Burcon Nutrascience Corporation

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Bercom's Nutrascience Corporation fiscal 2027 first quarter conference call. Joining us today are Kip Underwood, Bercom's chief executive officer, and Alex Varty, the company's intern chief financial officer. Following their presentation, we will open up the call for questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Thank you, Nikosha.

and good morning, good afternoon, good evening and thank you to all of those who have joined the call today. For today's call, we would like everyone to walk away with three takeaways. The first is there's a convergence of things right now that mean present tremendous opportunity for Bercon. Consumers are seeking more protein. Food companies need innovation to deliver against that consumer need and Burkhart's proven technology enables food companies to deliver against that need. We solve food companies' problems. Second, simply put, we are executing our plan. We are producing and selling day by day, week by week against our expectations. And third, we are investing in our future. We see demand, customer demand coming down the pike and we are going to invest to be ready to meet those future customers' expectations. are safe harbor statement. I mentioned the market, the protein market specifically. You cannot watch television, stream a show, walk through a grocery store right now and not see that protein is everywhere. Not too long ago, protein was niche. Now it is a mainstream consumer sought after benefit. 30 years ago, People who sought after protein were motivated. They were athletes. They were willing to make tradeoffs. Today's consumers will not make that tradeoff. They want higher protein, lower calories with no compromise on the eating experience. They want their protein to be food that they enjoy. That is all further accelerated by not just health reasons, by consumers on GLP-1 weight management medications. They specifically need higher protein and lower calories, and they need to be able to incorporate those foods in their everyday life. It is a great time for a company that delivers protein to food companies as well. We can quantify this growth. Tremendous demand, $17 to $20 million in increment of protein growth. There are supply constraints out there. As demand has increased, supply constraints has gone and surfaced against our potential competition. Tremendous growth, particularly with GLP-1. We are only at the beginning of the growth runway, long-term growth runway for consumers seeking protein and then companies that provide that protein to food companies. Why does this matter for Bercon? I mentioned the convergence. We have consumer-seeking protein. We have food companies who are trying to figure out how they meet that unmet need without taste trade-off. The way companies meet those consumer needs is they need purity. They need purity to put protein in the food product and still deliver the taste expectations everybody wants. They want them to buy that food product once, twice, three, four, five times. Berkhan's unmatched purity that is delivered by our technology platform enables food companies to solve that problem to meet those consumer unmet needs. Specifically, it's not in the platform. It's not across one product. It's across multiple products. We have launched our sunflower protein, our PZSP protein, our FiberPro protein, and our Puritene canola protein. All of these are delivered by our technology platform, and their core feature, their core benefits, is Unmatched Purity, again, which enables food companies to deliver against those consumers' unmet needs. Details of our presentation today. We've talked about the market, what a great opportunity it is. We've talked about why our technology is so relevant in today's market. We need to get to some of the details, right? We'll talk about the highlights from our fiscal 27. We have a sales update, production update. We'll talk about the financing that we released today. Why are we doing it? What does it mean? Summary, and then obviously we will have time for closing remarks and Q&A. First quarter highlights. I mentioned one of the takeaways was execute the plan. This slide is we have executed the plan. So the first piece is customers. We surpass over customers purchasing our ingredients. This is the ultimate validation that we can, in fact, deliver against our promise. We can deliver that unmatched purity that then enables food companies to deliver to their consumers. Every day, every week, we consistently produce more protein, produce more products by shift, by day, by week basis. You've heard me say before, we cannot sell it until we can produce it, and we are producing more every day. We are investing today, right here, right now, to increase our capacity to meet the customer demand we see coming down the pipe from our sales funnel. Again, I've mentioned several times today, simply put, we're executing our plan. With that, I'll turn it over to Alex Varty for our financial highlights. Alex, please take it away.

Thank you, Kip. Bercon's Q1 financial results demonstrate the progress we continue to make on our strategic plan. In the current quarter, we earned revenues of $1.3 million, representing a 54% growth rate quarter over quarter, and an over three-fold increase over the prior do-or-go quarter. More notably, Bercon has posted sequential quarter revenue growth every single period since we launched operations at the Dalesburg facility. Further, as we scaled production and revenue at the Galesburg facility, we have done so while maintaining a focus of our resources and our financial spends on production. This quarter, we generated a 7% decrease in the operating loss quarter over quarter, driven by that revenue growth and supported by our relentless focus of our resources on revenue generation and on production. and today we announced an offering of convertibles to ventures raising gross proceeds up to $8.1 million. In this transaction, we expect significant insider participation, underscoring the belief that insiders have in our forward-looking vision and in our ability to execute on our strategic plan. The convertible debenture financing is expected to allow for investments in growth, through direct investments in labor, in inventory and production capability, in planning future capacity expansions, and increasing efficiency of production. We also intend to use a portion of the proceeds to retire certain debt obligations and for working capital, thereby shoring up our balance sheet and our capital structure. It remains an exciting time for Bercon. Kip does an incredible job of explaining how our operational progress and on the market opportunity and as well as how we can and how we are positioned to capitalize on that opportunity. But there's incredible power in seeing the translation of those operating achievements into the financial results. in particular how we continue to scale the production volume and the revenues every single quarter with our still being significant growth available for us. I'll turn it back to Kip to provide more color on the sales and on production.

Thank you, Alex. So, I mentioned 40 active buying customers. and we do have tremendous growth quarter on quarter on year on year. What I'd like us to focus more on is what's the direction of the travel? Are we seeing sequential growth? Are we broadening our customer base? And the answer to that question is an emphatic yes. So across our 40 active buyers and our more than two inactive products, we have great diversity across a type of customer, some large, some more entrepreneurial, more cutting edge, across types of food products. It ranges from to beverages, to powder mixes at home, to plant-based foods. So, great diversity across different food types. And we're actually great diversity across our products. We have sales of our entire portfolio into all these products and all these types of customers. So, really, it's about the trajectory of the sales and the growth quarter over quarter and then eventually year on year. We cannot sell it until we can make it. Day by day, week by week, we are driving production excellence. We've mentioned in the past, we've achieved several record production levels that could be on a day or by a week. And this managed fundamentally because we are clearly demonstrating that our technology platform scales across multiple products in a day-in, day-out production environment. Not just internally by our information, by the customers I just mentioned. The best validation of the world of are we delivering day in, day out consistently is customers going from the evaluation process to the purchase process to repeat buy. That's the best validation that our technology is delivering and our production facility is delivering that technology in a consistent basis. Because of all of those things, we see tremendous demand coming down the pike at us. The market opportunity, the differentiation our technology provides, and our sales funnel. We've announced a fundraise. Fundamentally, that raise is to expand production. It's to invest in people, efficiency, and equipment to support the expansion of our portfolio. And fundamentally, as that demand comes at us, are we ready to fulfill that demand? I also want to just take a moment and go back to our strategy. We started off our strategy, it was relatively simple. We are going to, we would put our technology in the Gillisburg facility, prove that technology, prove commercial relevance, prove margins, prove price points, and put Vartan on a strong financial footing. And then we would scale through licensing after that point. What we have discovered is we have an incredible capital efficient way to expand capacity here at the site. So we have a capital efficient way to expand capacity. We have obviously the tremendous demand coming from the consumers that we've talked about. And this really says it's not a change in this strategy. We would almost be foolish not to take advantage of this growth opportunity, put Berkow on a stronger footing, further prove out the value of our technology. And then in the future after that, the licensing opportunities still exist. So to speak to the financing a bit, again, we expect significant insider participation. We're currently working through a bridge loan to get us to the financing completion. That is, again, all about leaning in and investing for growth, expanding in people capability, production capability, and funding the ability to meet, if not exceed, our customer's expectations. The finance will be a convertible to venture 48 month in length. And we still do have access to a $3 million remains undrawn on tranche two from our senior secured loan. This entire package allows us to continue to accelerate growth investments today, right now, today, tomorrow and the day after, while we finish the future This is also on a parallel path. We are working with our manufacturing partner, PROMEN, for them to also make subsequent investments that allow us to increase the overall capacity and capability of the facility here in Gettysburg, Illinois. When I look at Berkcon today versus a year ago, we've come a long way. The technology is commercially proven. customers are validating our products. The most important way is repeat purchase. They're coming back and buying our product again and again to deliver that product to consumers. And the only way they're doing that is if consumers are buying that product again and again. That is the ultimate validation our technology delivers against the expectations. As we continue this progression, revenue growth will follow. Our job is to execute. day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month. As we convert more of our pipeline into customer adoption, we grow recurring revenue and build out the facility here into an engine of strong growth and financial performance for Burkina today. What I want everyone to walk away with, really, I'm going to repeat this, is the opportunity is there.

It's huge.

We have a technology platform that delivers unmatched purity, which enables food companies to meet consumer unmet needs. And we are executing in a manner that we will capitalize upon that opportunity. So we'll continue to post percentage growth quarter on quarter, year on year, but I want people to pay attention to the trajectory. Day by day, week by week, we continue to grow our professional capability, our sales capability, and we will keep doing that. We'll eventually deliver strong financial results. With that, I will leave it to Natasha, to the operator, for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Dave Storms with StoneGates. Please go ahead.

Dave Storms with StoneGates. Dave Storms with StoneGates. Dave Storms with StoneGates. Dave Storms with StoneGates. Dave Storms with StoneGates. Dave Storms with StoneGates. Kip Underwood.

active sales across multiple food types. So first is think about any food products you see that says 10 or 15 or 20 grams per serving on the front of the package. That's a bullseye for our technology. And that happens in beverages. It happens in powdered beverage you mix at home. It happens in nutrition bars. And then it happens in a variety of plant-based foods. So those all food types we both have customer projects in and active sales in. second thing is the type of customer we were very clear with everybody we want to work with smaller more entrepreneur mid-sized entrepreneurial brands they move fast they're on the cutting edge we're aligned on values they're more profitable and they grow faster the majority of our funnel is in fact those types of customers we also have a couple of what I call anchor customers these are brands that most people would would know and recognize and they provide kind of the foundation volume load for the facility. And then the last is, again, those two first categories, type of food product, type of customer. We have sales of all of our products across those. So great diversity in terms of food type or application, type of customer, and across our entire portfolio, which really gives us a strong foundation for Brooklyn in the future.

That's a great color. I appreciate that. And in the response there, you mentioned diversity again. I know you've kind of touched on that a lot this call. Even with the diversity, though, are there any product lines or food types that are maybe leading the charge that you see having an outsized growth or maybe that you get most excited about?

I think first, as a lot of protein in this area is really sold in bulk, Think powder beverages for general health and wellness that you mix at home. That's where most protein companies start. So that's where a lot of our business is. Where I'm most excited about moving forward is there are a whole host of foods that did not have protein traditionally. Think snacks. Thank you for joining us. Maybe food companies couldn't deliver to those end consumers both the protein level and the taste experience those consumers want. So those are the areas where we get most excited to maximize the battery technology, enabling food companies to do things they could not do before.

Understood. I appreciate that. Maybe pivoting over to the financing, just Is there anything more you could tell us about that, maybe in terms of how much is your mark for growth spending, the anticipated deployment of that capital, how long does it take, anything like that?

Well, a couple of thoughts. So first of all, we anticipate the close to be very quickly after our annual shareholder meeting on September 16th. So from a close perspective, I think late September, early October. From a usage standpoint, this is entirely about growth. This is about investments that drive production efficiency, investments in people that drive better customer response or better customer outreach and or drive production sales. So 100% of these proceeds really are about us getting ahead and driving growth and being prepared for not just the demand we hope for, the demand we can see in our sales funnel coming at us in the near future.

That's great to hear. I appreciate that. Maybe one last one, just a macro question. And you mentioned GLP-1 usage. at the top here. Just any further thoughts around maybe what inning we're in? Are you still seeing a lot of experimentation, maybe a lot to be captured if you're a first mover? And I know I'm throwing a lot at you here, but also, are you seeing any differences between the U.S. domestic market versus international markets with GLP-1 update and maybe the downstream impacts of that?

Well, I guess first I would say we're in the first inning. of a very long baseball game to continue the analogy. We're just getting started. And I think it's good to remember that protein in general was already being sought after by more and more consumers. You're really stacking the GLP-1 usage on top of growth trend that already existed. The last GLP-1 consumer penetration numbers I saw for the U.S. were high single digit. So there's certainly... Tremendous, much higher consumer adoption than expected for GPO1 usage. And then as that continues to occur, then people's diet needs will change, which is great for us. Relative to global, I believe there's a good opportunity in Europe, but Dave, I'm not really qualified for that. We're very focused on North America right now. There's plenty of opportunity here in North America for us to meet, if not far exceed, our financial expectations.

They completely understand. Looking forward to the 2027, and thanks for taking my questions.

Thanks, Dave.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1. We have a question from Spencer Porphy with New Finance. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for letting me. I just have a quick question here. With quarter one revenue reaching 1.3 million, and repeat orders beginning to build. Can you give us some indication what revenue run rate you believe is achievable over the next two or three quarters? And what specifically needs to happen for Bercon to reach cash flow breakeven?

So Spencer, thank you for the question. What we've communicated is we expect double digit revenue by the end of the calendar year. And right in the calendar year, we expect a crossover. to be cash flow positive. The drivers for that really are we execute the plan. So we continue, we have our customer funnel so we know who the customers are. We continue to work with them as they launch new products or change products in the marketplace. That's the opportunity side. And then to meet that opportunity, we need to continue to execute on the production side. That's shift by shift, day by day, week by week. and then towards the back half of the quarter we're going to need to have some of the capacity expansion pieces we're speaking to in place to ensure we can continue to meet the growing customers in the calendar Q4 and calendar Q1 of 27. Okay.

Thank you very much. That pretty well answers my question.

Thank you.

As there are no further questions, I will now hand the call over to Alex Varty. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm just going to read the questions out from the webcast here. Hi, Kip. Congrats on another growth quarter. It's great to see the company has recurring sales. Is the company still on pace for $10 million per calendar 2026? That would make for a significant second half to this year. Do you have any idea what revenues might look like after the infrastructure investments?

Thanks, Jason. So we always knew that our revenue growth would be somewhat back-end loaded. And first is we have to be ready for production side to deliver. And second is as we get another customer across the finish line to adoption and purchasing. So each new customer's growth. But then as you get a new customer, the first thing they do is they'll buy once a month. and then the next month they buy twice a month and the next month they buy a larger quantity but twice a month and then eventually they buy a larger volume month on month on month. So your growth really stacks two ways. It stacks both as we bring in new customers and then remember our customers are attacking this growing protein market. So then you stack their growth on top of our growth and that's how you get to both a back-end loaded, I think about the calendar year, back-end loaded growth. And then that's how you see, you know, really exciting run rate going into calendar 27.

There's no more questions from the webcast.

Thank you. Everyone, that is all the questions we have for today. At this time, this concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Underwood for closing remarks. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you, Natasha, and thank you, everybody, for taking the time today. I would like to finish where we started, the three takeaways. There's a convergence of things going on in the marketplace today that present tremendous opportunity for Bercon. Consumers seeking more protein, food companies needing innovation to meet that consumer need, and Bercon's delivery of a proven technology platform at commercial scale, at the ready to solve those problems. Second, sometimes boring, we're executing the plan. To hit our financial expectations, we have to do by day, by week, by month, is produce and sell. We are asking that plan. We will continue to do so. Third is, with that tremendous opportunity in front of us, we need and must invest for the growth that we know is coming down the pike. And we know we will be ready and can be ready for that in the future to drive further growth for Bercon into 27 and beyond. Again, thank you all for your time. I appreciate it.

Before we conclude today's calls, I would like to take a moment to read the company's safe harbor statement. This call contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements or forward-looking information involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements or forward-looking information can be identified as words such as anticipate, intend, plan, goal, project, estimate, expect, believe, future, likely, can, may, should, could, will, potentially, and similar references of future periods. All statements other than statements of historical facts included during this call are forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such statements will provide to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements of information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Berkham's plans and expectations include the actual results of business negotiations, marketing activities, Adverse General Economic Market or Business Conditions, Regulatory Changes and Other Risks and Factors Detailed Herein and from Time to Time in the Filings Made by Bercon with Security Regulations and Stock Exchanges, including in the section entitled Risk Factors, in Bercon's Annual Information Form filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators on www.setterplus.ca. Any forward-looking statements or information only speaks as of the date on which it was made, and except as may be required by applicable securities laws. Berkon disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Although Berkon believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, Forward-looking statements are not guaranteed of future performance, and accordingly, investors should not rely on such statements. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded, and the webcast will be available for replay on the company's website, starting later this evening. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us today for our presentation. You may now disconnect.