Moolec Science - Q4 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to Moolec Science's fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2024 conference call. My name is Bill Zima of ICR Strategic Communications and Advisory. During this conference call, all participants will be muted until after the management's remarks, when there will be a question and answer session. Please also note that today's session is being recorded. Today, Moolec announced its fourth quarter and full fiscal year two thousand and 24 business highlights. The document is now available on the company's investor relations website at ir.moolecscience.com. This morning, you will hear from Gastón Paladini, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Moolec Science, together with José López Lecube, Chief Financial Officer, and Amit Dhingra, Chief Science Officer. During the Q&A session, they will be joined by Martín Salinas, Chief Technology Officer.

In today's call, we will be referring to a presentation that will be later available on the company's investor relations website. Moving to slide two, this conference call is mainly for informational purposes, and during this call, the company will be making forward-looking statements regarding future events and results, which are not historical facts, and include, but are not limited to, statements about the company's beliefs and expectations. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these and other risks are included in the company's annual report on Form 20-F, filed with the SEC, also available on the company's investor relations website. Now, moving to slide three, I would like to turn the call over to Moolec's CEO, Gastón. Please go ahead.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Bill, and good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to once again provide our latest business update corresponding to our annual review for our company. Today's agenda will address the three main topics. As I just mentioned, we will first review the major milestones we have achieved during the fiscal year of 2024. Secondly, Moolec's Chief Financial Officer will walk you through the financial overview. And last but not least, we would like to share with you our thoughts on what we expect for fiscal year 2025. Let's move now to the next slide. We will recap the main milestones that Moolec team achieved during fiscal year 2024. Turn with me now to slide five. What a phenomenal year has been for Moolec in terms of scientific developments and business operations and regulatory achievements.

Our team has been gearing to deliver milestone after milestone and continues to fire on all fronts to push out deliverables on all pillars. We have the commercialization of our science-based products using molecular farming technology shortly on the horizon, built upon the many efforts over the last year. From the setting up Moolec's College Station molecular biology lab in the U.S., to the stabilization of animal protein expression levels in PiggySooy product, as well as receiving USDA approval for PiggySooy. While preparing GLASO product for commercialization, through trial production and securing farmland for production, and planting PiggySooy seeds in three U.S. locations, the Moolec team has shown exceptional execution. To provide more details on this achievement during fiscal year 2024, I would like to hand things over to Amit Dhingra, our Chief Science Officer. Amit, over to you.

Amit Dhingra (Chief Science Officer)

Thank you, Gastón. I'm excited to share the significant accomplishments of the molecular farming team over this fiscal year. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, we successfully set up our fully owned plant molecular biology lab, the Moo Labs, in College Station, Texas. Our lab became fully operational in Q1, FY 2024, and I oversaw our plant molecular farming team that focused on the molecular characterization of the transgenic events for our target products. Conducting a significant portion of our plant biology R&D projects in-house versus third-party labs helped us centralize and streamline the process. It facilitated faster implementation of decisions, ensuring the highest quality control standards, and improved the timeliness and quality of work while generating cost savings. Also, during the first quarter, we achieved significant results in the continued development of PiggySooy product.

During the first quarter, we harvested and analyzed third generation, or T3, transgenic events at Moo Labs. Consistent with the prior results, the expression values of the animal protein or myoglobin reached up to 20% in T3. Previously, we had observed expression levels of up to 25% of the total soluble protein in T2. Overall, what we've observed is that the expression of the animal protein has stabilized across three generation, which is very exciting. On to the second half of the year, this business update marks a crucial moment for Moolec. In the third quarter, we announced a groundbreaking milestone, the first ever approval from USDA, APHIS, making Moolec the first company in our industry to achieve such a regulatory breakthrough. This achievement exemplifies our commitment to harnessing the power of plants through cutting-edge science, addressing critical challenges like climate change and global food security....

For those new to our journey, Moolec has developed a unique patentable soybean platform technology under the trademark PiggySooy. Our dedicated scientific team has achieved remarkable results, expressing animal meat proteins in soybeans, with porcine protein levels reaching up to 25% of total soluble protein in the seeds. With this approval, USDA-APHIS RSR has determined that PiggySooy poses no greater plant pest risk than non-engineered soybeans, allowing us to transport and distribute this product with individual APHIS permits. This significantly accelerates logistics and reduces costs while ensuring full compliance with USDA regulations, giving Moolec a distinct advantage in the market. Also, in the third quarter, we carried out a trial for our downstream production of GLASO with our industrial partner in Iowa as we optimized, processed, and produced a few tons of material to fine-tune the process.

In the fourth quarter, we began planting after successfully contracting 600 acres with key growers to produce GLASO seeds for crushing. Additionally, we contracted 60 more acres for seed production, aiming to yield 300-400 tons of safflower. This product has multiple customers, including a major client, as previously announced, with Moolec signing an offtake agreement with a leading global CPG company. In addition, PiggySooy field trials have commenced in Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa in order to increase seeds for scale-up and sampling for customers and to collect environmental and regulatory data as we work on the U.S. FDA approvals. Now, I'd like to turn the presentation over to my colleague, José, for the financial overview part of the presentation. Thank you very much for your kind attention.

José Lecube (CFO)

Thank you, Amit, and good morning to everyone. I'm pleased to be providing this annual business update of Moolec for the fiscal year 2024. I would like to address our highlights with regards to revenues, cost of sales, expenses, and cash utilization. Please keep in mind that all figures mentioned today are in US dollars, unaudited and based or derived from IFRS, unless otherwise stated. Let's move on now to slide 9. During fiscal year 2024, normalized revenues and other income, excluding IAS 29, increased $4.8 million year-over-year from approximately $1 million in 2023 to $5.8 million in 2024. This increase was due to the consolidation of the soy protein ingredient business, which occurred in April 2023.

Normalized cost of sales increased as well on a year-over-year basis from close to $1 million in 2023 to $4.5 million in 2024. This was in line with our revenue growth, resulting in an annual gross margin of around 0%. On the expenses front, SG&A and R&D have increased $3.1 million, from $6.2 million in 2023 to $9.3 million in 2024. This increase in expenses is mainly related to non-cash items such as depreciation, amortization, and equity incentives, as well as the consolidation of the soy ingredient business. In terms of cash used in operating activities, cash utilization has increased $1.8 million, from $7.5 million in 2023 to $9.3 million in 2024.

In particular, during 2024, approximately $4 million was destined to lower accounts payable, mainly related to transaction costs during 2023. Finally, our cash position of approximately $5.4 million as of Q4 2024 has been complemented with the purchase of 15,000 tons of HB4 soybean, which has strategic value for Moolec in terms of ESG alignment, traceability, and raw material procurement stability. The purchase of HB4 soy has been executed through the issuance of a convertible note to Bioceres and covers our projected raw material needs for our soy protein ingredient business until approximately December 2025. We are very pleased with how Moolec continues to deliver significant milestones and creates value while maintaining an adequate corporate structure and a cost-efficient strategy. I will now turn things back to Gaston as he gives a glimpse into Moolec's fiscal year 2025.

Gastón, over to you.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thanks, José. Looking forward to fiscal year 2025, we believe this is going to be a pivotal year for Moolec. Turn with me to the next slide. In terms of commercialization traction in 2025, we expect to see commercialization of our new science-based ingredient begin to take off. With our already established traction in textural soy protein generation revenues, we are honing our operational expertise in launching our new product, first with GLASO, which we'll harvest in October and is targeted to generate new revenues for Moolec in the upcoming fiscal year. GLASO will be a strategic commercialized focus for us. Traction by design R&D collaboration agreement with Bunge, with the purpose of working together on the development of safflower varieties to improve productivity for specific applications and market, as well as the commitment made from the offtake agreement with the major global CPG company.

At the same time, we are actively engaging in conversations with prospective partners and clients, providing samples of the different products in our pipeline. We are looking at all fronts of business income streams, including the licensing of our proprietary technology for use in new markets. In terms of operational focus for 2025, we will continue to fine-tune operations to enhance our upstream and downstream yields, as well as ensure the highest quality for our products, following our identity preservation program and implementing the best stewardship practices for all our crops. We are going to step by step in each process to make sure we provide only the best. At the same time, we will continue scaling up our seed inventory so we can prepare for the different uses of our seeds, from processing to planting.

As we invest our time in all these activities in preparing for growth, we are still very committed to being careful to evaluate all our spending and managing the costs, while looking into different methods to improve our cost efficiency and streamline our logistics. The last point in this section, but one that is extremely critical to our operation, is our deliberate focus on making meaningful progress on the regulatory pathway. We are actively performing and pursuing relevant processes and approvals from the different regulatory agencies. With regards to R&D and product development, this continues to be a core component of Moolec businesses. We plan to add new projects to the innovation pipeline, with new proteins and more agro product development, as current products exit development and enter the commercialization stage.

Product development will continue during fiscal year 2025, in conjunction with the close communication and collaboration with partners and customers to ensure the marketability of our products in the pipeline. And lastly, in fiscal year 2025, we are consolidating our team. In order to optimize our work efficiency, we are consolidating efforts strategically. The company will be establishing a new operational hub based in the U.S., so that we can strengthen our team's collaboration and communication and enhance our overall efficiency. Secondly, with the coming new products commercialization, we need to expand our sales and marketing efforts. With this, we are methodically expanding the team to capture these market opportunities. In addition, the company will promote expanded visibility and presence in the industry by sending team members to present and network at food, pet food, and supplement industry shows and conferences. Let's now move on to the next and final slide.

As we look forward to the exciting developments in 2025, I am confident that our strategic initiatives will drive growth and value for all our stakeholders. Now, I would like to open the floor to your questions and hear your thoughts. So I will now turn things over to Bill for the Q&A portion of our call. Thank you very, very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Gastón. At this time, Moolec's management, Gastón, José, and Amit, as well as Moolec's Chief Technology Officer, Martín Salinas, will be taking questions. You will submit questions through the Q&A chat box by submitting your name and firm in the chat and typing your question. Please be advised that we will ask you to unmute your line to ask your question live. We ask those that would like to participate in the Q&A, if your name and firm is not indicated in your profile, please submit your name and firm in the Q&A box before asking a question. Again, you may submit your questions through the Q&A chat box. Okay, before we take questions from the live queue, we have received a few questions via email.

The first question is: "This quarter, you highlighted an offtake agreement for GLASO with a major global CPG company to enter the US market in 2025. Can you provide more details on this collaboration? What efforts have both parties made, and what is the estimated scale and expected revenue generation in 2025?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you so much, Bill, and thank you for the question. Please, let's leave the floor to Scott Fortune after this question, because I saw he raised his hand before. Thank you for the question. Thank you for being here. Good morning. Great question, because we are pretty excited about this offtake agreement of our first molecular farming product, GLASO, in the United States, and we are excited for a couple of reasons. The first one, because it's a major global CPG company, we can't reveal the name unfortunately, but because it's private, because it's huge, but it's very well-known brand worldwide, with a major operation in the States. So, that's the main reason.

Second good reason is that we are extremely happy about this, is that Moolec is actually delivering milestones. We always tackle the US. We always had the US market to be the first market to land our technology, our platform, more like molecular farming. And now this is coming to reality, because this will be landed in the US commercially. And third, that is because it's happening in perfect timing, 2025 calendar year. We always had this timing in our internal plans. Moolec is delivering, and this is a proof, this contract is a proof of that.

Going back to the question, I want to highlight before going to Martín, and then to José, I want to highlight that this is not a one-year contract, this is a three years time contract, and with the possibility to expand it. So this is not only relevant for the landing and to the starting point, it's also an ongoing relationship with these major customers. So I will leave the floor now to Martín Salinas, our Chief Technology Officer. He's leading this operation in the United States, and he could give more color about the volumes and the traction of the crops and the production of the product.

Afterwards, José could give some indications of the collect part, you know, of revenue, the new revenue stream that is opening now. Martín?

Martín Salinas (CTO)

Okay. Yeah, thank you, Gastón. As Amit mentioned, we currently have a bit more than 600 acres planted in American Falls, Idaho. Mostly will be used as grain for crushing purpose, but we also have our seed stock plant as well to keep the production next year, in the following season. We're close to the harvest time, where we will actually know of our final yield, but we are expecting yields in the similar ranges that last year, around 1,400 tons per acre, and that will assure at least a range between 50-60 tons of GLA to be produced for the first year, mostly dedicated to the offtake agreement that Gastón mentioned.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

José? Thank you, Martín.

José Lecube (CFO)

Sure. Sure. Thanks, Gastón. So look, in terms of revenues, as you know, we have had a revenue stream, which is the soy protein ingredient business, which has produced revenues in the range of $6 million this 2024 fiscal year. And we believe for the fiscal year 2025, $6 million of revenue is a pretty good indication of how the business could evolve. It could grow gradually in terms of the soy protein ingredient business. However, we are very pleased with the introduction of GLASO as the second revenue stream for Moolec. We have good expectations for this product. In the medium term, we expect GLASO to participate as incremental revenue in fiscal year 2025, with a range of around 15% of the total revenue in fiscal year 2025.

Having said that, as Gastón mentioned, we have a three-year contract with a major CPG company. We expect that contract to provide a base demand for GLASO. And as times go by, and as we move on to fiscal year 2026 and 2027, we expect the GLASO to become a more important part of the overall total revenue and have a higher participation in the total revenue. Again, we have good hopes in terms of how much this business can grow and to increase Moolec's revenues in the short term, in the medium term, and in the long term as well.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, José. Okay, let's move on. Thank you all.

Operator (participant)

All right, thank you. The second question is, you mentioned signing an R&D collaboration agreement with Bunge to develop safflower varieties aimed at improving productivity for specific applications and markets. Can you share more details about this partnership and the business opportunities from this? Are there any notable developments you'd like to highlight?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Bill. I can't wait to talk about Bunge agreement, but I would prefer, if you don't mind, to go to Scott Fortune, because he raised his hand before. Scott, do you want to unmute yourself and make your question?

... Yes, there we go. Thank you, and good morning. I just want to congratulate you on your milestones and regulatory approvals, you know, achieved in fiscal year 2024. But just want to dig a little bit more into the commercialization and kind of expansion here. Do we know kind of where the, the end market? Is this for supplements or, or mainly targeted for pet foods with, with the CPG company, company you've, you've... And you have initial 50 tons, you know, tons from that standpoint. And just kind of follow on that, your harvest is expected to produce about 300-400 tons of safflower seeds. And what amount of that will equal the volume in tons that, that you're expecting for 2026?

Just kind of want to get a sense for the ramp up into 2026 with the volume expectation, and how much of that will, you know, go to a minimum of your new CPG partner. That'd be great for a little more detail on that.

Sure. Well, thank you so much, Scott, and welcome to the call. Let me frame it this way. GLASO applications are dietary supplements, nutritional beverages, infant formulas, animal health, pet food that is included in that animal health in some way, and some others. Please don't hesitate to step in, Martín and Amit, if I'm missing one or two applications, but those are the main ones.

We are in conversation with several different potential customers for all of these different application, specifically in dietary supplementation, because one of the competitive advantage that GLASO has with the established and normal products that provide GLA oil in the market is the concentration level. GLASO has up to three times more concentration levels compared with the natural and current ones in the market. So the dietary supplementation market is very relevant. In terms of this specific CPG offtake agreement with the CPG company, that application is for pet food. That is a volume and a high value player as one of the top brands in the world.

We are in good shape of conversations with other potential customers for the other applications too. In terms of quantities, volume, scale-up and production, that is, well, that harvest will change to and to produce around 50-70 tons. We are expecting around 60 tons. 50, around 50 will be for this commercial contract, and the rest would be for other customers in other applications. We still need to wait for, let's say, a couple of weeks to harvest, see finally the yields and start planning the production by the end of the month. I'm talking actually as we speak now, October, this is happening as we speak.

So we will probably have the specific yields from the land and also from the factory by November. So, we're excited because this is a molecular farming product. This is the first one. So thank you for the question, and I don't know, Martín, José and Amit, if you want to add something on top of what I have just said, but that's a quick summary of this offtake agreement, Scott.

I appreciate it. Follow on your discussions with other, you know, mentioned other companies. What are, you know, how far along are those discussions, kind of expectations for potentially adding more in this year? And then kind of what they're sampling, kind of what needs to come across for them to kind of move forward with you? Just kind of, you know, put an idea of where that pipeline is and potentially, you know, adding on the GLASO for you.

I am quite confident to say that we are going to sell the whole production, you know. Pretty sure, you know. Actually, I think we could sell more if we have more material, but unfortunately, we need to wait. The biology time is here. This is the first commercial campaign. We are hitting the market. Great contract, great players, and great starting point, but we need to multiply seeds. As Martín described before, we are reserving a part of that production for multiplication of seed to scale up this campaign and to for the next year. We are actually planning our following commercial campaign.

We will have more flexibility there, and I think that we are. We need to hold our horses and not sell absolutely all the tons of this campaign to reserve some part of that new, fresh material for sampling... to expand the commercialization network and sell and start, let's say, robust and consolidate the relationship with new customers by sending fresh samples right away. So that's the plan overall. I'm really looking forward to grow the business next year. But at least as of now, it's pretty fully committed.

Got it. And last one for me, and then you guys can, you know, touch base on that R&D collaboration with Bunge, which is great. But just kind of remind us, step us through, you know, obviously, you got the USDA or the FDA on the PiggySooy side, but kind of the results here, we'll find out more in October, those results from the field trials and since. You know, you mentioned that 20% range. But just step us through, you know, we're still on track for commercialization on that in 2027, 2028 here, and just the key milestones you have to hit, you know, leading up to 2027, kind of looking out for the next year or two on the PiggySooy side.

Sure. Great question. Well, we have- we, we announced, I think it was a month ago, that, we will be harvesting, both crops October this year. Now, GLASO for production for, for commercial purposes, and PiggySooy for, a couple of, a couple of purposes. The first one is to gather information for the FDA. That what you said, Scott, is true. We, we need to gather information not only from one place, for three different locations. That's why we farm in Missouri, Ohio, and Iowa. Three different locations in three different latitudes and states. We will gather the information for the FDA, we are in great conversations with regulators. Things are moving nicely, but we need to fulfill the path here, and we know how to navigate the regulatory fronts with our regulatory team.

We are not envisioning any delay, so everything is on track, and the plants are beautiful, beautiful. I really want to invite all the, you know, the stakeholders to these three different locations for the harvest because the plants are very, very nice. So let's see how that goes. We are pretty excited about this historical moment of planting, of harvesting, let's say, animals from the US soil, fully approved from the USDA. So in terms of commercial efforts for PiggySooy, the second reason why we move forward with the field trials over the regulatory information for the FDA is to gather also and fresh material for some.

I want to remember all here that Moolec is a science-based ingredient company, and the ingredient sector, the ingredient business, is not easy, but this is very standard and what you need to do is to get samples, specs, and to build a relationship with food producer and ingredient business, and to prototype with samples. So we will gather samples from the farm directly, fresh material. We will recover proteins, and we will send those samples right away. We are in good conversation with several different potential players and customers for PiggySooy.

They are all very interested to start brewing or, let's say, testing in their own recipes, in their own labs, and in their own pilot facilities, that this ingredient could help them in so many ways. So, that's the second reason. The third reason of these field trials for PiggySooy in the United States is to analyze, to finish the D of the R&D stage, the development, product development. I will leave the floor to Amit to just a little bit to explain the different events that are planted in the field, because we need to start analyzing transgenic events and plant performance, and start crossing that information to start selecting the champion event.

That would be the champion seed that will be multiplied in the future in the upcoming years, so as to hit the market in 2027, 2028. That's. I want to reinforce that timeline, so Amit, do you want to add more color about the science in the field?

Amit Dhingra (Chief Science Officer)

Yes. Thank you, Gastón, and thanks for the question as well. As you all know, PiggySooy has demonstrated that we can express animal proteins to a very high level and store it in the seed section of the plant, which is really what is the product that we're gonna be utilizing. So as we are doing these field trials in different locations, we are, we want to reach to a point where we want to evaluate in the fourth generation what the levels of this protein are going to be. And this platform technology, which is primarily the regulatory elements that allow us to express this protein at a very high level, is really being tested out. And as I initially spoke during the update-...

We are seeing 20% total soluble protein being consistent through the third generation, which is a very important milestone in any transgenic technology event. As we are doing these field trials, we will be harvesting a lot of plant material, which we'll also do further evaluations on. This high level is really unprecedented in seed production, and we want to take it from there. This is the platform we also want to utilize for other ingredients or other proteins or other molecules that are desirable in the market as well. Very exciting what we're doing with this. We're expanding our reach to commodity groups as well, soybean-related commodity groups, to keep them involved and included as we are developing this product.

So as Gaston invited stakeholders to our facilities or our trials, just to see what we are really developing over here. Really exciting times for us in the science sector, and we continue to, you know, as a scientist, we continue to develop our concepts further and expand to other molecules as needed. Could be bioplastics, it could be any other pharmaceutical ingredient, et cetera. So thank you very much, Gaston. Back to you.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Amit. Okay, let's move on. Thank you so much, Scott. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

All right, our next question, we have an online question from Anthony Vendetti of Maxim Group. I'm gonna read them. "Have you signed any additional commercial uptake agreements for GLASO? If not, do you expect to sign any by the end of 2024? What % of yield is accounted for?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Anthony, and Will. Do not forget about answering the Bunge question that was online before. But I want to say hi to Anthony. Anthony, thank you for joining us today, and thank you for the question. We do not have any other offtake agreement signed yet. I think for the short term would not be necessary. It would be just invoicing and commercializing directly while the spot sells for this campaign. We're envisioning to have formal agreements for the following campaign so that who knows, it will be if before the year end or next year. We have time for that. We are in good conversations with some other customers.

I think that it's also a matter of timing and awareness. You know, we are hitting the market now. So it's like one new product is new in the market. We are planning to attend to some food and animal health shows and some dietary supplement shows next year to make some marketing for the product. So I'm really optimistic of the traction of this product for next year. I'm really looking forward to continuing signing offtake agreement for the upcoming campaigns. Going back to the question, I want to answer it fully. What percentage of yield is accounted for? Do you want to tackle this question, Martín?

Martín Salinas (CTO)

Yeah, yeah. So thank you for the question, Jeremy. So, I'm trying to understand what exactly is the yield that you are putting here is in terms of the pounds per acre of the oil that we can recover out of each acre? But nevertheless-

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Talk about both. Talk about both.

Yeah.

Martín Salinas (CTO)

Yeah.

Nevertheless, the yield that we are expecting, so yield for safflower in the area is around, I would say, 1,200-1,300 pounds per acre. We achieved last year in the range of 1,600. That was a seed increase that we done last year compared to this season, where Gastón said it's our very first commercial season. We expect kind of the same yield in that. So on how much oil we can recover out of that is highly depends on the production that the crushing facility that we are using. So in that sense, we have been working a lot the last few months on optimizing that processing. I think Gastón mentioned some of that during the presentation.

This particular genetic trait has a reduced amount of total oil compared to wild type safflower. We expect extraction in the range of 15%-20%. That's 15%-20% from the seed is the total oil, right? Let's say, out of that, we can expect maybe 80% of our yield from the total oil recovery. That's kind of the yield that we are expecting very soon to be fully determined.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Yeah, agree. Yeah. This is happening as we speak, as I said before. Thank you so much, Martín. Okay, let's move on. Thanks, Anthony.

Operator (participant)

Okay, we can move on to that, my previous question. You mentioned signing an R&D collaboration with Bunge to develop safflower varieties aimed at improving productivity for specific applications and markets. Can you share more details about this partnership and the business opportunities from this? Are there any notable developments you'd like to highlight?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

... Yeah, well, I remember the Bunge question. Thank you for that. We're very excited about being close to Bunge now with this R&D and collaboration agreement with them. As you all surely know, Bunge is one of the ABCDs companies, you know, that these four dominant agriculture trading worldwide, together with ADM, Cargill, and Dreyfus. So it's an honor for us, as a young company, to be close to this major player. Specifically about the R&D collaboration, this is for upstream efforts in our safflower platform. That's part of our GLASO improvements and some other new developments in the safflower varieties and safflower platforms as well.

I will leave the floor to Amit first to fully explain the importance of the genetics in the upstreams from so as to improve and back cross and focus on breeding varieties in the field. This is high level, you know. It's very important to understand yields in the fields and to focus on science and genetics. Then Martín could give more color in terms of the specific traits that we are working. I want to highlight that Bunge is focusing on safflower for biofuel application. Moolec is focusing on safflower as a bioreactor platform, as small factories to produce GLASO and new products in the pipeline, but both share the upstream part of the value chain, you know.

So, but again, I will put a pause now and pass to Amit to explain the breeding side and Martín to explain the trait side.

Amit Dhingra (Chief Science Officer)

Thank you, Gastón. I would say that as what we produced, what transgenic lines we produced, we select our champion events, which have the highest level of expression and agronomic performance. But as new breeding lines are being generated, which are either have other traits, for example, they can perform better agronomically in different geographies or under different climatic conditions. So we can introgress or do make crosses between these plants, go back to traditional breeding, and take these traits that we've developed in our lines and move them into the desirable genetic backgrounds, so that we can produce this product at a larger scale, more efficiently with less inputs.

One of the biggest things is that the genetic potential through breeding continues to be enhanced, and we have the opportunity through these partnerships where we can capitalize on the new genetics that is coming through the pipeline as well by combining these traits through breeding. I also wanted to say that we have our own internal labs, where we can characterize all these very rapidly with the equipment and the robotics that are available to us. We are able to really fast-track identification of progeny or products that come out of those crosses that can then be deployed.

You know, in the past, we mentioned about global scale-up potential of our technology, and I think this is where combining what we develop as initial traits with the breeding pipelines that exist in different crops, especially in this case, safflower, we can really produce this anywhere in the world. Thank you. Over to Martín. Thank you.

Martín Salinas (CTO)

Yes. So, basically, the yield that I mentioned for safflower GLA in the United States, around 1,400-1,500 is quite a great yield in the United States, and it's a variety that we have been using for a while. But when you compare that yield with the commercial or many other germplasm in the southern hemisphere, particularly in countries like Argentina, yields are not as good. So our main goal is to evaluate, test, and develop new lines that are better adapted, that are optimized in terms of the yield, the productivity for different territories, other territories than the United States, for us to increase our potential opportunities to expand the technology into other territories. That's...

As Amit said, once we identify, we have this optimized line for other territories, we can start the integration process where we can introduce our traits into new germplasm and new varieties. Thank you.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Martin. Very clear. And thank you for the question. And, I want to add on top of that, before going to the next question, I think would be Aaron's question, that this is a huge opportunity for Moolec, being close to Bunge because not only because of safflower seeds, it's because of all our pipeline, soybean as well. We are having great conversations about soybean in the future, so let's see how it goes in the future. We are focusing, of course, on delivering our commitments with Bunge in terms of safflower upstreams, but, as I said before, you know, it's this is maybe a one step forward of the new potential collaborations in the future with this major company.

So, let's move on, Bill. Thanks for the question again.

Operator (participant)

Okay, great. Our next question comes from Arun Suresh: "In terms of safflower oil products, how much revenue growth is expected in 2025, and can this be the main part of business in the future, given the push in AI and data centers for biofuels?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Arun, for joining us today, and thank you for the question. Before going to José, he will talk and give some indication about the growth in 2025, in terms of the business. But in terms of applications and AI and data centers, I don't know. What I can say is, and this is amazing, it's a good idea, great, but what I want to highlight and point out that Moolec is focusing on improving yields for GLASO and the future products by using safflower as a bioreactor, as a great small factory and biological factory. Bunge is focusing on biofuels. I personally think that we haven't reached what plants can do.

Moolec is proving with GLASO and PiggySooy that this technology is not only doable, not only feasible, is cost-effective, is sustainable, and is real, is materialized, is concrete, so by using AI in the future, data centers or any other applications, I think it's great, you know? We have the ability to produce any molecule, any protein in any crop so far by using the same techniques. But I want to go back to the question, Arun. Thank you for that, and leave the floor to José to give more details in terms of revenue.

José Lecube (CFO)

Sure. Thank you, Gastón and Arun, thank you very much for the question. So as mentioned before, what we expect for fiscal year 2025 is that GLASO participates in the overall total revenue in around 15%. Again, for fiscal year 2026, there's going to be a lot of focus in the operation of GLASO and the scale-up of the operation of GLASO, with a bigger campaign starting in May, June, calendar year 2025. So what to expect in terms of GLASO participating in the revenue onwards for fiscal year 2026? Probably, if in fiscal year 2025, it's going to be around 15%, for fiscal year 2026, I would expect it, it could be participating in, in double way it participates in fiscal year 2025.

So yes, we have good hopes, good expectations for the product and how it helps grow the revenue of Moolec.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, José. Before going to the next question, I want to leave the floor to Amit to... Probably he will want to expand my technological and scientific answer. I can't hear you, Amit.

Amit Dhingra (Chief Science Officer)

Sorry, yeah, sorry, I'm having some connection issues.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

No worries.

Amit Dhingra (Chief Science Officer)

Okay. Well, in this particular case, I think our technologies are expanding quite a bit, Gastón, as you've already mentioned, and José has also mentioned quite a bit about it. I don't have much to add, but I think as we expand our technology platform here, you know, we can make further milestones in this case to reach the market as well as expand our product line in the future. Back to you, Gastón. Thank you.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I fully agree. Thank you, Arun, for the question, and please, Bill, let's move for the next question for us.

Operator (participant)

Okay, we have a follow-up question from Anthony Vendetti of Maxim Group. Anthony states: "Can you discuss what steps you have taken or intend to take to continue to drive awareness and adoption of your PMF products?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Well, thank you for the question, Anthony. Again, well, all the efforts that we have done, and what we are willing to do are in terms of awareness of plant molecular farming as a technology, are for the industry, are for the people that really understand technology, science, and applications. Moolec has a B2B business model. We don't need to invest money and time and to defocus communications in mainstream communications. We don't need to talk about to consumers. The Nestlé of the world knows how to communicate to consumers. Of course, we need to be transparent. We need to talk about the science.

If you get into our website, we are we try to be very transparent of how we modify plants, all the all our how our our technology works, and so on. But all our efforts are you know to approach the people that really understand the tech, and that's mostly the R&D departments of our of our potential customers. Food technologists, scientists, food scientists, and people that that now I can say that are fully understanding the potential of this tech. And you know, and I always say that when we started back in 2020, you know, talking about modifying seeds for human consumption purposes was like quite shocking.

Four years forward, you know, I definitely can assure that this is very well understood, you know? So, we are going to continue educating the R&D departments. Most of them approached us directly because we are very active in LinkedIn, in PRs, and some specific shows that we are attending. So, it's working so far. We really want to reinforce that communications since we are hitting the market now with GLASO and getting fresh material from PiggySooy very soon. We want to continue investing and maybe expanding that message now with fresh materials and new materials, new communication materials as well.

It's a very relevant topic what you have just raised, Anthony, in terms of helping us in the commercialization stage that Moolec is starting as we speak.

Operator (participant)

Okay, moving forward, received an online question from Patricio. Some of this is similar to the prior question, but if you care to elaborate, feel free to do so, Moolec team. The question is: "The achievements made so far in terms of advancements, research, commercialization, and technology are truly impressive. However, what are the specific plans for marketing campaigns and public relations? While this technology is innovative, I believe it is still not widely understood by the general public. Do you think greater exposure and support could attract more investors, increase the value of the shares? What's the plan on this matter?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Similar question, but it's very, very important for us to tackle all of these things, specifically the investor relations efforts that we are having together with ICR, with you, Bill, Steph, and the ICR team. For us, it's very important as a small company to have these good practices of investor relations by getting an important IR firm such as you guys. So the plans are to continue co-working with you guys and to attend to more conferences, to deliver good stuff in terms of PRs and to keep the investors updated. Sometimes it's not good enough, you know, because the market is huge.

There are so many public companies and so many promising companies using biotechnology that it is hard to reach all. But I personally believe that if we continue delivering and getting good milestones and communicating these milestones right away to the open public and to investors, you know, step by step, you know, day by day, we are going to start gaining more traction, more awareness. Don't forget that we are here for the long run. You know, we are talking. We are thinking about decades here. This is just starting, you know? But I think it's a very good question, Patricio. Thank you for that.

And let me reinforce the great work that we are doing together with the ICR to expand and spread the word together with them.

Operator (participant)

Okay.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Small one. Yeah.

Operator (participant)

Another follow-up question or question we have is from Salvador Verdoliva. He says, "I'm new to the story. From my understanding, GLASO is a fat-based product. So how can it be competitive from a cost point of view compared to palm oil, for example? Or is it targeting another more premium market?

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Salvador, and thank you for the question. And, I'm very glad that you are getting into the story now. So, we could give more color, not only about GLASO applications and products and the competitive edge. Also, you could have a better color and sense of what Moolec is doing here with molecular farming. Before going to Martín who Will explain the product, and I will try to do it quick because the market has just opened, and probably most of you want to start seeing the to taking a look of the shares and the on the market is that GLASO is the name GLASO means GLA safflower oil.

That means gamma-linolenic acid safflower oil. Gamma-linolenic acid is a specific omega-6. It's a nutritional oil, so it's not competing with palm oil. It's competing with some other GLA oils in the market. Most of these products are from sources such as borage oil and primrose. But, José, do you want... Sorry, Martin, do you want to add more on that?

Martín Salinas (CTO)

No, no, I think you, yeah, you explained it quite well. The only thing I would add is our competitive advantage compared to borage and evening primrose, which are plant-based oils rich in GLA, is that our expresses something between 50-60% of GLA. So out of the complete fatty acid profile, 60%, between 50% and 60% is GLA. The next most rich GLA plant-based oil is borage, and it has only 20%, and then evening primrose is in the 10% range. So our fatty acid profile, our oil produces three times more GLA per kilo of oil than other oils in the market, which in GLA. That's our main competitive advantage.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Martín. I want to add before we close, but we will go to the next question, that concentration levels are very critical for dietary supplements, for example. It's not the same to take three or four pills per day than rather than one pill, you know? So, our competitive advantage is definitely a strong sell message, and that's what we are going to, you know, do in terms of communications and so now that we have products in the market, you know, is to reinforce that competitive edge. Do you have any more questions? I think there's not any other questions in the chat box.

Operator (participant)

That's correct, José. Gastón, it appears there's no further questions at this time, so I'd like to hand the call back over to you for some closing remarks.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Yeah. Well, before that, I want to ask my fellow partners here if you want to add something before we go. Amit, I think that maybe you want to add some comments in terms of the technology. José, Martín, feel free before we go.

Amit Dhingra (Chief Science Officer)

Yeah, thank you, Gastón. I wanted to address a couple of comments earlier and add to those about plant molecular farming. So, we are really connecting a lot with the commodity group organizations, where, because, as Gastón mentioned, we are a B2B business, we are first informing them. So as we interact a lot with the commodity group organizations, that really helps us be in front of these groups, which also fosters collaborations, business collaborations and partnerships that will come out of those. Secondly, we are also becoming members, or we are already members of several other organizations, such as the International Society for Plant Molecular Farming, Society for In Vitro Biology, and then other organizations such as, Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, because we really want to work with these groups.

These are scientific bodies that can then utilize our information, and they utilize the plant molecular farming to reach our policymakers, and sometimes that also crosses over to the investor groups. So really, the effort on the science side is that what we have developed in our technology platform is cross-cutting the business piece, the technology leadership piece, as well as it's really leading the way forward for producing some of the major ingredients that we need today through plant molecular farming. And through this ecosystem, we are developing networks, as Gastón said. R&D folks are coming to us. In fact, I get invited on behalf of Moolec to speak at various plenary sessions to talk about what we've achieved through soy, PiggySooy, as well as GLASO.

So that's a very exciting time for us in the science field, and that also fosters new ideas. There are new scientists who are developers starting their careers or they have new technologies that really weren't interested in this, and that's how together we will really advance the science on this front. So that's very exciting. Thank you, Gastón. Over, back to you.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thank you, Amit. Thank you. Yes, just to add on top of that, we're very committed to stewardship. We're very committed to follow identity preserved programs for our crops in the United States. We are dealing with high-value products here, fully approved in the United States with the RSRs from the USDA APHIS. That's amazing. Nevertheless, we are very focused on following and having traceability of our beans, our seeds, so that's very important for the operational side. On top of what you said, Amit, that we are part of these soybean associations and scientific associations as well. José, Martín, before we go?

Martín Salinas (CTO)

From my part, thank you everyone for participating in the call and the interest in Moolec. And please do reach out for, you know, anything, any questions, any doubts that you have. I will be pleased to help and get in touch with you.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Thanks. Martin?

Martín Salinas (CTO)

I'm okay. I'm okay at my end. Thank you. Thank you all. It was quite an interesting conversation during this Q&A. Thank you.

Gastón Paladini (CEO)

Good. Okay, great. So I personally would like to thank Catalina Jones, our Chief of Staff and Sustainability of Moolec, for leading internally, again, this business update. Thanks, ICR, Steph, Will, thank you, and to the Moolec team, and also to my fellow officer here presenting with me. To all of you, thanks for joining us today, this annual business update. Thank you for that, for taking the time and your interest in the company and our story. And finally, I want to reinforce the commitment of our company, of Moolec, and its main shareholders as well, to keep the company publicly in this challenging market, as you surely know.

We redouble our commitment to our purpose of redefining the way we produce animal proteins with molecular farming for the good of the planet, for the good of all. Thank you again, and have a great day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. All, you may now disconnect.