TILT Holdings Inc.

Good morning and welcome to TILT Holdings' fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings conference call and webcast. This call is being recorded today for replay purposes. A replay of the audio webcast will be available in the investor section of the company's website approximately two hours after the completion of the webcast and will be archived for 30 days. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, TILT's Director of Investor Relations, Taylor Allison. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Tilt Holdings' fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial results were released today. The press release financial statement and MD&A are available on CDAR, as well as our website, tiltholdings.com. Please note that during this morning's webcast, remarks made regarding future expectations, plans, and prospects for the company constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, which we disclose in more detail in the Risk Factors section of Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three and 12 months ended December 31, 2020, filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities and can be found on CR.com. 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 such forward-looking statements in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so except as otherwise required by applicable law. Please note that on today's call, we will refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, and gross profit margin, excluding changes in the fair value of biological assets and inventories. These measures do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. So, consider these certain non-IFRS measures to be meaningful indicators of the performance of our 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 today. As a reminder, TILT completed the sale of Blackbird on November 30, 2020. On our full year and comparative financial statements, you can see Blackbird as discontinued operations in the income statement and statement of cash flows. A more detailed breakdown of Blackbird is available in note four of our financial statements. Unless otherwise specified, the results discussed today will be from our continuing operations. On today's call are Mark Scatterday, Chief Executive Officer, Brad Hoke, Chief Financial Officer, and Gary Santo, President. Mark will begin with a high-level review of 2020, followed by Brad who will provide an overview of our financials during the quarter. Gary will then discuss recent developments and operational highlights, after which the team will take questions. With that, I will now turn the webcast over to Mark.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in our fourth quarter earnings webcast. The top priority for this year was to bring TILT to profitability. I'm proud to say that we've accomplished that goal. And with the addition of Gary, we've solidified our long-term strategy and have established steady growth trajectory. Let me review the three big milestones we've reached during 2020 in greater detail. One, bring tilt to profitability. For the full year 2020, we generated $16.9 million in adjusted EBITDA from operating activities and $16.7 million in cash flow from continuing operating activities. This is in comparison to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.8 million in cash flow used in operating activities of $17.6 million in 2019. This $17.7 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA year over year was driven by achieving greater scale in our plant touching operations, bringing shared expenses to the corporate level and a strong focus on cost control across the organization. This focus on profitability will only improve in 2021. The steps we've taken this year set TILDUP for success going forward and we expect adjusted EBITDA in 2021 to be between $30 and $32 million. We can self-fund operations and growth and are less vulnerable to macro conditions that affect the capital markets. Two, solidified tilt strategy. With Gary as president, we undertook a full strategic review of the company, looking at capital allocation and how we could best generate shareholder value. Blackbird was an asset with a lot of potential, but it drew heavily against resources that could have been deployed in areas that would generate more immediate returns. We reorganized the business, streamlining Jupiter as a cash flow steady business with access to thousands of B2B cannabis customers and redeployed our capital into our plant touching businesses. We are leveraging relationships across the business cross-sell services and growing our platform as a unified B2B company. Gary will touch on this in greater detail, but we are also taking significant steps to turn Tilt from a holdings company into an integrated operating company and putting the right leaders in place to drive our next growth phase. Three, establish a steady growth trajectory. After facing two macro events within the last two years, which created the perfect storm for our business, we stabilized Jupiter and diversified our business with more revenue from our plant touching assets. We generated sequential sales growth in back to back quarters and expect to continue this trend through 2021 with a full year revenue outlook of $205 to $210 million. Last year was a productive year for Tilt. We brought Tilt to profitability, solidified Tilt's strategy, and established a steady growth trajectory. I'm proud of the hard work the team this year under difficult circumstances. Tilt has never been in a better position for success, and I feel extremely confident in the company's future. With that, I will now turn the call over to Brad, who will break down our quarterly financial performance in more detail.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone.

As a reminder, results discussed today are in U.S. dollars. TILT completed the sale of Blackbird on November 30, 2020. On our full year and comparative financial statements, you can see Blackbird as discontinued operations in the income statement and statement of cash flows. A more detailed breakdown of Blackbird is available in Note 4 of our financial statements. Unless otherwise specified, I'll be discussing the results from our continuing operations. Fourth quarter revenue was $42.3 million at the top end of the range we pre-released in February, up 8.1% sequentially, driven by modest growth in Jupiter's quarter-over-quarter revenue and a 34% increase in plant-touching revenue from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. This high margin business continues to be the fastest growing part of our operations. Gross profit before fair value of biological assets was $11.3 million, a gross margin of 26.7% compared to 31.3% in Q3. Gross profit was impacted as new rooms at our Massachusetts cultivation facility came online, producing costs prior to new harvests being ready for sale. We expect this to improve as we get closer to full utilization from this facility. Total operating expense for the fourth quarter was $49.7 million, but this includes $34.1 million in impairment of goodwill, intangible assets, and property plant equipment. The impairment is a result of aligning the company's strategy focused on synergistic, cash flow positive businesses. In connection with the sale of Blackbird, the company reevaluated and ultimately wrote off its non-core assets, including Baker Technologies and Sante Veritas. We also recognized impairment charge due to the lowering carrying value of Goodwill at Jupiter due to a change in the discount rate. The cash-related operating expense was $8.3 million, flat compared to Q3. On a year-over-year basis, our cash-related operating expense declined by 17.7%. As Mark discussed, bringing shared services costs to the corporate level and a focus of company-wide cost control have proven successful. You'll see an increase in absolute expense over the coming quarters as we continue to build out our team and invest to scale, but we expect it to fall as a percentage of revenue, especially once new cultivation in Massachusetts comes online. The company recorded a net loss from continuing operations of $45 million. This is primarily due to $34.1 million non-cash impairment loss on goodwill and tangible assets and property plant equipment, as well as $16.4 million in loan losses, primarily related to the previously press-released Irmont note assignment. None of these write-downs impact our core business or reflect the underlying profitability of our continuing operations. Adjusted EBITDA, a much better view into the performance of our ongoing operations, was $4.5 million in the quarter, or approximately 10% of revenue. This was our fourth quarter in a row with positive adjusted EBITDA. We expect continued improvement in adjusted EBITDA as we generate more operating leverage for our plant-touching businesses while Jupiter continues to be a steady mainstay to our profitability and growth. Cash flow provided by continuing operating activities in 2020 was 16.7 million, a 34.2 million improvement from 2019. The profitability levels demonstrated this year allows us to self-fund our growth initiatives. We ended the quarter with 7.4 million in cash, which is especially strong since Q4 is typically our most cash-consumptive period. With that, I'll pass the call over to Gary for an in-depth look into what we are doing to drive additional growth.

Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone.

As Mark pointed out in his comments, 2020 was a seminal year for TILT. Not many publicly traded companies have the opportunity for a second act, and the team embraced that opportunity to strengthen a foundation upon which we have now been able to return to growth. That said, we do find ourselves at a crossroads, as Tilt was originally formed as a holding company, and as a result, has often been viewed as a disparate collection of subsidiaries. When I first joined the firm last July, just about every conversation I had with the market started with someone saying that they could not understand how the pieces fit together or what the overall strategy was. It became apparent early on in our strategic planning process that if Tilt were to achieve its potential, we would need to shed that hold co persona and transition towards becoming an integrated operating company. It is always a difficult task to integrate multiple business lines in any industry. However, I've always thought of cannabis as the worst integration story ever told. Unless you operate in a single jurisdiction, fragmentation within the regulatory environment create roadblock after roadblock for companies trying to achieve the kinds of synergies that just about any other manufacturing and specialty retail company enjoy. To combat these challenges requires a focused leadership team committed to a strategic vision, nimble enough to navigate an ever-changing landscape, and capable of executing at the highest level. A lot of companies throw around the word execution. It is a word constantly used in the capital markets and a metric that separates aspiration from accountability. Delivering shareholder value through the implementation of strategic initiatives depends on management's ability to execute in a timely and efficient manner, with that latter point being the ultimate key to success. Far too often, action is mistaken for execution, and investors are left to determine whether or not true progress is being made. For TILT, if 2020 was about achieving profitability and stabilizing the core, 2021 is about execution, plain and simple. When last we spoke in November, we made it clear that our strategy was not to compete with other multi-state operators, but to be their B2B partner of choice, introducing a strategy of partnering with brands that allow us to leverage our robust cultivation, manufacturing, and distribution capabilities, and bring premium brands and products to the dynamic markets in which we operate. Within 90 days of announcing that strategy, we signed our first such brand partnership with Her Highness, female-focused cannabis brand created by women for women. And 30 days later, we launched their products on our dispensary shelves throughout Massachusetts, despite numerous supply chain and regulatory challenges. This is how we define execution, and the results have been fantastic. Brands have taken notice of the speed at which we are able to deliver and the value we provide, and faced with limited options to expand their reach without becoming beholden or captive to traditional multi-state operators or expending significant capital to obtain the kind of infrastructure that we already possess, TILT presents a clear option and a nimble partner capable of providing meaningful exposure in our high priority limited license markets on the East Coast. To deliver these kinds of results, we have had to address the kinds of inefficiencies, duplicative efforts, and missed sales opportunities that siloed businesses within a holding company often experience. Since late 2020, we have undertaken numerous steps to synchronize and integrate strategy, sales, finance and accounting, marketing, HR, and compliance functions, bringing them up to the corporate level in order to ensure cohesive infrastructure that will allow us to efficiently deploy consistent resources across all business lines and achieve economies of scale that often elude cannabis companies. We have been blessed with an incredible and adaptable team. And one of my jobs has been to surround that talent with the resources and leadership that they need to succeed. Over the past few months, you have seen a number of announcements regarding key hires we have made, all of whom will prove critical to driving our next wave of growth. I'd like to take a moment to highlight a few of the many impressive people we've had the privilege to add. It all starts with a focus on our people. And our latest hire demonstrates our commitment to creating a welcoming, inclusive environment where professional development is as important as delivering bottom line results. Our new Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Daryl Henderson, will draw on over 30 years of experience as an HR executive to ensure that we continue to attract and retain the highest quality talent and build the type of inclusive and supportive culture across all levels of the organization that TILT wishes to have. A focus on compliance and social equity are equally as foundational to what we believe in and core to running a successful cannabis business. To that end, we've bolstered our compliance and regulatory team, adding Nikki Moyers as our vice president and head of compliance. Nikki has spent the last decade working in government and public service, most recently with the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Program. We did not stop there, however, also adding Patrick Bea as director and our compliance team. Before joining TILT, Patrick worked as Director of Investigations at the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. We've also redeployed Jupiter's incredible marketing team to the corporate level as a shared service, adding Roseanne Valencia Fernandez as our new Vice President and Head of Marketing. Roseanne will leverage her extensive experience both in traditional CPG and the cannabis industry at large to help redefine and reposition TILT, its subsidiaries, and the brands that we work with across the broader cannabis industry. The changes we continue to make throughout the organization have already started to pay off, both in terms of our ability to execute at a high level, as well as our standing in the marketplace. For example, in Massachusetts, we are pleased to report that the Cannabis Control Commission's investigation into TILT has been completed. Based on recent discussions with the Commission, we believe that the finish line to resolving our adult use licensure issues are within sight. As a result, we are reasonably confident that the matter will be resolved well before the end of the second quarter, allowing us to begin the process of getting our Brockton and Cambridge dispensaries open while adding adult use to our existing cotton dispensary. We continue to expand cultivation in Massachusetts and are seeing not only increased capacity, but higher yields. Harvest fail rates that were in the 30% range in 2020 are now in the single digit range, and we're just getting started. Our initial set of six new rooms at CAC had their first harvest in March, with a second set of eight additional rooms approved earlier this year having been planted with first harvests expected in the coming months. Having now more than doubled our canopy in the last six months, we expect to begin reaping the rewards of our efforts in the second half of this year. And we remain extremely bullish on the Massachusetts market, as well as our ability to continue to produce high quality products. In Pennsylvania, yields continue to improve, and over the last six months, we've undertaken additional upgrades to cultivation that we expect to complete by mid-May. In March, we achieved record sales in flour while also achieving our highest THC levels to date. We continually look to expand our product offerings, including launching our first topical as well as higher-potency capsules to meet overwhelming demand. Similar to Massachusetts, the demand from our wholesale network remains high, and we continue to see an increase in requests for white-labeled products and contract manufacturing as brands continue to seek out our limited-license East Coast markets and existing operators look to our capabilities and expertise to bolster their supply and ability to deliver. In March, we entered our third market with Standard Farms Ohio, completing our acquisition of a manufacturing and processing facility there. Given uncertainty as to when closing would occur, we did not include Ohio in our 2021 guidance. However, look to take advantage of the earlier than expected close by making some small CapEx investments to further expand the capabilities and product offerings we can bring to that growing market. TILT is now operational in three high-priority, limited-license, fast-growing East Coast markets, making us an attractive partner for brands and MSOs who want to partner with us so that we can provide access to our 165 dispensary network that we currently sell into. And do not look for us to stop there. At Jupiter, we shipped a record number of cartridges in Q4 as demand for cannabis grows across America and the world. We also posted our highest sales orders in the month of February, orders that we expect to be delivered throughout the second quarter. Our expertise in managing complex supply chains continues to make us a dependable go-to source for products throughout the year, even when other competitors have struggled with inventory shortfalls, something we saw in the first and third quarters of 2020. This has led to new customer wins for Jupiter and an increased share of orders from customers that use multiple suppliers. Put simply, we are building Tilt as the preferred B2B partner for MSOs, Canadian LPs, independent cannabis dispensaries, and brands. Taken together, we offer a highly differentiated business solutions platform that offer current and potential partners answers to strategic needs in inhalation, product development, and provisioning in major supply-constrained markets. It's evident that the new strategy at Tilt is working. We're seeing success across all business lines and have the resources and people in place that will allow us to continue to execute and grow our business. While we do not believe that the market has fully appreciated Tilt's value proposition, With positive EBITDA and continued positive cash flow from operations, an emphasis on responsible growth, cost control, and achieving economies of scale, we know that this is not a permanent condition. With that, we conclude our prepared remarks and now open the call to questions. Taylor?

Thank you, Mark, Brad, and Gary. We will now be happy to answer your questions about TILT in our fourth quarter and full year 2020 results. Thank you.

If you'd 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'd 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. Our first question comes from the line of Aaron Gray with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning. Thanks for the questions, and congrats to the finish of the year. So first question for me is on the guidance, specifically on the plan touching side. I'm just curious as to what's embedded in that for Massachusetts and whether or not you have in the potential adult use sales on the retail side as impacting the sales, or would that be upside to the guidance? So just that clarification would be helpful. Thank you.

I'll jump in first, and thanks, Aaron, for the question. And then, Brad, maybe you can fill in around the edges. So the way we constructed the budget this year was very conservative, and I'll talk about a couple of pieces. As you heard me mention during the prepared remarks, our overall fail rate in our legacy grow has dropped significantly from where it was in 2020. That said, all those new grow rooms that we planted, so 14 rooms in total, when we did our budget estimates, we did not assume the same type of success harvest there. In fact, we assumed more of the older harvest fail rates, giving ourselves a little bit of cushion. These are new rooms. There are some new lights and new HVAC systems we're using. So we didn't price to perfection. Similarly, as we look at the dispensaries themselves, obviously we have our Taunton medical dispensary open and we continue to have record performance from that dispensary over the last couple of months. However, as we look to the other dispensaries, so Brockton, which would be medical and adult use, adding adult use to Taunton, and then medical only for Cambridge, at least for the initial time period. We really didn't assume any impact until later in the second half of the year. I think we had Brockton maybe opening up right before summer for medical only, and then maybe adding adult use in Taunton sometime late summer, and then Cambridge and adult use in Brockton not coming on until towards the end of the year. So we were not particularly aggressive in how we thought the timing of the stores would go. So, Brad, is there anything you wanted to add on that?

I think based on all of that, what you're saying, it's seen as we're confident and not ready to adjust any type of forward guidance quite yet.

Okay, great. Thanks for the clarification. And just sticking on Massachusetts one more quickly. So you guys are at the, I think about 56,000 square feet of cultivation there. You guys have, you know, had a couple you know, additional expansions over the past couple months for approval. So how do you guys think about potentially getting to the max cultivation of about 100,000 square feet, I believe, in the state? In timing of that, are you comfortable with the most recent expansion initiatives that you had, and then you're kind of focused on the retail right now before you get back into cultivation, or just kind of curious on that, especially given, you know, the wholesale prices that continue to be pretty robust there?

Sure, and you're right. The wholesale prices are relatively amazing. You know, frankly, it It has caused people to ask us, well, are you sure you want to do this brand strategy? And, look, we think that those prices are probably rented space. You know, as more grows come online or as we expand our own grow, you know, we want to be in position A for when the market starts to pivot away from such high wholesale flower prices and starts looking more at what we think the future is, CPG. With regard to the space, so it's about 56,000 square foot. That's the square footage of the actual rooms. What I would say is those new grow rooms we added have the ability to add a second tier of grow. We have all the equipment. We have the lights. Now, it's not exactly a multiply by two moment because obviously you have all the equipment itself that takes up space. So we can add more canopy even than the 56,000 square feet we currently have just by going to the second tier. But we do have space on the property. We could max out at the 100,000. What we've been looking at is from a demand perspective. we're taking a little bit of a different tack in terms of how we choose to plant our grow. A lot of firms plant what they plant, harvest when they harvest, and then get about the business of selling the products after they've produced them. We're taking a slightly different path where we'd like to try to pre-sell as much of our grow before we even harvest it, whether it's going to be turned into a concentrate or a packaged good, or whether it's just going to be flat out wholesale flour. So as we think about that expansion, there's always the question if you're going to need biomass do you spend for an indoor grow or do you just drop some greenhouses they're pretty efficient we use them in pennsylvania so i think and how we choose to top out that hundred thousand square foot we're going to be very tactical making sure that we understand the kinds of products we expect to get out of that grow and what the most efficient use of capital is uh you know to bring that grow online so i would say there's nothing imminent in our plans but certainly we've got the space and if the demand continues to improve we certainly have the resources to expand that growth if we need to.

Really helpful call there. Appreciate that. Last one for me on the Jupiter side of the business. Mark, I would love to get some color from how you're looking at that business in 2021, particularly maybe from a geography perspective. Adult use sales just came online in the state earlier than we expected. That's your guys' home state, so wondering if that provided some nice upside there. to your guys' top line revenues there, and then more broadly speaking, how are you looking to drive that top line growth? We often talk about innovation being a key part to the Jupiter story, so we'd love to hear maybe some of the initiatives you have there as well. Thanks.

Yeah, great to chat with you, Aaron. Absolutely. Arizona, since when adult use, we've had a huge uptick. you know, it's our own backyard and we've got, you know, we've established a lot of relationships, continuing those relationships really since we started the company. So it's really great to see those customers that have bought Jupiter products early on really grow and succeed. And so that's been really exciting. You know, overall, you know, more broadly, you know, the market is Jupiter's, Jupiter's just doing fantastic. We are, we're really investing in the future and we're really investing on the technical, on the technology side and the innovation. We're doing build outs, continuing an expansion of our laboratory and our R&B space within our building. And we're investing heavily in innovation. And again, I'm spending a lot more time myself, you know, right now focused on, you know, what those new opportunities look like and translating into commercialized products. So we're looking, you know, our business model is different than our competition. You know, we're really focused on innovative products, unique products that are exclusive to Jupiter. You know, we're continually, you know, really leaning into the C-Cell brand. and really looking at foundational technologies that we could produce, you know, new platforms and new products around those.

All right, great. Thanks for the call, and best of luck in 2021.

Appreciate it, Aaron.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Gomes with Noble Capital. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions.

Sure. Hi, Joe. How are you?

Good. The first one, you know, there's been a lot of in the news, you know, discussion about difficulties in, you know, importing product, especially from the Far East, either in terms of getting space and or higher rates for importing. Are you seeing any of that or have any of that occurred for you guys on the Jupiter side?

So we are definitely seeing the higher rates, especially when we have to ship something air. But as far as what some of our competitors are seeing with issues of bringing inventory in, we don't have that issue. We feel like we do a superb job of our supply chain management as well as our demand forecasting. We're talking to our customers regularly. continuously and understand their demand and what their immediate future looks like. So we have a good idea of where our inventory levels need to be. So we don't have the shortfalls of some of our competitors.

Yeah, I would actually add, Joe, that I think it does have to do with the ability to manage a complex supply chain. I think if you just allow a lot of our customers to order when they're ready to order, and they're generally ordering when they need something right away. So we've been around that block enough times to know to get in front of that, to work proactively with them. In fact, how we built our budget and put our guidance together was by reaching out to all of our Jupiter customers to get their intended buying patterns. I think it's also important to have working capital. You can't place the orders unless you have the money to pay for the orders in advance. And we're fortunate that we're a profitable company with access to capital. So when you look at our fourth quarter, for example, it's our most capital consumptive quarter because we're managing through Chinese New Year and placing a ton of orders that we won't actually deliver until January, February, March. So I think the fact that this year we were able to almost double our cash position from the third quarter to the fourth quarter speaks to how strong the overall tilt business really is. So willingness to manage it, manage the supply chain, ability to manage it, And then having the capital that allows you to manage it, I think, are all things that give us a unique advantage.

Great. Thanks for that insight. And one of the goals, you know, that you guys have put out is, you know, for all permits, you know, cross-selling your customers, getting them both on the, you know, as a customer on the plant-touching side and on the Jupiter side. And Just trying to get an idea of how many of the customers today do both. How's that trend been going? What do you think your goal is in terms of the percentage of customers you think you can get to that you are, for lack of a better term, cross-selling to?

Yeah, so about 20% of our revenue today comes from customers that are both customers of Jupiter and customers of our plant-touching assets. And I would say that we've not aggressively been pursuing that model until recently. So some of that's been almost by happenstance. So I think for us, the more brands we can convert over, so it's about 700 brands that Jupiter works with, and that is comprised of MSOs, Canadian LPs, and then traditional independent brands. I think for us, the more we can convert, the better. It doesn't work for everybody. In some instances, if you're just a standalone brand and you might already be in one of the states, that cross-sell might not be as strong of an opportunity. But we found that since we've empowered the team with the ability to approach price and product SKUs and offerings, leveraging plant-touching together with the Jupyter hardware capabilities, we're getting a lot of interesting responses now. Certainly, we're seeing it, honestly, almost more on the Jupyter side right now than the plant-touching side. You know, our sales are up at this point. So, you know, I think it's early days to be able to say exactly what our target is. There's a great efficiency there. So I don't think we'd ever want to cap ourselves and say as soon as we get to a certain number, we're done. But, you know, I think the sales team is pretty excited about having more tools in their toolbox. I mean, even just, you know, when you take a look, cross-selling goes beyond even just our own brands. As we work with brands, you look at that Her Highness example. In going out and launching in Massachusetts, that had us on the phone with another reason to talk to our dispensaries, and we were able to increase the amount of our own CAC product we were able to sell as a result of those calls. So the cross-selling moves in a lot of different ways, and it's something that we're really excited about.

Great. And one last follow-up from me, if I may. You know, obviously, again, as you know, this is really early days, but, you know, you're in The Pennsylvania, Mass, Ohio markets and two neighboring states, New York and New Jersey, are recently approved. Cannabis on the adult side, are those two markets that you'd be interested in moving into?

I mean, look, those markets fit the strategy nicely because if you think about the concept of wanting to bring premium brands from the West Coast to the East Coast, if you had a nexus that included Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, that's probably your mass affluent section that you'd want to go after, right? That's the group most likely to pay the premium price. So I think those are markets that we're definitely taking a long, hard look at. Having grown up in New York, I would be remiss if I didn't give a long, hard look at my native state. So, you know, I think there's nothing imminent that we can report on, but these are opportunities that we are always investigating.

Great. Thanks again. I appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John DeCourcy with Rivera Dean. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Congratulations on the execution. Just a couple quick questions out of me. Following up on that cross-selling statistic, that 20% level, what does that number kind of look like in Massachusetts or Pennsylvania where you have the plant-touching asset? I assume it's significantly higher, but any specific number that you can kind of point out to?

We haven't really broken that out publicly, Brad. Do we have anything we can share at a high enough level not to get us in trouble?

We don't right now, unfortunately. Okay.

we'll take that note and maybe we can give maybe we can give like a case study or something like that one of our decks a example of and maybe that's the way we come back into that.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Well, it's important. I mean, but I guess it's, it's safe to assume there's a lot higher than that 20%. So that's a good starting point.

I think the thing you have to remember there, john is obviously the regulatory regime in each of those states. Now in terms of vaping, the good news is that's a big seller in both markets. You know, I think we're seeing a little bit of an evolution in Pennsylvania that other form factors are starting to take hold a little bit more. So I think as you kind of triangulate in on who could be a customer of both, that also can sort of inform your view a little.

Okay. Another question regarding Jupiter. You know, the Cush Green Lane merger with Cush being another one of the C-cell license holders, Does this change the dynamic at all for Jupiter, given, you know, one would assume push would have a significant higher bandwidth distributed at this point?

You know, we're a different business model, you know, with Jupiter. We've had no problem winning customers in the past, really, from both of them. We feel good about our competitive position and our customer offerings. We definitely carry superior products and proprietary products, you know, all being C-cell. You know, a major strength of ours is superior customer service and our supply chain skills, as we talked about, you know, previously. You rarely hear us talk about having supply chain issues and getting stock to customers.

Okay. Another question regarding the branding strategy. So the Herpinus launch was obviously successful in Massachusetts. I know you want to take on more brands here. What's an ideal portfolio? Is this just as many brands as want to be partnered with, or is there kind of a thought that there's a ceiling on five, six, whatever brands per category or something like that? How should we kind of think about that?

Yeah, you're spot on, John, in pointing that out. I don't think we want to overreach. Our goal is to create a bit of a curated portfolio of brands that complement each other. So if you kind of think about a grid where you have a number of price points or quality points and then there are certain form factors that go into that, the last thing we want to do is have brands colliding with each other because every brand we talk to always starts the conversation by saying, I want to be a top three brand in your market. And not everybody can be, and frankly, it also depends what form factor you're delivering in and how will that brand play when you come from west to east. So I think we're being, you know, very methodical and very tactical in building that grid out to make sure we do have complementary products each step of the way. Do I know if that would be five or six or seven? It depends because certain brands definitely have more capabilities than others. Some might only have one or two SKUs that they look at. Others might have 25. So, you know, I think it's a little bit of a case by case decision, but tactically we are looking at it, you know, this isn't an economy of scale where we've got to get 50 brands for this to work. So, you know, it's very intentional. The model we've rolled out is not your typical contract manufacturing. We're not just doing straight licensing fees. So that gives us the flexibility to be very discriminating.

Okay. And then you mentioned kind of a continuation of the, you know, kind of on-demand wholesale buying patterns for customers that have, you know, plagued you guys and others in the space for a while, but you've navigated. But, you know, do you think that, are you starting to see any semblance of longer buying patterns amongst customers with Coke starting to kind of stockpile inventory here ahead of increased demand, or is it continued steady as it goes, you know, short-term buying trend? I guess the question is, is Is the market easing up here for wholesalers and distributors of big products and things like that for you guys with demand looking better, the economy looking a little bit better?

I mean, I think overall buying patterns have returned to a certain extent. Brad, you can talk more on the Jupiter side, but on the plant touching side, buying patterns have somewhat persisted. I mean, COVID had definitely had a lot of these dispensaries in uncharted waters in the beginning. Some had no choice but to play it close to the best because they didn't even know how many hours they could be open and in what capacity. I think in Massachusetts, we continue to sell through everything we produce, and there's really been no slowdown in demand. I think in Pennsylvania, form factors have become a little bit more important. So I think that's something we're taking a look at. What's clear is anything that comes in high potency. So we had lower potency capsules that weren't selling quite as fast, took the same capsules, increased the potency, and now we can't keep them on the shelves. So, you know, I think it's really keeping ahead of the demand curve and making sure that you're doing outbound work to know what kind of form factors are really moving. You know, as we start to see more of the innovations come from west to east, you're seeing live residents become, you know, the flavor of the week, so to speak. You know, I think we're seeing some of that migration. So as long as we stay apprised of and ahead of that curve. You know, I don't see any slowdown there. The only thing I think I mentioned earlier is, you know, how long will these wholesale flour prices continue to persist where you can just put flour in a bag and sell it for thousands of dollars? I think that's the one that as more of these grows come online, you'll start to see a little more normalization. That's why we're positioning ourselves for more of the CPG to complement that. So, Brad, any comments on Jupiter and the demand you're seeing there?

Yeah, and actually, Gary, you touched on it in your – prepared remarks with, in February, a short month, Jupiter experienced the highest sales demand and orders taken in the history of the company. And we also pre-released that Jupiter cart sales, cartridge sales in the month of January was the highest in history. So we're definitely seeing in Q1 some very positive developments as the economy continues to expand and we further ourselves away from the vape crisis that we experienced in 2019. Okay, great.

And then just one last one out of me is, so Gary started to kind of talk about it, the message of pricing dynamics with more operators building out assets, but And you guys are obviously planning for this by focusing on the brand, et cetera. But, you know, as somebody who's trying to follow the wholesale market in the state, you know, truly how long do you think the flower in a bag for $3,000 is, you know, going to persist here? You know, when do we get to it? Is it a year out? Is it, you know, two years out? What are we kind of thinking here in terms of a tipping point when things when things drop back down to kind of normalized levels?

You know, if I could predict it accurately, I'd be in Vegas right now, not here. But I think directionally, I feel like it's a 12 to 24 month kind of a condition. I'd be surprised if 24 months from now, it might even be 12 to 18 months, If we're still sitting there, and look, there will be exceptions, right? Depending on the flower you're growing, is it a premium strain? Is it a boutique strain? So you might still command that. But just generally speaking, to your point, selling flower in a bag for those kind of prices, it certainly feels like you can't have all these 100,000 square foot facilities coming on board and still have a year and a half, two years from now, these kinds of elevated prices. So I think we have at least a good 12-month runway in front of us. I think it probably starts to tail a little bit after that, but, you know, you never know. I mean, Massachusetts is an interesting market whenever you try to predict what's going to happen there. That makes sense.

All right, guys. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Sure. Thank you, John.

Thank you. At this time, I'll turn the call back over to Taylor for additional questions from the web.

Thank you, Melissa. I think most of the questions that we've gotten have been answered. One that does keep coming up is could you, this is directed at Gary, could you please talk about the CCC change of ownership, the agenda item on tomorrow's meeting?

Sure, sure. That's a great question. I know a lot of our folks out there seem to be like hovering on the CCC websites. So the Cannabis Control Commission has a monthly meeting. In fact, the April meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, and the agenda usually comes out about 48 hours ahead of time. And a lot of folks saw CAC listed there and got really excited, and then saw it said change of control and were trying to figure that out. So a couple things with the change of control. As part of our streamlining process, as part of the sale of Blackbird, we had an opportunity to do a little bit of reorganization of our subsidiaries. So one of the name changes occurred and required that we file paperwork for a change of control. It was also adding me as a person of control to that application. So I think from us, when you take a look at that, the track record of what's been happening, we had our additional grow rooms that we applied for approval that got approved. We've now seen this housekeeping item taken care of, which you'd expect to have happen before you can then get to the final step. of resolving the licenses. So I think while that's not the agenda item we want to see, we want to see the one we were on for the licenses. When you think about that order of items there and you think about the conversations we've had with the commission, these are the kinds of things that have us feeling very strongly that before the end of the second quarter, we hope to have this matter behind us. I know it's been a little bit of fatigue for folks. I know it's something you hear us say over and over again, but you're starting to see actual items and fact patterns that I think are starting to lean in the right direction.

Perfect. That's all the questions for today. Okay.

Taylor, thank you. It was great to connect with everyone this morning, and we'll look forward to our Q1 earnings call coming up soon. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.