EnWave Corporation

Good morning, and welcome to NWAVE Corporation's fourth quarter fiscal year 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Melissa, and I will be your operator for today's call. Joining us for today's presentation are the company's president and CEO, Brent Charlton, and Dan Enriquez, NWAVE's CFO and COO of Nutri-Dried. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Finally, I'd like to remind everyone that this call will be made available for replay via a link in the investor relations section of the company's website at www.nwave.net. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to NWAVE CEO, Mr. Brent Charlton. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and welcome to everyone on the call today. Before I discuss our recent performance in Q4 and our outlook for fiscal 22, I would like to remind everyone that the information we are about to present contains forward-looking information that is based on management's expectations, estimates, and projections. These statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Please consider the risk factors in the filings made by NWAVE on CDAR when reviewing this information. Also, all amounts discussed will be in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Now, with the important disclaimer complete, let's discuss the material progress that EnWave has made. For the purpose of this conference call, we refer to our patented vacuum microwave technology business unit, inclusive of our licensing, machine sale, and toll manufacturing service we've dubbed RevWorks, as EnWave, and our operating subsidiary that's leveraging radiant energy vacuum, or RevTechnology, for branded and bulk snack products as NutriDryd. Today I'll first provide an overview of Enwave's corporate progress in fiscal year 21, as well as a summary of the progress we have made with Nutri-Dried following the restructuring. I will also cover our plans in the next fiscal year for both business units, and following my update, Dan, Enwave's CFO and COO of Nutri-Dried, will summarize our Q4 consolidated financial performance and discuss several key financial pillars that give us a strong financial foundation for our company. Enwave delivered a strong Q4, and its best ever financial performance in fiscal year 21. Nutri-Dry performed poorly in the first half of fiscal year 21, with the previous management not adjusting the expense structure to align with the size of the business. This precipitated a major restructuring of the business unit this past February, which yielded immediate positive change and has set up Nutri-Dry for a planned return to growth and profitability in fiscal year 22. During fiscal year 21, EnWave signed the most new commercial agreements that we've ever signed in a 12-month period prior, 19 in all, with 14 new royalty-bearing licenses, five technology evaluation license option deals. We also received purchase orders for an additional 540 kilowatts of REV machinery, with four new large-scale sales and 14 10-kilowatt units being sold. Of these sales, four were repeat purchase orders from existing royalty partners, and three were completed by third-party machine resellers within our global network. We've significantly expanded our rep and reseller network and now have a dozen companies representing our technology, helping us fill our sales pipeline with new opportunities. And we've generated its highest-ever annual revenue of $13.9 million, including royalties from New Jersey Drive, and best-ever net profit of $1.2 million. Third-party royalties increased by $100K in fiscal year 21 to $920,000. We expect all of the previously noted 540 kilowatts of new rep machine orders to be installed, generating royalties by Q3 fiscal 22. Our focus continues to be the building of a diversified royalty portfolio through the commercialization of REV, primarily in the food and cannabis industries. And we've signed several notable deals this past year, including two licenses with US-based multi-state operators in the cannabis industry, including one of the largest MSOs in North America. We will have three large-scale REV machines operational early next year in the cannabis market, generating new royalties for us. Our tech is proven at scale for cannabis applications, retaining at least 20% more terpenes and higher level of cannabinoids than room or rack drying. Thus, we believe that REV could become the industry standard for cannabis drying. We have many active opportunities to pursue, but the value to the sector is clearer than ever. We announced a global strategic partnership with Dole Sunshine Company to develop innovative nutrition solutions. We are currently very active working with Dole on several projects to potentially integrate REV technology into its global production system, and I'm hopeful that we will have material updates to share with the market in the near term. Historically, we haven't had the ability to produce material amounts of REV-derived product for prospective royalty partners to test in market. The build-out of our RevWorks toll manufacturing facility will materially reduce this limitation and lower the risk for companies to commercialize new RevDry applications. Our goal is to accelerate the adoption of Rev technology by eventually converting RevWorks clients into royalty partners after helping them prove their respective business cases. Our RevWorks toll manufacturing facility is almost complete. The Rev machines have been put in place. We have purchased a medium-sized air dryer to complement that function. that will be commissioned in January, and we'll be ready for initial commercial production in the next few months. We expect to confirm our first tolling contracts early in the new year. With RevWorks starting up shortly, and our machine sales and licensing business gaining momentum, I am very bullish on NLA's prospects for fiscal year 22. On to Nutri-Dryd. Following a poor first half of fiscal year 21, we have materially reduced the expense structure at Nutri-Dryd. Our new CEO at Nutri-Dryd, Brad Larman, brings a pragmatic approach to deploying resources and is laser focused on achieving profitability. Brad will work closely with Dan and I to optimize future return on investments made that support key initiatives at Nutri-Dried. Overspending was a habit of past management and we've certainly fixed that. Annual expenses at Nutri-Dried have been reduced by 2.6 million and they are not expected to increase until the business scales revenues for its portfolio of snack products. In order to return back to a growth trajectory and profitability, Nutri-Dried needs to dramatically improve its gross margin improve manufacturing utilization to increase contribution margin, and grow retail distribution. We're on it. Recent efforts to turn around the business should generate momentum starting in fiscal Q2 behind recent customer wins, including distribution of two SKUs and 700 additional Walmart locations, new placement in 1,200 Publix locations, a national promotion with Costco Canada in February, confirmed distribution of three SKUs and 1,300 Target stores, and national distribution in 520 Whole Foods market stores beginning in May for our newest innovation, Moon Cheese Crunchy Cheese Sticks, the first 100% cheese stick snack in the market. We're really excited about the launch of these Moon Cheese Crunchy Cheese Sticks and believe this new line has great potential to grow our distribution. Moon Cheese Crunchy Cheese Sticks will be available in five flavors and offer consumers 14 to 15 grams of protein, only 3 grams of carbs, and 1 gram or fewer of sugar per serving. We've received an overwhelmingly positive response from buyers and believe our new crunchy cheese sticks could be a material driver of growth for Nutri-Dried in fiscal 22. These customer wins have Nutri-Dried tracking towards a 4 to 6 million increase in retail growth, with more hopefully on top of that. In Q3, we enjoyed an uptick in bulk sales, which tempered in Q4. We have a pipeline of prospective bulk customers that we are working to confirm, and we believe that Nutri-Dried's bulk business will be a material part of its future business. We're active on several bulk projects that we're aiming to close over the near term. We expect Nutri-Dried to continue its turnaround in fiscal 22, given the launch of Moon Cheese Crunchy Cheese Sticks, confirmed customer wins, and pending decisions from additional distribution opportunities expected in the coming months. Nutri-Dried is targeting a return to positive adjusted EBITDA in fiscal 22. At EnWave, our fiscal year 22 goals include improving our top-line performance by selling 10 large-scale and 15 10-kilowatt rev machines, building a material book of business for RevWorks, and reaching consistent profitability. The relatively quiet Q1 was not indicative of our pipeline, and I expect the majority of purchase decisions to take place during Q2, Q3 of this year. Of the large-scale Rev machines we hope to sell, 70% are targeted to come from existing royalty partners that are communicating a potential need to scale up their manufacturing capacity to meet the market demand for their RevDry products. It should be a very busy year for us. I'll now turn it over to Dan Henriquez, NWave CFO and Newstride COO, to summarize our Q4 financials.

Thanks, Brent. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on today's call. I will now take some time to review our Q4 2021 financial results. Please read our MD&A for an analysis of the full year 2021 annual results. Note that the figures I'll be going over today can be found in our press release from this morning and in the financial statements and MD&A filed on CDAR. and all amounts are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. I will make reference to adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-IFRS financial measure, so please refer to the non-IFRS financial measure disclosures and reconciliation to gap net income in our MD&A. Our Q4 financial results reflect the very strong commercialization progress made by Enwave throughout 2021 and the continued turnaround taking place at NutriDrag. The commercialization of REV technology is ramping up, across the food and cannabis verticals, and our sales of machinery and related margins were robust. Amway's technology division achieved positive net income of $1.2 million for the fiscal year, something we're aiming to repeat as we accelerate the commercialization of REV technology. For Q4, we've reported consolidated revenues of $6.9 million relative to $7.3 million in Q3 of 2021 and $10.7 million in Q4 of 2020. Revenues from NWAVE in Q4 were $3.9 million compared to $3.5 million in Q3, with the growth coming from more REV machinery sales paired with growth in our royalties. Our royalties in Q4 were $245,000 compared to $191,000 in Q3, representing growth of 28% quarter-to-quarter. We recently completed the installation of two large-scale machines, and as we continue to deploy REV machinery for commercial use, our royalties should continue to compound. Revenues from NutriDrive in Q4 were $3 million, compared to $3.7 million in Q3. NutriDrive's revenues were lower than in Q3, primarily due to smaller shipments into the newly penetrated bulk channel, which remains an important channel we're aiming to grow. NutriDrive remains focused on growing the bulk and co-manufacturing channels. NutriDrive's revenues in Q4 were lower than the prior year by $6.1 million, because in Q4 of 2020, we had national shipments to Costco under a buy one get one promotion that was critical to reducing excess inventory at risk of expiry. This was not repeated in Q4 2021. Gross margin in Q4 was 34% relative to 36% in Q3, well above the 20% experienced last year in Q4 2020. We believe that while a gross margin of 34% is strong and reflects the value in our business model, it can be further improved with better plant utilization at NatureDrived in the coming quarters. Q4's gross margin benefited from the buyback and resale of a 120 kilowatt machine for a substantial margin. We are aiming to confirm the resale of a second 120 kilowatt machine for a favorable margin in the near term. Nutri-Dry's margin in Q4 still needed further improvement. We've adjusted our cost structure and are focusing our sales efforts on higher margin opportunities and channels. Our objective is to continue to grow the Nutri-Dry margins through additional usage of the installed plant capacity growing the bulk and co-manufacturing revenue streams and expanding distribution points and sales for our branded products. At EnWave, our objective is to maintain a low and variable overhead cost structure and to deliver our machines to the market in a timely fashion. We also aim to grow our margins by increasing the volume of machines and compounding our royalties. Now turning to selling general and administrative expenses. We took significant steps in February to lower our SG&A spending at NutriDrive to properly align its expenses to the size of the business. Our SG&A expenses for Q4, inclusive of R&D, reflect the cost-saving measures implemented during the second half of the fiscal year. In U.S. dollars, we reduced SG&A expenses at NutriDrive by a million in the second half of the fiscal year and for an annual run rate reduction of $2 million U.S. dollars. In Q4 2021, we reported G&A expenses of $1.7 million relative to $1 million in Q3 of 2021, with the increase to G&A arising from NWAVE. The additional $700,000 of G&A expenses in the period are not anticipated to be recurring and primarily relate to legal expenses, insurance premiums, and year-end adjustments to variable compensation. We do not expect G&A expenses to sustain at this level for Q1 and beyond into 2022. In Q4, Our sales and marketing expenses were $996,000 compared to $831,000 in Q3 and $1.2 million for Q4 of 2020. Sales and marketing expenses increased slightly in the period with some more business travel resuming and costs to attend Expo East, a major CPG trade show. We plan to invest in sales and marketing activities to support the growth and the commercialization at both Enwave and Neutrotride, but do not expect to materially increase these costs in the near term. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-IFRS financial measure. So please refer to our MD&A for the reconciliation from gap net income to adjusted EBITDA. Our adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $223,000 for Q4 relative to an income of $937,000 for Q3 and break even for Q4 of 2020. And we've achieved positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4, which was offset by neutralized EBITDA loss. We firmly believe that with our cost structure and business development pipeline that we can reach consistent quarterly positive adjusted EBITDA in 2022. We'll continue to invest where we need to in order to drive revenue growth and we'll closely control spending at both EnWave and NutriDrive. Our primary objective is to achieve consistent profitability across both segments of our business. Our balance sheet remains strong and we have plenty of cash in the appropriate levels of working capital. As at September 30th, our cash position was $11.8 million and we had net working capital of $17.3 million, despite using $1.8 million of cash to buy back stock using the NCIB. Our inventory includes a fully fabricated 120-kilowatt machine that we are working with several prospects to confirm a near-term order for. This should further bolster our treasury. In fiscal year 2021, we generated just over $2 million in cash from operating activities and used $1.9 million to invest in new plant and equipment, mainly for our RevWorks locations. and used $1.8 million to repurchase and cancel shares under the NCIB. Our balance sheet also has $1.1 million of loans receivable on it, which relates to finance arrangements with our royalty partners for the purchase of machinery that is paid back to the company in blended monthly payments. This has allowed us to generate returns of 8% to 10% on the capital deployed to finance these loans. Lastly, in practical terms, our balance sheet remains debt-free except for facility leases, and a small low-interest COVID-19 relief loan received by NutriDrive. During fiscal year 2021, we used $1.8 million in cash to repurchase and cancel 1.7 million common shares under the normal course issuer bid at a weighted average price of $1.04 per share. We recently obtained TSXV approval to renew our NCIB for another annual term. As our business evolves, if we believe that our share price does not appropriately reflect the value of the company, we will activate the NCIB when not in blackout conditions to return value to our stockholders. With that, I'd like to turn it back to Brent for some closing remarks. Thank you, Dan.

One additional topic I'd like to address is the ongoing litigation against several former employees at EnWave, among others. The British Columbia Supreme Court granted an injunction on August 20th, 2021, prohibiting EnWave's former CEO, Mr. Durant, and others, and any person acting on behalf of or in conjunction with them from selling, attempting to sell, supplying, delivering, or installing vacuum microwave dryers. The injunction was granted as a term of an adjournment sought by the defendants to NWAVE's application that seeks an injunction pending trial. The injunction will remain in place until the court makes a final ruling after hearing the injunction application, which is currently scheduled to be heard on January 17, 18, 2022. We maintain our determination to pursue the allegations we made with vigor and believe that our case is strong. Enwave's intellectual property, including its patents, know-how, trade secrets, and confidential information, is the foundation of our royalty licensing business, and we will protect it enthusiastically. That being said, the majority of our resources are and will continue to be focused on building our business, and I'm really, really excited about our prospects this year. We have several opportunities that, if converted, will take our company to the next level. Now, with my prepared remarks complete, I would like to open the call for your questions. Operator, please provide the appropriate instructions.

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. 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. If there are any outstanding questions at the end of the call, the company will be happy to take them by email at ir at nwave.net. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Steve Hansen with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, good morning, guys. Thanks for the time. A couple for me, just to start with. Just on the commentary, Dan or Brent, around consistently hitting positive EBITDA through 2021, should we expect that to start in the front quarter or is it more of a 2Q, 3Q starting point to sort of hit that pace?

Thanks, Steve. Q1 has, you know, our machine sales, the pipeline that we're dealing with, seems to be stacking up to hit more in Q2, Q3, and certainly into Q4, so you could expect it to shape up probably in the second half of the year. The turnaround at Nutri-Dry is still well underway, and we've made a bunch of commercial progress, but the commitments we get from retailers tend to come three to four months in advance of products leaving our docks, so that should also start to show up in the second half of the year.

Just to add to Dan's commentary, we do have, as you mentioned, a fully fabricated 120-kilowatt machine, and we've actually got four different suitors that are hopefully one of them is going to pull the trigger within weeks here, and then we've got several other machines that are partially fabricated. So our ability to recognize revenue on the sales of those large-scale machines will be advantageous through hopefully the next few weeks here of Q1 and certainly in Q2.

Okay, great. helpful. And just I want to circle back Brent on your prepared remarks around the new products, crunchy cheese sticks, and some of the opportunities can be there. Can you just maybe just recap those I think you said you were tracking towards a certain amount of retail growth this year, on the back of that launch and to some of the other progress you've been making, but just maybe give us a sense for the timeline for that product, the rollout, the launch customers, I suppose, and then you know, what kind of incremental revenue that will generate this year.

No problem. So right now, given the commitments that we've gotten for new distribution for not only the crunchy cheese sticks, but also the baseline snacks in our portfolio currently at New Stride, we're anticipating a $4 million to $6 million lift in revenue generated from retail growth. That's not including some of the other bigger opportunities that we're still working right now in the club channel. And the launch of the crunchy cheese snacks is tagged for the spring of 2022. And the marquee first large distribution of that product line will be in Whole Foods nationally in the United States. So we're really excited. They're going to take three SKUs. And I think the feedback that we've received thus far has been far more positive than we ever have had launching or trying to pursue additional distribution for moon cheese, given that the analog itself, that Cheeto or puff format that consumers are very familiar with, has also resonated quite clearly with buyers. So we're really excited about the launch.

And the Whole Foods launched nationally. It sounds like it's an exclusive deal to some degree, at least for the initial term. Is it going to be something you launch more broadly thereafter?

We're going to be launching everywhere that we possibly can. Whole Foods stepped up and committed first. So they're going to have an exclusive on one particular flavor profile for a limited time period to provide a slight competitive edge in terms of bringing a new product to market. But the core flavors within that five flavor portfolio will be readily available for distribution everywhere and anywhere.

Got it. Okay. Helpful. And then just, just thinking back to the targets for the year on the machine sale side, I think you said 70% of the large target will come from existing licensees. You know, do you think there's an opportunity that's seven of the 10? Do you think there's an opportunity to sell more than three outside of the existing customer base? I guess is the question.

Yeah, we definitely believe that is feasible, particularly given the momentum that we're starting to see in the U.S. cannabis industry, having our large-scale line operational in Illinois now, and having had several prospects go and see that particular operation in times past, and then the second one to be installed early in Q2 at our second MSO site, and having that particular partner also speak the praises of the value proposition of our tech in the space. That's now led to some material new engagements, and many of which of those folks are building up facilities to be complete next fiscal year. And so for us, we're expecting those purchase orders to come through in Q2, Q3.

Okay, very helpful. I'll get back to the Q. Thanks.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Neil Linsdale with IA Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning guys. I was just kind of feeding into what Steve was asking as well. So the different products that you have, so you're going to have your moon cheese, you've got your sticks, you've got your bulk sales. Can you provide any additional color? It looks like the sticks are going to go into whole foods first, but do you expect to get additional traction out of your existing, I guess, channels? Are customers going to have moon cheese plus cheese sticks or are some thinking about replacing moon cheese with cheese sticks? Or where do you see the traction for each one of the products gaining the most benefit?

That's a good question, Neil. We definitely see the new lineup as complementary to the core moon cheese lineup. For example, Whole Foods taking three items of sticks nationally, a huge first win for us with the new lineup. It's not displacing our existing distribution of moon cheese with Whole Foods. It's two places in the store. Historically, our moon cheese, our core moon cheese lineup has been shelved in different places in the store, most often crackers, sometimes in the deli, the occasional time we're in the snack section, but surprisingly not always. And the new lineup of sticks really belongs in the salty snack section. And if you go into a Whole Foods in the States, there's a whole, you know, there's three or four brands that are trying to knock off the better for you cheese puff Cheeto. And we're going to be the first ones to bring the 100% cheese format of that to market. So We see it being shelved in the different parts of the store. Whole Foods was the first customer that we actually presented it to, and we got the distribution. So we're pretty bullish on this being incremental to our core moon cheese.

Yeah, I'll add to Dan's comments in that Whole Foods, with their set lineup for the spring, originally had spaces for two SKUs, and they actually displaced another product so they could bring in three SKUs of moon cheese, crunchy cheese, and sticks. So they're also quite bullish on the prospects of this product line.

Okay. And then to talk a little bit more about the bulk sales, it sounded initially like it was going to be more like, you know, excess inventory that you would be selling through the bulk sales. But now it sounds like you're actually looking at longer term contracts with, was it five customers?

Yeah, we're pursuing that. So, you know, it's a bit of a longer sales cycle than a typical, you know, CBG product sale. We're working with a bunch of companies on innovating new snack combo ideas, so pairing our Moon Cheese format with nuts and other things like that to bring to the market under their brands. We've got a few of them already. The large bulk sales orders we had in Q3 was from a customer that was doing a pretty good clip of business with Costco, and as we know, things with Costco go in ebbs and flows, so didn't materialize in Q4, they're still a solid customer of ours. And we're working on a bunch of other opportunities similar to that one to try to bring more bulk to market in the 2022. Okay.

So then that brings me to the question of capacity at Nutri-Dried. I think you have two large-scale machines running there now, right? But you have space for a third?

We have two large-scale machines running right now with some lethal improvements we could install a third at that facility we would just have to reshuffle some of the warehousing for finished goods but that is our expansion plan when we get ready for the third machine okay but no forward-looking statement on when that might be when you need a third

Well, based on our plans for this year at Nutri-Dried, we're expecting to get feedback on some of the larger opportunities to really turn around Nutri-Dried by sort of the midpoint of the fiscal year. And so in the latter half, we'll have to make a decision on planning for manufacturing capacity needs. And this should also coincide not only with the branded play, but we're just talking about the bulk opportunities with some of the larger dairy companies who have no other option but to use co-manufacturing capacity at other Nutri-Dried or our partner in Canada, Galey Foods.

Okay. And if we can dive in, I know in negotiations with Dole you can't give out a lot of details, but it sounds like that's just a really huge potential and I'm guessing one of those kind of groundbreaking relationships that could really take your business to the next level as you were mentioning. Can you provide us any additional details on the advancement of their snack products or the upcycling of the other ingredients?

Yeah, certainly. And I would recommend for all those on the line and any shareholders that hear the court on this call to go and read their Sunshine for All plan, where they're looking to, again, improve the amount of waste being converted into upcycled saleable product by 2025 in a material way. And they've directly told us that they look at REV as a key platform to accomplish this goal. And so, okay, that's great for them to communicate that, but rubber needs to hit the road within the next three to four months here with prospectively several large-scale purchase orders tied to two specific projects. The first focused on healthier snack products that differentiate in the marketplace. And so we're hopeful that we'll see Dole commercial product in market within the fiscal year 22, generating royalties for us. and the second being an upscaling of waste material in Southeast Asia, which I can't speak to too much detail, but the scale, the scope of the opportunities are more than we've encountered with other large CPG companies in the past. And so that's what really gets the juices flowing here within our team is ensuring that we help them prepare and plan for the manufacturing capacity needed for their projects, in collaboration with a few additional service providers that they've engaged with. So I'll leave it there. I can't say too much more, but just say that this year we're looking to generate royalties from dual commercialization of RevDry product.

No, that's good, Kolo. Thanks. And just one last thing on the royalties. So it sounds like with the commissioning, especially in the U.S. cannabis space, that we might be exiting the fiscal 22 with an appreciably higher royalty level. Is that fair to say?

Yes, our royalties for Q4 were $245,000, and they grew by, I think it was 28% relative to Q3. So that was with a couple more commissionings and just partners ramping up production. And so with the two large-scale machines, One of them is already commissioned in the U.S. cannabis sector, and the second one, you know, we're commissioning it in the next six to eight weeks here. We expect that number to grow substantially more. And as we continue to close more deals, then it should grow further. So we're optimistic for quarter-to-quarter royalty growth as we progress through the next year.

Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Neil.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Liam Dodgerson with Cormark Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, this is Liam on for Comix-B. I was just wondering if you could repeat the guidance on machine sales, both small and large. And then also, if you have any expectation on timeline, just some additional color for when material inflection point might be hit regarding the ramp up in royalties based on how you're seeing clients using machines.

Yeah, happy to provide a little bit more color. The guidance remains consistent from our Q3 conference call where we're targeting to confirm 10 large-scale, so 60 kilowatts or greater, purchase orders through fiscal 22 and 15 10-kilowatt machine sales, which are smaller entry-level unit that we hopefully can enable folks to take product to market and justify the CapEx deployment for larger-scale machines. The influx of POs we're hoping to see should come in Q2, Q3. That's when key decision points have been communicated to us in terms of when they're going to say go or no go. And then from a royalty generation standpoint, as you mentioned, the 540 kilowatts of machinery that was purchased in fiscal 21, we should have all of those machines installed by Q3. And from there on, see an uptick in royalties that is material when compared to fiscal 21 numbers on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Silla, private investor. Please proceed with your question.

Oh, thank you. I was just wondering, there were rumors that the weather in Vancouver was so bad and it might have affected your production of facilities in some way, shape, or form. Could you just shed some light on the recent storm and its impact on the company? Thank you.

Sure. Thanks, Joseph. First of all, we want to obviously send our condolences and thoughts to all the businesses and families and people that were affected by the terrible weather that we saw here on the coast of British Columbia. But I will confirm that those storms, that terrible weather did not affect our company in any way, shape or form in terms of our core functions. It did affect some of our suppliers, which delayed the delivery of some rudimentary componentry, but we always have backup suppliers to provide us with the same componentry, which we had to employ that strategy during this time period. As we move forward, we always want to make sure that we're building an even more robust plan of redundancies within our business because things such as this crazy, let's call it, once-in-50-year weather experience we're having right now can come about any time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from the line of Steve Hansen with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, hey guys, just wanted to follow up on the national Costco promotion that you guys have talked about recently. I kind of view Costco as a double-edged sword. It's great in that it comes with large volumes, but it also tends to be chunky and can be fleeting at times. I mean, how do you view the latest promotion win there and whether or not you can sustain a presence there? And I guess as a secondary related question is, how do you think about Costco with respect to the cheese sticks?

Hey, Steve. Yeah, we recently announced the national distribution with Costco Canada, so that'll be on shelf in January. It's a 10-ounce Gouda product, so it'll be in all Canadian Costco. So not as, you know, onerous of an undertaking to deliver the product for that rotation with Costco because it's Canada, so it's fewer warehouses, but still a very, very solid opportunity, and we're glad to be back into Costco Canada after our initial... distribution we had there last year in April. So, I mean, Costco and the Club channel is still an important channel for us. A lot of consumers shop there. It's a very good place to get brand awareness. So, with the stick, we certainly will be pursuing and have already started to pursue Costco for that product. You know, it's to be seen whether we're going to be able to get it in there under circumstances that we'll be able to deliver on because if they come and say we want national Costco we're gonna have to ramp up the plant pretty quickly but we're going to be going for it because it's a it's great place to get brand awareness especially for a new product okay great helpful and just this is a smaller point I think but I wanted to ask about the recent evaluation agreement with this PIP international around

P fractionation and wet fractionation in particular. So just maybe the question is ultimately, this strikes me as a new market for you. So I'm curious as to whether this was an inbound or it's something you're doing on the business development side and whether there's greater opportunities beyond just this one group. I think they do have some exclusive terms around their initial evaluation agreement, but just trying to get a sense for whether this is a new market you're trying to pursue over and above the markets we typically talk about.

Thanks, Steve. So Over the past 18 to 24 months, our core focus has been on verticals where we know the technology is clearly commercially viable and the value proposition is hard to turn down. This came purely as an inbound where this company was looking to reduce the temperature of the drying process to reduce the amount of denaturation of the proteins within the product that they're producing through another proprietary process through wet fractionation. We did some initial trials here at our innovation center in Vancouver, and the results were very favorable up front, which compelled them to immediately sign an evaluation agreement, take a 10 kilowatt to their facility in Lethbridge to do further trialing. From my understanding, they will be looking at either going to commit to large-scale machinery in Q2, Q3, or not pending the additional trials that will be underway. Really, you know, We'll place resources on this project, intense resources, to see if there's something here that can be then replicated with other companies, but won't do any additional business development until we are absolutely certain with PIP that this is a game changer in this particular industry.

Okay. Very helpful, guys. Appreciate your time. Thanks, Steve.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Pazim with NWAVE. Please proceed with your question.

I'll clarify that I don't work for Anwave, just a private investor. But guys, I'm curious if you can comment on any non-cheese products that Nutri-Dried might be looking at or have looked at. And also, do you guys have any products ready to go so that you're shopping around that you can or are prepared to launch on a shorter notice if you get to any interest from any potential vendors?

Thanks, Eric, for the question. Short answer is yes, we do. We have several products that we've developed in-house, done the economic analysis and figured them to be very, very attractive products to bring to market. We've been shopping those around to prospective royalty partners. Some are working on them in different jurisdictions outside of North America. But if we don't see someone step up and take a license and buy machinery from us in the immediate term here, it's likely that we will see additional products enter into the Nutri-Dried portfolio through fiscal 22. And that may not just be limited to dairy-based snacks. It could include some other formulated products that we have already, again, constructed internally. And that should complement the efforts for the Moon Cheese portfolio nicely. I'll give you one example, yogurt snacks. We saw Ultima, several years back, launch a product. They were then acquired by AgriPur. and the folks at AgriPrur decided not to invest in a greenfield project to put large-scale machinery in place for a relatively unproven product and market. Okay, that was their decision. We now have the manufacturing capacity at RevWorks and Nutri-Dried to produce this type of product and bring it to market both on a bulk sales basis and potentially a branded basis, and so we're going to be doing a line trial for that in Q2, and if everything looks good, then we may decide to launch that in the latter half of next fiscal year.

That's great. That to me sounds like an opportunity for Nutri-Dried. Why would you shop that around to potential customers when there's something that you can keep in-house? Is there a blend there that you want to accomplish?

Yeah, the reason would be, you know, big brand versus startup with Nutri-Dried. So if someone's got an established brand that they can leverage to sell metric tons of dried, rep-dried yogurt snacks, then that's a tool that we'd like to leverage to drive royalty growth, where we see, you know, building out a new product opportunity with Nutri-Dried will likely be more resource intensive. All right.

Thanks, guys. Look forward to next year. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'll now turn the call back over to Brent Charlton, CEO, for closing comments.

I'd like to thank everybody for joining us today and for being patient through the past quarter with the lack of news flow. And I can just reassure you that through the next several quarters, we will be hoping to bring you much more material news flow tied to the guidance that was provided on today's call. So with that, the quarterly earnings conference call is now complete. You may disconnect, and if you have further questions following the call, please do reach out to us at ir.nwave.net.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today for NWAVE's Quarterly Earnings Conference call.