Beena Goldenberg
Analyst · AGP. Your line is open
Thank you, Max. And good morning, everyone. We appreciate you all joining our call today and for your continued support of Organigram one of Canada's leading and most innovative cannabis companies. Q3 fiscal 2024 saw Organigram achieved significant milestones in targeted growth areas that we highlighted in our earnings calls at the start of our fiscal year. Those areas include: continuing to grow our domestic business by focusing on innovation and quality; expanding our global footprint and diversifying our international revenues; achieving cost savings associated with our previously completed CapEx programs and strategic investments; and maintaining a strong balance sheet that allows us to be opportunistic in an evolving market landscape that is rationalizing. First I want to highlight our domestic performance this quarter. Our Canadian recreational business in Q3 grew 25% year-over-year, driving our overall net revenue for the same comparison period. We have also grown our net revenue sequentially every quarter of fiscal 2024, thus far, achieving over 9% growth versus Q2, and we expect continued revenue growth in Q4. There's no question that Canada is a tough market owing to high competition and onerous regulations. As of the end of Q3 there were 25 LPs with 1% or more market share up from 20 last year. And there are now 153 LPs with at least $1 million in sales, contributing to average market share erosion for the top 10 LPs of 0.4 points year-over-year. In contrast, Organigram has outperformed these statistics, gaining 0.6 points year-over-year in Q3, and has maintained a market share of over 7% for eight consecutive months as of the end of July. It's tough to hold on to market share in this landscape, let alone grow it. Organigram has further narrowed the gap between itself and the number one LP in the market to only 2.4 percentage points as of June. Q4 should be the largest quarter in Canadian cannabis history, on track to hit $1.5 billion in aggregate retail sales for the industry. Organigram maintains a highly competitive position and should benefit disproportionately from this growth over time. This quarter marked the third consecutive quarter that Organigram was the top five LP in every jurisdiction in Canada. Our market share performance was punctuated by gains in Canada's second most populous province Quebec. Our Quebec market share grew to 9.3% in the quarter, compared to 8.2% in the prior year comparative period. We also hit our highest market share in the province in June, finishing the month with 9.5% share. We are proud to have achieved our highest market share ever of 25.8% in our home province of New Brunswick, compared to 20% in the prior year's comparative period. Our dominance in Atlantic Canada continues to be unmatched with 16.8% combined market share. From a product standpoint, we continue to show our strengths in several categories, holding the number one position in milled flour, hash, and pure CBD gummies. We hold the number three positions in dried flour, edibles, and overall pre-rolls. As of the end of Q3, Organigram held the overall number three market position in Canada. We have said for some time our success is driven by our commitment to innovation. We shared some exciting news last week regarding the first new technology to be commercialized by Organigram, leveraging the output of the product development collaboration with BAT, our new FAST nanoemulsion technology. FAST, which stands for Fast Acting Soluble Technology, has shown promising preliminary results from what we believe was the largest PK study ever undertaken to understand the effects of recreational cannabis products. The results of the study have given early indications of technological advances, including but not limited to faster onset, compared to traditional ingestible products from the control group. Depending on ingestible format, up to approximately 50% faster onset of the effects of cannabis was observed. Improved bioavailability of cannabinoids, up to double the cannabinoid delivery at peak, compared to the control group. And early indicators of a more predictable duration of the effects of cannabis, showing promising signals for the development of future offset claims subject to additional supporting studies. Manufacturing scale up for gummies utilizing this technology is underway in our Winnipeg facility, and we are currently on track to launch them in the fall. We feel confident that our investment in this technology will contribute to our continued success in edibles domestically, where we hold 16.7% market share, and help us penetrate injectable markets abroad in the future. Now I'd like to discuss our international business. In Q3, we announced the most significant development relating to our international expansion to-date, an approximately $21 million investment into German cannabis leader Sanity Group, deployed from our Jupiter investment pool, which is focused on emerging opportunities in international markets. The investment is exciting for several reasons. One, it allows us to establish our first foothold in Europe through Germany, which as of April 1, paved the way to becoming the world's largest federally legal adult-use cannabis jurisdiction. Two, Sanity is already a leading cannabis company in Germany with the number two flower brand in that market, and is also operating two dispensaries in Switzerland through their pilot project. We believe they are well positioned for growth in Germany and the wider EU market where there is currently less saturation than in the U.S. or Canada, so first mover advantage will likely matter more. Three, the investment enhances the previous supply agreement that was already in place between Organigram and Sanity Group, with Sanity having now increased its purchase commitments. Upon Organigram receiving EU-GMP Certification at its Moncton facility, which is expected in the near-term, Sanity will switch to purchasing a percentage of its total flower assortment for Organigram. And four, Germany is viewed as the most important new legal cannabis market in the world, due to its large cannabis-friendly population, its political influence, and geographic adjacencies to markets contemplating adult use for medical cannabis. Now, in addition to the anticipated increase in cannabis volume found for Germany resulting from our investment in Sanity, Organigram continued to diversify its list of international customers in Q3, signing two new supply agreements with customers in Australia and the U.K. Organigram now has seven supply agreements across Germany, Israel, Australia, and the U.K. and is currently evaluating additional global partnership opportunities and strategic investments. Moving on, I'd like to focus for a moment on our savings initiatives and efficiencies achievements in this quarter, resulting from investments in automation, adjustments in our manufacturing methods, and advantages garnered from our strategic investments. In Q3, Organigram harvested 21,420 kilograms of dried flower, representing an increase of 15%, compared to the same prior year period. 42% of our harvests in Q3 exceeded 26% THC, compared to 25% of our harvest last quarter, an increase of 17 percentage points. Our average yield this quarter broke an Organigram record at 185 grams per plant. While yields have historically fluctuated and may continue to do so from time-to-time due to changes in our cultivar mix, we are encouraged by this achievement. The yield increase of 28% versus the same prior year period and almost 13% sequentially is supported by changes we have made to our cultivation processes and by realization of benefits from our strategic investment in Phylos. At our Moncton facility, consolidation of plant care and harvesting roles, reduced waste, and contributed to an enhanced quality during the harvesting process. It seems to get a better product when the person who cares for the plant is also the person who harvests it. And we know our customers will notice the difference this additional care makes to our already great products. We saw further efficiencies in post-processing through streamlining testing, increased throughputs, and waste reduction. At our edibles facility in Winnipeg, we completed trials for reducing cannabinoid waste that is expected to deliver meaningful savings in fiscal 2025 by changing to inline active dosing tanks for our continuous edibles line. And in Lac-Supérieur, our expanded cultivation is providing cannabis for our revitalized Trailblazer and Woola brands, which are meeting the needs of our Quebec customers with Quebec-grown premium cannabis. Also in Q3, we completed harvests of three seed-based production rooms. Our seed-based capabilities stem from our strategic investment in Phylos bioscience, which is exceeding our expectations to-date. This led to our decision to fast-track the partial funding of the final investment tranche in Phylos, which we announced in July. The early funding resulted in an expanded final milestone, which requires Phylos to deliver 21 unique auto-flower seed varietals for testing and phenotyping by the end of September this year, followed by a second cohort of 21 more by January 2025. Further, Organigram receives an expanded genetic license from Phylostat, in addition to the whole flower THCV for which we have exclusive rights in Canada, include access to high potency CBG, CBC, and CBDV seed-based cultivars. Our first three seed-based harvests yielded an impressive 200 grams per plant and an average THC potency of 25.5%. Four additional rooms were harvested in July, and by the end of the calendar year, Organigram expects to achieve its goal of approximately 30% of production coming from seeds. We further anticipate averaging between 20% to 30% seed-based production throughout fiscal 2025, as we optimize production schedules and business requirements. Other benefits from seed-based production include faster cycle time, which we expect will allow Organigram to increase its production output without additional CapEx and improve plant consistency, quality, and resilience. We continue to measure against our guidance of $10 million of savings this year that we outlined at the end of fiscal 2023, resulting from investments in automation, in-house lab testing and remediation, freight optimization, and changes in production processes. In Q3, we realized approximately $2.7 million of these savings. Fiscal year-to-date, we have delivered approximately $7.9 million, and we are on track to meet this $10 million target. Finally, Organigram continues to maintain one of the healthiest balance sheets in the industry with $173 million in pro forma cash as of the closing of the final BAT funding tranche. As a reminder, we expect to close the second $41.5 million tranche later this month and the final tranche of BAT's $124.6 million follow-on investment at $3.22 per share is expected to close in February 2025. In addition to our ample cash position, we maintain effectively zero debt, which makes us a rare find in the cannabis industry and allows us significant financial flexibility. This concludes my comments and I will now turn the call over to Greg to discuss our financial results for the quarter.