Earnings Labs

Where Food Comes From, Inc. (WFCF)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 23, 2017

$12.30

-1.13%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Where Food Comes From Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jay Pfeiffer, Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Jay Pfeiffer

Analyst

Good morning and welcome to the Where Food Comes From 2016 year-end conference call. During the course of this call, we’ll be making forward-looking statements based on current expectations, estimates and projections that are subject to risk. Statements about future revenue, expenses, profitability, cash, growth strategy, new customer wins, business opportunities, market acceptance of our products and services, and potential acquisitions are forward-looking statements. Listeners should not place undue reliance on these statements as there are many factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review our publicly filed documents as well as our news releases and website for more information about the company. Today we'll also be discussing EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP financial measures provided as a complement with the results provided in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. We use and we believe investors benefit from presentation of EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA in evaluating our operating performance because it provides us and our investor with an additional tool to compare our operating performance on a consisting basis by removing the impact of certain items that management believes do not directly request our core operations. It is the Company’s policy not to provide specific guidance with respect to future revenue and earnings expectation, more new customer wins. I’ll now turn the call over to John Saunders, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. John?

John Saunders

Analyst

Good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us today. Today I want to spend a fair amount of time discussing the SureHarvest transaction because we've had a lot of questions about why you consider this acquisition to be so transformative for Where Food Comes From and we've taken some importance that our stockholders understand the strategic implications of this move. But first I want to touch on a few financial highlights because we have another solid year of profitable growth. For the full year, our revenue increased 12% to $11.6 million from $10.4 million. 100% of this was organic growth. Late in Q4, we added another $1.7 million in annualized revenue for SureHarvest. And looking ahead prospects are good for growth in all of our operating subsidiaries so we're looking forward to another solid performance in 2017. From a GAAP standpoint net income in 2016 declined to 433,000 from 534,000 in the prior year. However that decline was due to the expenditure of approximately 305,000 and M&A cost associated with the fourth quarter SureHarvest acquisition. Absent that transaction net income was approximate 738,000 representing at 38% increase over 2015 net income. Also I think it is important to note that although the majority of the M&A expense is hit in the fourth quarter, we have been working on this transaction for more than a year. As you probably noticed in our press release this morning we are now reporting non-GAAP EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA numbers because we think it gives investors a better understanding, how well we are performing in the context of the actual day-to-day operating expenses when we back out non-cash expenses and other items such as stock based comp and M&A cost. Adjusted EBITDA increased 13% in 2016 to $1.4 million from $1.2 million a year ago.…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ian Cassel with MicroCap Club. Please go ahead with your questions.

Ian Cassel

Analyst

Hi John, I have two questions, I think the first one is you talked a little bit about the SureHarvest MIS with that platform continues to be a really robust platform and we are talking about sustainability, do you have any plans to take that to other two groups even within your other subsidiaries?

John Saunders

Analyst

Great question. Yes that was a big part of our strategy and we have already began to utilize the platform that SureHarvest has to integrate with our operations around beef and pork and poultry and to create one standard strategic place for benchmarking data for large food companies looking to benchmark themselves against those in the industry as a whole.

Ian Cassel

Analyst

Okay. But that kind of goes into my next question, you mentioned this sustainability Tsunami that you see, can you maybe quantify that little bit more and expand on that, what exactly you are seeing maybe within your own customer base for potential brands that are looking to tackle this sustainability issue?

John Saunders

Analyst

Well we were clearly public early last year the pledge that one of our large customers Danone had made to their customers and the direction that they were heading around sustainability, naturality and transparency, so you don’t have to look much further than what they are doing, what is important about what SureHarvest brings and why their software as a service model is so important to us and our future plans is they have been an area that has been affected by sustainability for more than 20 years. So as I mentioned their innovation and their customers have led them down path that really the industry standard for what sustainability looks like from a production agriculture standpoint. And they built not only the sustainability MIS which is an industry base tool, benchmarking tool but also their farming MIS which is natural tool utilized by production agriculture vendors to manage the day to day operations of their facilities. Both of those tools we see first of all working very seamlessly together but having a massive appeal in other industries that we are working and then down the road to international opportunities.

Ian Cassel

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Travis Wiedower, Wiedower Capital. Please proceed with your questions.

Travis Wiedower

Analyst

Hi John, can you update us on the labeling segment and kind of how you see that evolving over the next say two to five years?

John Saunders

Analyst

Sure. We continue to spend the majority of our time looking at ways that we can continue to promote the labeling program and the verification that represents to the producers that are utilizing the program. We have had a long-term relationship with them, we have had announced a large poultry producer, North Poultry that has a branded product in Whole Foods about 150 stores under their defined menu brands, I'm excited to report that we have several opportunities both retail and quick service that we continue to move closer to either wise in the program and developing the systems in place. So I think over the next 6 to 12 months, you will have more good news about the labeling program and the growth of it.

Travis Wiedower

Analyst

Okay, thanks. That is good to hear. And then you conducted I believe a 183 onsite orders for the McDonalds pilot program, couple years ago in Canada. Are there a 183 farmers now annual customers of your or are those one time audits for our pilot.

John Saunders

Analyst

The program was the pilot project. So, it had a definitely beginning an end. All of the producers that were engaged in that program continued to be the part of the Canadian round table for sustainable group and that improvement is in the process as is the United States round table for sustainable beat and kind of flushing out the results of that pilot project and then what the mechanism is going to be that standard in those producers that engaged in the program. We continue to be a part of that process and as the new process goes, there is a significant amount of time that goes into development of that and then also continuing to look at how that's going to be implemented on a broad basis across the industry that they reflect. So, we’re pretty hopeful that the work that was done as part of the program and produces that were engaged in that program will be the foundation for what becomes more board based program in Canada.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Marc Robins with Catalyst Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Marc Robins

Analyst · Catalyst Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, thank you. Hello John. President Trump has really kind of changed a lot of things at a variety of government agencies FDA, EBA, HHS and so forth. I’m just wondering, it's still only what just four weeks into his first term, are you seeing any indication or has there been any indication that there is going to be some changes in the USDA and any of the other agencies that you might interact with?

John Saunders

Analyst · Catalyst Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Interestingly enough we have not. We have not seen any change, nor an indication of change. I'll give you one area that we were a little more concerned about and that is trade and we were we talk last, I think last quarter about China. They made an announcement last year that they were going to reintroduce tax force in China. There is a whole process that you have go through. So, based on the results of the election, I think we were a little unsure of what that was going to mean, but we've learned that there is going to mission to China that happened postelection and those negotiations continue to move along. So, it’s very positive or we’ve didn't see what we necessarily thought we might see with the new administration but specifically, in any of the organizations that work with, we've seen almost no change in fact we probably seen a little bit of the speed there.

Marc Robins

Analyst · Catalyst Research. Please go ahead with your question.

And as I think about that really so many of the services that you provide at least now are caused by demand pull from the consumer rather that a cost push kind of situation from the government, is that a correct characterization or am I reaching for starts here.

John Saunders

Analyst · Catalyst Research. Please go ahead with your question.

You're exactly right and even when you look at the global food safety mission, which is really the core backbone of what's been there and the implementation of statement is going to look like meaning that there is three or four standards that are part of that we work with rescue at the BRC and those two programs, I think are probably and I don’t have numbers on this typically but they are among our fastest growing audits and verifications that we do and those are entirely driven by international standards and large multinational companies. They have nothing to do with [indiscernible] was a part of that, but it’s the customers that are forcing it down through the supply chain.

Marc Robins

Analyst · Catalyst Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Great, looks like exciting improvement being there. Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Terry Thompson, Private Investor. Please go ahead with your questions.

Terry Thompson

Analyst

Hello, John, congratulations on yet another great quarter and another great year, by the way I really enjoyed your and Jeff's article in [indiscernible] if I could, I’d like to step back to the McDonalds question. Has there been any talk about then possibly bringing - doing an pilot project or something here in the U.S. with you, or could you talk about that?

John Saunders

Analyst

I got to Leann, I’m going to let her to answer that one.

Leann Saunders

Analyst

So Terry as part of the U.S. for sustainable beef and they are looking and doing some field project works and we are very engaged in the U.S. roundtable it’s similar to what’s happening in Canada with the DRSC, it’s a multi stakeholder initiative and so they are starting to looking at some pilot project opportunities in United states.

Terry Thompson

Analyst

That's great news and then one other question. Have you all given any more thought you think it’s time to think about listing on one of the big board's is there anything moving on that direction.

John Saunders

Analyst

Good question. I will tell you Terry we probably evaluate that question weekly and we think about finding the right point in time to do it and I will say that we continue to build our internal process business systems necessary to do that. And again keep those exchanges that we're evaluating are very, very eager for us to move up. But we're unsure of the right time, I guess I will just stand by saying, yes we think about it all the time and it will...

Terry Thompson

Analyst

Fantastic.

John Saunders

Analyst

Okay.

Terry Thompson

Analyst

Okay. I understand it's pretty expensive but I don't have any idea of that - but as always about year judgment, you all were doing a great job and I couldn’t be more pleased. Thank you. I will see you in May.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] It does seem that we have no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing comments.

John Saunders

Analyst

Well once again thank you all for your participation and the valued questions. I can tell you we are all - here in our new office and we are extremely excited about 2017 and lot of the new projects and old customers that we have been working with. So, lots of good things to come in 2017. Thank you all, bye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And thank you for your participation.