have concerns about that. You know, the business itself is still growing and, you know, with a couple of very rare exceptions in every single market. And some of those growth rates are expected to actually really sort of accelerate very quickly in 2022. And so, you know, I think New Jersey is a quintessential example of that, right? We're really, we haven't hit our stride there. We have an enormous amount of capacity, but we know that capacity has expenses associated with it. But until the market turns from medical to adult use, we're really not going to see that acceleration of margin and profitability. We're trying to manage the business very, very carefully up until that point. You're going to see us, basically, when David talks about things like a phased approach, when he's referring to the way we think about making adjustments in places like Colorado to leadership, on California, I mean, all of that has to do with making sure that we're managing both sides of the ledger to drive, to continue to show that improvement. I mean, we have significant expectations for improvement in EBITDA margin next year. And, you know, whether we have a, I mean, you know, the reduction in guidance you saw was a 6% reduction in guidance. I can tell you that, you know, the types of profitability and improvements we're seeing sequentially and year over year, those are trend lines that we don't see are compromised. So we feel very good about where we are from the standpoint of operations and sort of pushing ColumbiaCare into that part of the marketplace where our margins are as good as, if not better, than our competitors. And by the way, even with a 6% decline in our guidance, we still have standout growth relative to anyone else in the market. So it's Frankly, it's disappointing whenever you have to take a look at where you are and when you have to guide like this, but the fact is that we'd rather guide like this knowing that we have all of this embedded growth in 2022 and, frankly, that our trend lines are moving in a materially positive direction and they're going to continue to do so.
spk14: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Russell Stanley with Beacon Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk16: Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to follow up on New York, and not sure if I mentioned, or not sure if you covered this already, but do you have any color from the state as to when they'll release the second batch of four retail licenses that the incumbents are due to receive? And of course, secondarily, what your latest view is on the timing of the adult use market opening? Thanks.
spk15: So it's a The truth is we don't know when those additional four dispensaries are going to come online. We are looking for them, and we're going to be ready for it when we get the green light. But they have not given us an indication for timing. I think you've seen behind closed doors, I think you've seen members of decision makers really hope for a 2022 rollout of adult use. Public statements have suggested it's probably 2023 when we see our first revenue in adult use, but there are a lot of things that happen between now and then, and we have obviously a governor who is going to be running for a full-blown election in a competitive landscape. So all of that is, I think, is a bit of a question mark. I would say it's certainly in the next 14, 15 months. But is it eight months rather than 15 months? That's hard to tell. What I can tell you is that between now and then, the state has telegraphed and has basically opened the spigot for whole flour into the market. They're now beginning to work very hard to sort of move quickly to create the infrastructure that allows us to introduce new products so that we can actually give patients in the medical program products that they're looking for the same way that patients in Pennsylvania and Florida have products that they're interested in. And so we're going to see continued expansion and growth. The question is, do we see the first adult use license in the first half or the second half next year? I don't know. I'm hopeful that it's kind of mid-year and then with a commercialization taking place in 2023. But we'll have to stay tuned.
spk14: Thank you. Our final question of today comes from the line of Jason Zandberg with PI Financial. Please proceed with your question.
spk17: Hi, and thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions have been answered, but if I could, I wanted just to focus in on Illinois. It looks like it was one of your best performing states in both top line revenue and EBITDA contribution. Just wanted to know sort of what that trend line in Illinois looks like here in Q4 and how impactful that Jefferson Park dispensary expansion could be to your results this coming quarter?
spk15: I mean, the Jefferson Park expansion is material, right? It's a Chicago-based dispensary, and it basically doubles our throughput. It's been a real thorn in our side that we haven't been able to get that sort of open for business in a timeline that we'd hoped. But that could be a significant sort of driver of both top-line growth and margin expansion. Let me turn it over to David, and maybe, David, you can share some thoughts on what we're doing in Illinois to continue that trend line.
spk13: Yes. We have seen increased foot traffic quarter-over-quarter at our dispensaries, and that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down. I think what we haven't talked about is probably the success we've had on the wholesale side in terms of adding automation post-harvest. Yeah, I think we've got some of the best flower pre-roll material in the state of Illinois. So everything we produce, we could definitely sell 100% of it in the wholesale market. So we continue to optimize between retail and wholesale to make sure that we can do everything we can from a top line, but obviously focused in that market and that team is focused on the contribution to the organization. Continues to be a great market. Pricing in the wholesale market has not experienced what other markets have seen. And so we continue to lean into that market through new product introduction and continue to deliver high-quality flour and pre-roll to that market. So great team. They've embraced automation. And we just continue to see incremental traffic on the retail side, which is promising.
spk14: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. This does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Have a great day.
spk07: Great.
spk15: Thank you.
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