Village Farms International - Earnings Call - Q1 2020

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Village Farms International's First Quarter twenty twenty Financial Results Conference Call. Yesterday, Village Farms issued a news release reporting its financial results for the first quarter ended 03/31/2020. That news release, along with the company's financial statements, are available on the company's website at villagefarms.com under the Investors heading. Please note that today's call is being broadcast live over the Internet and will be archived for replay both by telephone and via the Internet beginning approximately one hour following completion of the call.

Details of how to access the replays are available in Before we begin, let me remind you that forward looking statements may be made today, during or after the formal part of this conference call. Certain material assumptions were applied in providing these statements, many of which are beyond our control. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward looking statements. A summary of these underlying assumptions, risks and uncertainties is contained in the company's various securities filings with the SEC and the Canadian regulators, including its Form 10 ks for the year ended December 3139, and the Form 10 Q for the quarter ended 03/31/2020, which is available on EDGAR and SEDAR. These forward looking statements are made as of today's date, And except as required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any such statements.

I would now like to turn the call over to Michael DiGiglio, Chief Executive Officer of Village Farms International. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Michelle, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. With me for today's call is Village Farms' Chief Financial Officer, Stefan Raffini. The agenda for today's call, I'll start with a review of the highlights of the quarter, most notably the fifth consecutive quarter of profitability for Pure Sunfarms as we saw a significant quarter to quarter ramp up in retail branded sales. Steve will then review our financial results and I'll return to discuss why we remain so confident in the future of our company and then be happy to take questions. But before I start, I just before I review this quarter, I'd like to provide an update with respect to our operations during COVID-nineteen pandemic.

We are grateful to report that all of our Village Farms and Pure Sunfarms facilities, whether Canada, U. S. Or Mexico remain fully open and operational as they have throughout the pandemic. The health and well-being of our employees, customers, vendors, partners and their families continues to be our top priority. We are continuing to adhere to additional health and safety practices as per municipal, state, provincial and federal health authority recommendations over and above the already very high standard of hygiene practices and protocols already in place as a highly regulated food producer.

We have always taken our role as one of the largest suppliers of year round fresh quality produce in North America and the consumers we serve us very seriously bringing that same dedication to Pure Sunfarms. But never have we taken our role more seriously than during the current environment and I'd like to acknowledge all of our employees company wide who are working tirelessly to ensure health and safe produce is getting to our retail partners. And in particular, I'd like to thank all those who played a role in helping us feed over 10,000 families in Texas with donations of over 200 tons of produce throughout the state to local food banks and pantries. We are fortunate during this difficult time that we operate essential businesses that thus far have remained largely unaffected by the pandemic. Now turning to Pure Sunfarms, of which I remind you, we now own just shy of 59% as of April 2.

Pure Sunfarms continues to clearly set the standard in the Canadian cannabis industry for growing capabilities, best in class facilities and operations, cost of cultivation in a greenhouse managerial acumen and brand performance. And it continues to be one of the few profitable Canadian cannabis suppliers, not just this quarter, but now for five consecutive quarters. This performance is unmatched in Canada. As expected during the first quarter, Pure Sunfarms saw a significant ramp up in sales volume following its planned transition to predominantly retail branded sales from the fourth quarter. Total net sales increased 25% year on year to just over $18,000,000 with $8,500,000 of that generated by retail branded sales to provincial distributors.

That's 118% increase in dollar sales from Q4 on a 179% increase in kilograms from the fourth quarter as well. And I want to remind everyone that Q1 was just the second quarter of retail branded sales for Pure Sunfarms. Sequential growth was also the result of sales activity in the wholesale market. While positive, I do note that we expect wholesale sales to be lumpy for the foreseeable future. The significant increase in retail branded sales in Q1 was driven by a number of positive factors.

Pure Sunfarms dried cannabis product continue to be favored by consumers in each of the three provinces that we are selling. In Ontario during the first quarter Pure Sunfarms once again sold more dried cannabis than any other brand with the Ontario cannabis store. That's on both a volume basis and a dollar basis. That makes the second consecutive quarter that Pure Sunfarms was the top selling brand with the OCS, each of the two quarters since its retail launch right out of the gate. And once again Pure Sunfarms had the top selling product with the OCS by both volume and dollars sold.

In the first four months of the year, Pure Sunfarms captured 14.3% of the Ontario dried cannabis market with market share jumping to more than 20% in the month of April. Pure Sunfarms goal is to capture at least 20% of the dried cannabis market nationally in Canada over the long term. Yes, it's too early to say, but this is just a single month of data for Ontario alone. But we think it's a strong indication that we can achieve our goal. Retail sales growth was also driven by the start of shipments for the retail market to its third province, Alberta, where Pure Sunfarms product is having great feedback from both retailers and consumers.

At $60 per capita annual consumption, Alberta is by far the leader of the five largest provinces. Clear evidence of the critical role that bricks and mortar retail stores play in driving sales. I will note here that the robust sales growth and brand performance in Ontario is in a market that remains significantly underserved on a bricks and mortar store basis. Per capita sales in Ontario is under $25 And for additional content, pure capita consumption, per capita consumption in The U. S.

States open for two years or more are even higher than Alberta with Colorado leading the way at $99 followed by Oregon $97 and Washington State at $89 as opposed to Ontario at 25 huge difference. Recently Pure Sunfarms took a major step towards launching its fourth province receiving approval from the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority to sell to private retailers in that province. It is now preparing to begin shipping. Like Alberta, Saskatchewan punches well above its weight representing 6% of Canada's sales with just 3% of the population. Q1 was also further confirmation of Pure Sunfarms advantage around cost cultivation costs with an all in cultivation cost for Q1, which as always includes depreciation expense of $0.88 per gram, bringing the average for the past four quarters to less than $0.74 And as a reminder, cultivation costs are higher during the winter quarters when yields are naturally lower and supplemental lighting is required due to the few hours of sunlight than in the summer period.

We are confident that this industry leading greenhouse cultivation costs will continue to not only support further market share growth in the legal market, but to capture meaningful share from the illicit market. Competing directly with the illicit market is what will truly drive sales. It's the key near term strategy of Recurstone Farms and the tactics to achieve this are in place and working. At the same time, product quality strains and blends and potency remain paramount. The team is continually striving to even further elevate the already high levels of its products, while continually working to bring the cost of cultivation down even further.

It's a continuous improvement process that never ends. And when we think safety specifically around handling and pesticide use, especially now will increasingly become more important to consumers. The tax revenue paid by the legal trade will become increasingly important to governments, which we think is good for the entire industry. Finally, on price, there is no doubt that the number of Canadian suppliers needs to contract for the health of the entire industry. And we believe the current trends in the pricing environment, which we are leading will see to this eventually.

In late March, Pure launched its first large format value offering, a 28 gram package with the same high quality that Pure Sunfarms has become known for. The product has the lowest price per gram of any dry cannabis product on the market in the three provinces in which it is currently sold. And I wanted to share with you some of the social media comments from consumers themselves, which underscores the strategy to take share from the illicit trade. The first one, after my good luck with the 28 gram bag I acquired of the Pure Sunfarms Indica blend pulled me back to the legal market. The fact I could purchase a 28 gram bag at a pretty reasonable cost made me switch from the black market.

Another quote, this is what the illegal market should fear. Another quote, this is how you can back the black market. It is very quickly becoming the top selling product in Ontario and in the first month in the market by both volume and dollars. Value is even more important during these tough economic times when consumers are much more price sensitive And this product sets an OCS record for sales volume for a single product during a one week period in the dried flower category. The success of Pure Sunfarms 28 gram offering is not a surprise.

We are increasingly seeing the market demanding high quality product at a value price and the provincial distributors seem to be taking note. For instance, in April, the Chief Commercial Officer for the entire Ontario cannabis store in an interview discussed the importance of price and quality and taking share from the legacy market and know that the OCS had brought its pricing down by 25% since the beginning of the year and even gave out a shout to Pure Sunfarms by name. We believe there is no better part of Pure Sunfarms to support the OCS in achieving its objective and we very much look forward to continuing to play a leading role here. Pure Sunfarms can and will continue to be aggressive around pricing when it launches additional products, including in cannabis two point zero products and again with the key attributes of quality and safety in mind. Preparations for the launch of oil products and two point zero products has accelerated and I'm pleased to report that we now expect our first oil and two point zero products to be launched this coming summer.

While I know everyone is eager to know the specifics here for competitive reasons, we are going to wait until the launch to say anymore, but it won't be long. Now turning to our U. S. CBD program. On our last call, I discussed how profound disappointment and really bewilderment that following the federal government's decriminalization of hemp and CBD at the 2018, its very own agency have failed to provide the regulatory clarity to enable law aiding companies to participate and help this huge opportunity realize its potential.

The industry has essentially come to a standstill pending the FDA providing a clear path forward. And we are now not only seeing companies dedicated to the space struggling, but failing. And it's clearly caused the large retail players to put brakes on their strategies for CBD products. The economic impact of this foot dragging is especially egregious now when the economy is in dire need of any and all drivers of economic activity and growth. Clear FDA leadership and guidance is required and required now.

That said, we continue to be proactive in exploring additional path forward that we can act on prudently in the near term. We are actively engaged in market research and looking at product development that would allow us to move forward with the current regulatory environment. And then finally, our produce business, during the first quarter, saw elevated pricing due to the high demand as consumers rush to stock up when concerns over the pandemic took hold. However, we were only able to take partial advantage as we had to honor our existing contracts with our major retailers at prices that were below the spot market. In addition, from our Texas facility continue to be below normal production volumes.

Importantly, with our newest growing partners coming online, we have now replaced all of the capacity that was displaced by cannabis in Canada and then some. The organizational breadth and strength and experience underlying our produce business remains a tremendous foundation to which to transform into new high value, high growth opportunities such as CBD. And we have greenhouse operations among the very largest and best located in The United States. There is no one in our opinion better position for a federally legalized cannabis market, something we are more optimistic about given the expected need for stimulus and tax revenue going forward in this election year. We have more than $300,000,000 U.

S. Dollars in replacement value in our U. S. Greenhouse assets. None of our publicly traded Canadian peers can say that.

I'd like to turn the call over to Steve now to walk through the financial results. Steve?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mike. For those new to the Village Farms story, our cannabis joint venture Pure Sunfarms cannot be consolidated for accounting purposes even though we own the majority of it as the Pure Sunfarms Board is jointly controlled. That said, we continue to provide full results for Pure Sunfarms to the investment public, so you can do comparisons with the other public Canadian licensed producers. The Pure Sunfarms March 31 balance sheet and Q1 income statement is contained in footnote number seven in our financial statements. It is in U.

S. Dollars rather than Canadian dollars as Village Farms is required to report its statutory results in U. S. Dollars. In an attempt to help the readers, we included a financial summary in our press release in both Canadian dollars and U.

S. Dollars. Unfortunately, we did not translate two figures correctly. While the Pure Sunfarms net sales figure for Q1 is correct in U. S.

Dollars at $13,100,000 the breakout between retail and wholesale was not. The retail or branded sales figure should be in U. S. Dollars 6,200,000.0 and the wholesale in U. S.

Dollars should be 6,900,000.0. The Canadian figures as shown in the press release are correct. As stated in our April earnings call, Pure Sunfarms experienced significant quarter on quarter growth in terms of sales and volume to provincial governments. With provincial sales of $8,500,000 in the quarter against Q4 twenty nineteen sales of approximately $3,900,000 or up for 118% increase, and that was primarily driven by the increase in volume of 179% going from 1,100 roughly 1,100 grams in 2019 to over 3,000 kilograms in the 2020. This revenue represents sell in Q1 twenty twenty versus sell in in 2019.

As Mike said, 2020 benefited from the initial sell in to Alberta and the sell in of a large format to Ontario cannabis store. When we're stating our market share figures that Mike provided, those represent sell through. Those figures are provided by the OCS retail channel and provided in POS point of sale data to the Pure Sunfarms brand team. The sell through or POS data has been very strong for the large format product, particularly in April as it hits store shelves. You will note that this does come at a lower price per gram, obviously, with a lower gross margin to Pure Sunfarms than the retail sales of our pouch SKUs.

The Q1 twenty twenty wholesale business, which was nonexistent in 2019, as Mike said, was lumpy, was primarily driven by transactions with two Canadian extraction LPs who were seeking dried cannabis flower in exchange for various forms of distillate. Pure Sunfarms entered into these transactions due to both the availability of high grade extraction, flower and trim as well as the delay in its extraction license from Health Canada. So in order for Pure Sunfarms to enter the cannabis two point zero market in the 2020, it was in need of distillate. And as Mike mentioned, we'll be launching its cannabis two point zero SKUs this summer. As reported last May, so May 2019, Pure Sunfarms was anticipated to experience a very strong improvement year on year in our cost per gram as the Delta 3 facility, while it was fully licensed in the 2019, was not fully operational as it wasn't fully planted.

So now the market can see the benefit of economies of scale with a full winter of full scale production as well as an additional year of experience. We brought down our cost per gram by 36% on a year on year basis from $1.38 a year ago to $0.88 this quarter for a $0.50 per gram difference. I also want to quickly review the Q1 financial impact of the March settlement agreement between Pure Sunfarms, Village Farms and Emerald. Both Village Farms and Pure Sunfarms recognized income in Q1 as a result of the transactions contained in the settlement. Pure Sunfarms recognized US4.3 million of income in exchange for the cancellation of the outstanding liabilities that remained under the 2019 supply agreements as well as the future supply agreements that Emerald wanted to get out of for 2020, 2021 and 2022.

The amount, the $4,300,000 represents the remaining shareholder loan that was outstanding between Emerald and Pure Sunfarms at CAD5.9 million. So one can look at this figure essentially as either debt forgiveness income or can look at it as essentially

Speaker 1

product

Speaker 2

revenues, but could not be recognized as product revenue since no product was delivered. So in any event, it represents from an accounting perspective an income recognition of $4,300,000 and is a onetime benefit, so has not been included in the EBITDA of either Pure Sunfarms or Village Farms as presented in our financials. Additionally, as part of the settlement, Emerald transferred 2.5% equity

Speaker 3

stake

Speaker 2

of Pure Sunfarms to Village Farms, which resulted in Village Farms recognizing other income of CAD 4,700,000.0 or CAD 6,250,000.00 as the value of the Pure Sunfarms stock received to avoid any guesswork on the various stock blogs. If you do the math, that's an agreed value between the parties of Pure Sunfarms of $250,000,000 Our produce business, like cannabis, is an essential business. And as Mike said, has not experienced any production issues related to C-nineteen, for which we are very fortunate. That said, retail demand has been volatile. We saw very strong pricing, as Mike mentioned, in March during what I call the hoarding period.

In early April, we saw a falloff in demand. No, even the retailers couldn't really explain that because people were buying other things other than fresh produce. But recently, we've seen very strong pricing in early May compared to historical levels for early May. And fortunately for us, we dropped one of our large retail contracts effective March 31. So we are benefiting from that improved pricing in our own results in Q2.

Just one thing to note, not much happened with our U. S. Tech business in Q1. We are having continued interest with respect to our existing biomass. I do want to note we do have a we did receive in March our license to grow hemp in Texas.

But at this stage, are not embarking on that until these regulatory hurdles And with that, I'll turn it over to Mike.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Steve. So in conclusion, here we are a little over a year and a half into the legalized market for recreational cannabis in Canada. Amidst a market that has been slower to develop than expected and smaller currently than originally expected, but with just as much long term potential, the industry is now clearly segmenting into leaders, survivors and everyone else. From day one, we conceived of and built Pure Sunfarms to not just be a leader in the cannabis industry, but to be the leader.

We focus first on getting the cultivation underpinnings right, providing the lowest cost of cultivation in the industry. We then installed what we believe is the best management team in the business and then that team launched what immediately became and has consistently been the top selling dried cannabis brand in Canada's largest market. So I'm going to come back to something you've heard me say before, it's Ferrari's famous motto that we are the competition. And yes, it's a bold statement, but one that I'm proud to simply make about Pure Sunfarms, not with arrogance, but with confidence. It's the confidence I've had since day one about thirty years ago in our large scale low cost cultivation, knowledge, experience and DNA, operational know how and best in class facilities in operation.

And it's the confidence I have today based on consistently being the top selling dried cannabis plant in Ontario having the lowest cost of greenhouse cultivation in the country and quarter after quarter generating profitability. No one knows exactly what the next six to twelve months look like. The unprecedented withdrawals of financial guidance by public companies, even the largest and most mature as evidenced comfortable with where our businesses are today and I remain very confident what lies ahead. While the Canadian cannabis industry will likely see some choppiness in the near term due to the effects of the pandemic, Pure Sunfarms has a number of catalysts that directly leverage its leading brand performance. The build out of retail store network in Ontario, further expansion across Canada and the introduction of new products including cannabis two point zero that make for very exciting 2020 and beyond.

So thank you for listening, we'd be happy to take some questions if anyone has them. Operator?

Speaker 0

Your first question comes from Aaron Grey from Alliance Global Partners. Congrats

Speaker 1

on the quarter and the strong market share momentum heading into April. You're welcome.

Speaker 3

Just a first one from me, just in terms of the commentary on the price per gram for adult use, just as we look to have these large formats kind of become a higher portion of the mix going forward, how should we think about that $2.08 per gram kind of trending? And how much does that kind of come down as we look to model it out going forward?

Speaker 1

I think probably not going to answer that directly, but I think in general, that's our philosophy is, as I've clearly said, it's we have to be competitive with the legacy business and pricing will just come down as we see that penetration to the point where we believe the penetration rate will increase. And we're going to remain with that strategy as we launch these other products this summer. And I think it will be much clearer maybe when we report the third quarter how that's going to look.

Speaker 3

All right, great. Thanks for that. And then the second question is just on 02/2000 and the plans for launch this summer. While I can certainly appreciate for competitive reasons why you don't want to disclose too much, could you maybe instead just talk about what you're seeing right now in the marketplace and maybe the opportunities, you know, you see, you know, specifically in oils or vapes or edibles, know, for Pure Sunfarms, you know, specifically given, you know, how well you executed on the second mover advantage in Canvas one point So any commentary on your view of the competitive landscape and two point zero products would be helpful. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Well, think the management team at Pure Sunfarms sat back and watched as they've done before what was working from others and what was not working. So that's proven to be a positive for them and in terms of not just the performance of the product, but where the pricing needs to be. And I think as they launch their first product and I'm not going to say what it is, I think you'll see the same aggressive pricing strategy that they launched when they started retail sales in fourth quarter. So again, that will show clearer when we report the second quarter. Thank you.

All right, great. Thanks for that and best of luck. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from Andrew Partheniau from Stifel. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hey, thanks and congrats on a good quarter. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the supply chain dynamics. At the beginning of this year, we were and the launch of two point zero products, we were hearing that overall Provincial distributors were changing their ordering dynamics and ordering more frequently, but less volume in order to be closer to adjusted time type of ordering dynamic. And just wondering now with COVID, have you seen any changes in that sense, perhaps volumes increasing or higher frequency in ordering?

Speaker 1

No, I think there's so many moving parts. It's really hard to get a handle on it, but I would probably say that like many other consumer products, there was a higher purchase towards the end of the first quarter, but I think that's going to thin out. My view is that's going to probably contract somewhat in the second quarter and then probably get back on track in the third and fourth quarter. I think if you look at Ontario, sales aren't quite even back to the level they were in January. So I think it still needs to get through the second quarter because it's got to give the provincial governments time to move through the inventory assessment they have before they start replenishing.

Speaker 4

Okay, thanks. And maybe if I can dive a little deeper towards your comment in Ontario. Are you able to maybe give a little bit more color in how click and collect and delivery is doing? I know you just said that they're not back towards the level in January, but could you give a little bit of color in terms of types of magnitude or potentially, are they suffering from lack of inventory? Or is it just not being able to fulfill demand as quickly as before?

Speaker 2

Andrew, this is Steve. We're a bit removed from those level of details. Actually, a delivery perspective, I was quite excited about it. One of the advantages the legacy business has, the dealer is no longer arrested, he delivers it to the house, so which is what was happening. So actually, the developments of them closing the freaking us all out closing the stores and then changing their minds and having store pickup and home delivery, hopefully home delivery continues once things go back to whatever the new normal is.

So we don't have specifics for that, but I think it's also benefited a large format as well as people want to make less trips to go out. So hopefully, it turns out to be a long term benefit for the legal industry.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks for taking my questions

Speaker 2

again. Certainly.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from Doug Cooper from Beacon Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hi, good morning guys and congratulations on a great quarter. Just want to follow-up your comments of 20 market share of the OCS in April. Can you talk a little bit about the breadth of your distribution beyond the OCS in Ontario?

Speaker 2

Doug, Steve, we don't unfortunately, other provincial governments don't provide that to Pure Sunfarms. So I just pure conjecture. I know other people say they're x percent of the total market, but we've asked Pure Sunfarms what the market share is in these other provincial sales. And they said they don't have the information. So we can't we're not going to report what we can't support.

Speaker 5

Right. What about just how many doors are you or how many actual retail stores is your product available in Ontario of the actual retail stores? What percentage?

Speaker 2

I don't know. I haven't asked the Pure Sunfarms team. They might know that. I can get back to you maybe, but I don't know.

Speaker 5

Okay. Do you just in terms of the large format, can you just remind us what the THC level is in that? Is it sort of 18% to 22%? Is that the sort of range you're selling in?

Speaker 1

Yes. I think we don't want to look, it varies somewhat, but I mean that 28 packs in indica and it's the sweet spot there is probably in the fifteen, sixteen range. And we're always striving to get that balance better and improve on that. But for the most part, that's the current range that it's in and being well accepted there.

Speaker 5

Okay. Can you talk about there's some other kind of value packs being offered in the marketplace. What is the price advantage or the that you have over those other value packs in terms of well, I guess in terms of where the retail is pricing them? I guess just where yes.

Speaker 1

Well, I think what we've heard from materials that's the lowest price we have the lowest price. They're selling at the lowest price they have. They've come off 25%, as I said, and our product is being sold at the lowest price. But I think the key differential to anyone else is we're profitable doing it.

Speaker 5

Right. And is it retailing, just remind us, is it around $99 before HST, Yes. Is that where we're Okay. I don't think you guys mentioned, unless I missed it on the call, the strategy for opening up D2 given this environment?

Speaker 1

We're going to wait and see what transpires here. I mean, look, we don't know there's so many moving parts. I mean, where the pandemic changes or what happens in the fall. So we want to be very cautious because till there's a resurgence of the bricks and mortar stores, we don't want to have an overcapacity. It's a prudent thing to do.

And we're actually we'll monitor even Delta three. We're very focused on having our capacity meet our demand. And we can even cut that back. I mean, Delta three has 16 grow rooms. So if we wanted to cut that back to 14 or 13, we could.

And then half of Delta two is ready to go. So we can move that going forward towards year end or the beginning of the year as we see where the market goes. So the good news is long term we can double our capacity with the same cost structure, which I think is now starting to prove how it differentiates us from the competitors and get to a double capacity going forward. And at the same time, if we have to curtail with 16 grow rooms in Delta three, we can adjust that pretty quickly. As you know, it's an eight week cycle for us inside the flower room.

So but we just got to monitor it because it's really hard to see what the demand is going to be in the current situation.

Speaker 0

Your next question will come from Rahul Sauragasar from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Good morning, Mike and Steve. Thanks so much for taking my questions. And let me reiterate, congrats on a strong quarter and also really like six straight quarters of positive EBITDA. That's really unprecedented in this industry. Huge congratulations to you and the team.

So there's been a lot of questions on the retail and of course that's really important. Wanted to sort of focus on your product split. We saw that there's been a real reemergence of wholesale, almost sort of about a fifty-fifty split between your adult use and your wholesale. So where do you see that wholesale going? Do you see that being durable?

Do you see that being potentially a larger proportion of your revenue, particularly as the market continues to sort of be slow? And then sort of as a follow-up to that, like who do you see as the primary buyers? Are they extractors? Are they other LPs? Because that really kind of speaks to the competitive advantage that you guys are building.

Speaker 1

Yes. I think our strategy is to be a fully vertically integrated company. So that ultimately means that we want to control our whole production and everything we do into cannabis two point zero ourselves. So yes, think the retail at the end of the day, we're shooting to be very high percentage of retail at the 60%, 70% level, let's say. So to the extent that wholesale is there and you're always going to have to have another outlet because of quality consistency, that's just the way it is, it's still a form of product, right.

But I don't know what the future is going to hold on wholesale. I mean, think it would probably be working more with extractors for the foreseeable future. Believe it or not, there are other LPs that are asking us for product and I'm a little bewildered by it, but maybe it has to do with cost structure. But I think as this contraction takes place in the industry at some point, that's going to really change what the dynamics between wholesale and retail for us are. Everybody's still in the game right now even with tremendous losses on a quarterly basis that we're seeing because I think as long as they're able to get financing, there's just there's like 50 plus suppliers in the industry, it's just way too many.

And I think that's going to have a varying impact on the wholesale dynamic. So I would think to answer your question more or less, retail, we're shooting at retail as the largest percentage of our overall revenues.

Speaker 6

Great. That's really helpful. And then sort of moving forward now to Cannabis two point zero. So you guys, as you said, Mike, as second mover, you were able to use your cost advantage to drive grabbing market share in the whole flower segment and what we're also seeing is likely in the wholesale segment over time. And, you know, and, again, like you said, you were able to actually do that profitably.

When it comes to cannabis two point o, the, you know, the cost of goods of of of the flower is less of a key component, whereas formulation and intellectual property tends to be a a driver of of cost of goods. So, you know, how do how are you managing your strategy in cannabis two point o, when, you know, your cost advantage in cultivation is not as strong as it is in Cannabis one point zero?

Speaker 1

Yes. Well, I think, yes, to an degree, it's an ingredient. But what we've done is like we've done in the past with Pure Sunfarms has done and I think they've been brilliant about it as they've watched everybody else position, you know, pick a product, I don't know chocolate vapes, whatever and see how they position the pricing and then they've come back in and analyze where they can be overall. So I think more importantly, at the end of the day, I know they can be much more aggressive than that's why they wait to see where the market is in the pricing structure. And then that evaluation and I've seen that has shown that they can be very aggressive over the competition.

So even though it may be an ingredient, it's still it still adds up to having an advantage. And keep in mind, you know, the margins that the margins of 70% or 80% are just not realistic. I mean, at the end of the day, it's a CPG product. And as it matures out, I think it's going to have typical average CPG margins in the 30%, 40 range. And I think we're going to compete very well there.

So again, I think it's a great question that can be better answered on the third quarter conference call.

Speaker 0

The next question will come from Scott Fortune from ROTH Capital Partners. Congrats

Speaker 7

on a quarter. A lot of the questions have been answered, I don't know if you break it down percentage coming from Ontario and the different provinces. But can you provide just a little bit color from Alberta and BC as far as the ramp or reorders are going there compared to what you experienced in Ontario at all? Just kind of the throughput and reorders velocity from that standpoint.

Speaker 1

Yes. I mean, the reorders are coming in, that's something Scott that we're looking at is what's unique about it at least from my experience unlike dealing with the large retailers here in Canada, U. S. Where we're rolling out our forecast and what we're going to be doing a year ahead of time. It's really not that way currently in the cannabis sector in Canada.

So it's hard to get more of a handle on these projections going forward. But we are sitting in a good position in British Columbia and we just started with Alberta recently. So I think it's too early to say that was something that finally we got going actually in the first quarter. So probably just feel better answering that question when we get some traction towards reporting the second quarter.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then I know you guys are continuing to explore the other provinces. Congrats on Saskatchewan, but Quebec and Manitoba are kind of two other large provinces that you guys look at?

Speaker 2

Well, obviously, the apple of their eye is Quebec, but hopefully that will happen sometime soon. But I don't know. Not Mike and I are not involved in the day to day, but I know there's ongoing discussions there.

Speaker 1

I've asked about the Yukon too, so I'm waiting to see about it.

Speaker 7

Okay. That's it for me. Thanks. Thanks,

Speaker 2

Thanks, Scott.

Speaker 0

And our final question for today will come from Eric DeLoret from Craig Hallum Capital. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

All right. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. First one for me, a bit of a follow-up on the previous question. I'm just wondering if you guys have noticed any change in regulators' appetite to either sign additional supply agreements or to license additional retail stores in light of COVID? Just any kind of impact that COVID may have on regulators signing new supply agreements or opening retail stores from your guys' point of view?

Speaker 1

No, not tied to regulation that we're aware of. Just it's just kind of compressed and slowed things down. So but we haven't seen anything unusual, a slowdown because of the essential business issues in general. So we haven't just like in The U. S.

We haven't. But I will want to say, with The U. S, I know that's not part of your question, but we're starting to see some political flavor towards looking at decriminalization of cannabis, I think, due to the pandemics, probably not the way we want them to get there. But again, that's a big possibility for Village Farms in the future should that happen in the next year or so. And so that's a regulatory issue that we're looking very clearly

S. That would be beneficial to us going forward.

Speaker 8

Okay. That makes sense. And then last one for me. Great to see the kind of impact that your low cost bulk product has had in the market right now. Great demand, seeing increased market share.

You guys mentioned that you have new bulk products coming out, the Sotiva blend as well as some 14,000 products. Anything you can share on sort of when you expect that to maybe hit your guys' retail sales?

Speaker 2

It's launched. I mean, it's launched. I have we haven't seen POS data, but I think the initial shipments have shipped in to whichever provincial governments are taking it.

Speaker 1

We'll have more to report

Speaker 2

on that, but hopefully that does garner Pearson Farms additional market share in the markets those SKUs are in.

Speaker 8

All right, great. That's helpful. Well, thanks again and congrats guys and best of luck.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Eric. Thanks. Thank

Speaker 1

you, Michelle.

Speaker 0

You're very welcome.

Speaker 1

And thank you everyone. That will conclude the call, and thank you for participating today. It's much appreciated, and wishing everybody be safe. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you, everyone. This will conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.