Jones Soda Co

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Jones Soda's financial results for the third quarter ended September 30th, 2021. Before we begin, let me remind everyone of the company's safe harbor disclaimer. Certain portions of our comments today will concern future expectations, plans, and prospects of the company that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include all statements containing verbs such as aims, anticipates, estimates, expects, believes, intends, plans, predicts, will, may, continue, projects, or targets, and negatives of these words and similar words or expressions. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could affect our actual results include, among others, those that are discussed under the heading Risk Factors in our most recently filed reports for the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our current reports on Form 8-K. In addition, this call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. The most directly comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations for non-GAAP measures are available in the earnings release and other documents posted on the company's website under investor relations. I'd like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replay through November 11th, 2021, starting at 7.30 p.m. Eastern time tonight. Webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in today's press release, as well as on the company's website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to the president and CEO of Jones Soda, Mark Murray.

Thank you, James, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I am pleased to say we had another strong quarter driven by our core bottled soda business. Revenue for the quarter increased 29% to $4.6 million, marking our fifth consecutive quarter of revenue growth. We also are reporting positive income from operations for the second consecutive quarter, something we haven't done since 2006. Our strong results this quarter are evidence that our turnaround strategy, which we put into place at the end of 2020, is working. It's been a team effort, and I want to thank our dedicated employees and stakeholders for all the work they've done as we continue to develop and grow the business. On the call today, I'll provide an update on our sales performance, marketing initiatives, operations, and our planned cannabis initiatives. We will then end with a Q&A session. Before I get into these topics, I'd like to hand the call over to Joe to discuss our strong financial results for the quarter. Joe?

Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. Total revenue in the third quarter increased 29%. to $4.6 million compared to $3.5 million in the third quarter of 2020. This increase was primarily due to continued growth in our core bottled soda business. Gross profit as a percentage of revenue increased 600 basis points to 32% compared to 26% in the prior year period. The improvement was a result of the continued shift to a higher margin product mix which includes the recovery of our food service business. Operating expenses in the third quarter were $1.4 million compared to $1.3 million in the same year-ago quarter. This includes a slight uptick in spending related to sales and marketing, along with the general corporate expenses to facilitate growth. Net loss in the third quarter improved to $59,000 or zero cents per share compared to a net loss of $450,000 or negative one cent per share for the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter improved to positive $72,000 compared to negative $324,000 in the year-ago quarter. These profitability improvements are the result of our efforts to optimize margins and manage costs, both of which are key focus areas as we move forward. Moving on to the balance sheet. On September 30th, 2021, cash and cash equivalents were $5.9 million compared to $4.6 million on December 31st, 2020. Working capital was $7.3 million at December 30th, 2021 compared to $5.8 million at December 31st, 2020. Lastly, the only debt we carry is the outstanding convertible notes issued in 2018 and our recently issued convertible debentures. we continue to evaluate the possibility of securing a new line of credit. I'll now hand the call back over to Mark for his remarks.