Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Burcon NutraScience Corporation 2025 Investor Day Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded today, February 18, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kip Underwood, Chief Executive Officer. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Dina, and good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone around the world. Thank you for joining us today. It certainly is a new day for Burcon, and we are excited to get into today's discussion. I'll start with our Safe Harbor statement. I'm sure all have read and understand. There are two takeaways we hope everyone walks away with today. The first is there is a tremendous opportunity in front of us. The second is execution is the key to our success. To work through those two topics, we will cover the following things. We will talk about our achievements since early November. We will talk about the customer, the market opportunity. I'm sure all are interested to learn more about the new production facility we are working on with our partner, ProMan.
The road to profitability, our path forward, and there will certainly be time at the end for closing remarks and Q&A. Before we look forward, I'd like to take a minute and look back. We last came to the market in early November, and we communicated three things. First, that we were looking for a new route to market, a facility that could produce our entire product portfolio. We announced that we'd formed an alliance to identify and secure that facility. We also announced on a parallel path, we were initiating a rights offering to build a balance sheet that would allow us to fully execute our strategy. Over the last 90 days, I'm excited to report our achievements and grateful to our team members for all the hard work they have put in.
First and foremost, as I think everyone on the phone or the call here knows today, we successfully completed our rights offering at CAD 9.4 million last year. We've signed a binding term sheet with our alliance partner to purchase a facility. We've launched not one but two new products, a new-to-the-world sunflower isolate protein, which I personally believe will be disruptive to the plant protein market, as well as a launch of our next-generation Peazazz protein that's generating tremendous interest in the marketplace today. Finally, we've collaborated with our partner, Puratos, on how do we bring our canola protein products to market inside the baking industry. A tremendous amount of work and achievement over the last 90 days. This is an example of strong execution performance, the type of performance that we will not only need for the future but will need to improve as well.
We always start with the opportunity, and the opportunity starts with consumers. In short, protein is hot right now. Consumers are seeking protein. They're seeking more protein-dense products. Our customers are looking to meet those ever-changing consumer needs. How do they deliver a more protein-dense, better-tasting product so they can meet their consumers' ever-changing needs? Innovation is the key to delivering against those changing consumer needs, and innovation is core to who we are as Burcon. We have our product portfolio. We've talked about it a lot. We have a portfolio of plant-based proteins from pea, canola, hemp, and sunflower. These help companies deliver the best eating experience to the end consumer. They do that by having unmatched purity. They deliver excellent taste and texture and superior functionality or color. We all know at times we do, in fact, eat with our eyes.
For us at Burcon, our objective, our goal is simply to have the best protein solution on the market today. The differentiation and the excitement I just mentioned, that does drive customer interest. It takes sales execution to convert that interest to revenue. I'm excited to report we have a robust customer pipeline, over 100 product samples currently under evaluation. Inside of that, we have 17 specific expressions of interest letters from customers. These are on their letterhead, their brand name, saying essentially, "Please bring your products to market. We would like to buy them." They are signed by decision-makers, CEO, Chief Scientist Officer, Director of Procurement. There's true buying intent here once we can bring our products to market. Another subset of this is former pea and canola customers from the Merit facility.
These are people who bought our technology in the past, have been seeking alternatives for a couple of years now, and they have not found anything that meets their need. They are excited for us to bring these products back to market so they can, in fact, buy them and use them in their food products. I am going to remind everybody, two years ago, these customers alone drove a revenue run rate of over $10 million. In the end, our pipeline must deliver. What does it deliver? First is supply agreements, and second is recurring revenue. We get to that by sales execution. We have a growing market. We have highly differentiated, relevant technology. The missing piece for Burcon has always been a route to market.
How do we get our products in the hands of companies in the food space so they can then deliver great-tasting products to their end consumers? Thanks to our partner, ProMan, led by our board member, Mr. John Fasolo, we are taking on this challenge. We are on the last few steps of our alliance partner taking control of the facility. It is located in the U.S. You see a picture of it here on the slides. Why is this so important? Again, our route to market, full control over production for Burcon, the ability to launch our entire product portfolio, pea, canola, sun, hemp, a long-term agreement that ensures we can continue to supply our customers on a going basis. I am really excited to be up and running quickly, really up and have full-scale commercial production inside the first half of 2025.
In short, this is the first time in Burcon's history we will have the full control over the production, the sales, and the delivery of our products to customers in a way that meets, if not exceeds, their expectations. A true unlock for us in the future. What does this mean financially? We see a path to being a highly profitable, exciting business. I talked about sales execution, prospective customers, letters of interest. We have a clear path to being cash flow positive in 2026. In the out years, continual quarter-on-quarter margin expansion. We think about phase one. Phase one is about product launch, those new product offerings driving new sales. Phase two is about scaling those sales to deliver unit economics and overall revenue growth. Phase three is even more exciting.
Phase three is where we start to get into situations where we leverage our technology through licensing or the sale of technology to truly deliver explosive growth for Burcon in the future. I've said execution many times. I'm going to say it again. Near term, inside of calendar 2025, it is all about execution. What does that look like for us here in 2025? Q1, as we mentioned, our partner to close on the facility. Q2, we will install our proprietary equipment. We will begin initial commercial production trials. Q3, we're looking at supply contracts, continuous production of our plant protein offerings. Into Q4, now we're talking about recurring revenue and really setting the stage for an unbelievable 2025 where, again, we expect to reach cash flow positive. All of this lays the foundation for what comes into the future.
We earn the right to get to that future by execution in 2025. It is a great time to be involved with Burcon, be a board member, a member of our team, an investor, or me as a CEO. We are excited about our future and are very appreciative of y'all taking your time with us today. I would now like to open the line to questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to cancel a request, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Dave Storms. From Stonegate, Dave Storms, please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Appreciate you taking the question.
Hi, Dave. How are you today, sir?
Hi. I'm good. I hope you can say the same. I just wanted to start with, obviously, the ProMan facility. Maybe if you could just go into a little bit more about what early success will look like in calendar 2025 for that facility. Is it going to be based on recurring revenue? Is it going to be based on how many proteins you can get flown through that facility? Maybe just a little more color there would be helpful.
Thanks, Dave. Sure. I think there's three components, right? The first is that we successfully install our proprietary equipment, and we start the facility up successfully in a way we can produce our products. That's step one. Step two then is to go through and produce our entire portfolio at commercial scale so we can deliver those products to customers so they can complete that next phase or the final phase, really, of evaluation before they purchase. Third step then is achieving a place where our sales drive recurring routine production that further fuels recurring sales. Installation of our proprietary equipment, getting the entire portfolio, commercial-scale production, samples so customers can complete their last step in their evaluation process, and then really moving to a space of ongoing production and sales in the back half of 2025.
Understood. That's very helpful. Thank you. Just from a more modeling standpoint for the ProMan facility, are there any upgrades or CapEx expenses that we should be thinking about through the first half of this year and into the second half of this year?
I think one of the exciting things for our investors, and a thank you to our partner, ProMan, is the way this deal is structured. Our partner, ProMan, will both purchase the facility, obviously with us in tow, and then pay for the equipment that we need to produce our products. From our perspective, we do not have capital required to launch our entire portfolio. Again, the fundraise we just completed was around to pay for the expenses to produce and launch our products through the cash flow positive. The capital side is all handled by our partner, ProMan.
That's great. Thank you. Kind of switching gears here to the portfolio, just any early thoughts on PZSP and sunflower? Any indications of early success there or kind of what we could expect over the next couple of months from those new launches?
Sure. I'd offer a little bit of color. I would anticipate our first sales in 2025 to be PZS, right? That's going into more of an established market, pea protein going to more of an established market where we can come in and have those first initial sales. Longer term, I truly believe that the growth from year two and year three will be driven by sunflower. Again, we believe it is the most disruptive technology we have. It has the opportunity to redefine the plant protein space along three dimensions. Its performance is fantastic in terms of its white in color, great taste, right? Has excellent economics. Third, it's protein from the sun. Who would not want that? Really, pea protein near term, sunflower protein mid to long term.
Understood. That's great color. One more from me if I can. Congratulations on completing the rights offering. I'm sure that gives you a lot of breathing room as we're looking into the next year or so. How do you feel about your current financial position, and is there any expectations that you'll need to do further financing in the near term?
Hey, Dave. I'm going to turn that over to Rob Peets, our CFO. Rob?
Hey, Dave. Yeah. A couple of points, I guess, to address your two questions there. The first, you're absolutely right. The financing was very strong. We had a lot of good participation from both insiders as well as existing shareholders. As a result, we've got cash on hand to support our burn for at least the next two years and likely further as we reach cash flow profitability, as Kip mentioned earlier, in calendar 2026. We're in a very, very strong position there. Sorry, the second part of your question was?
I think he answered it by mentioning that you feel good about the burn position for the next couple of years until you reach cash flow positive. It sounds like that indicates no major financings in the future.
Oh, true. That was whether we were going to undertake any financings. Yeah. I mean, obviously, if a very opportunistic situation came along, we certainly would review it. No, we don't have anything planned at this time.
Understood. That's great color. I appreciate that. I hope you all have a great rest of your day. Thank you for taking the questions.
Thanks, Dave.
Thank you. Once again, should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of William Galbraith. Please go ahead.
Just a question about the announcement of collaboration with Puratos, which sounds very positive. Is there anything that you can elaborate on with respect to that collaboration in terms of the amount of time? Is Puratos Canada involved playing any role?
Thank you. We're certainly excited about our relationship with Puratos. They are a global leader in supplying the baking industry with cutting-edge, leading ingredients. We've worked with them for several months now, and we see opportunity both in cost and use benefit on their existing products as well as launching maybe some exciting more plant-based food-type products. It is global in nature. We are doing work with Puratos both in Europe and Canada, and we're really excited to move forward with them and help bring new solutions to the baking industry around the world.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, that is star and one to ask a question. There are no further questions over the phone. Mr. Lam, please proceed.
Hi. Thanks, Dina. We have a few questions over the webcast. First, this comes from a private investor. Is the Merit Functional Foods facility, which is currently in receivership, no longer an option for Burcon given the announcement with ProMan? I'll start with that first.
Thanks, Paul. Thanks for the question. The Merit facility is, to the best of our knowledge, still for sale. We still look at the overall Merit situation as an opportunity. We look at three potential ways the Merit situation could be resolved. First, we are still in contact with them, and maybe there's an opportunity for us to further grow in the future. Second, somebody else may buy the facility and choose to license technology from us to launch. We would love to work with somebody on that. Third, somebody could buy the facility, repurpose the facility for something else, give us the opportunity to go in and remove proprietary assets and leverage those to grow our business with ProMan. We are in contact, and we know at some point in time, this situation will resolve itself.
What was key for us is we were not in control of the timeline. We had to take control of our own destiny. Hence, the announcement today, our reach and market with ProMan. It was also true, though. We are in constant contact. As that Merit situation evolves or resolves itself, we see any of the potential landing points as being accretive to our overall financial plan.
Thank you. Follow up to that, and let me provide, if I may, provide a bit of context. I believe this is a previous announcement on Burcon and Merit and Nestlé's collaboration. This follow-up question comes from the same private investor. Is there still an ongoing relationship between Burcon and Nestlé?
I don't know. I don't have knowledge of what Bunge and/or Nestlé are doing in the marketplace today. We don't have to send a comment on that.
Okay. Following up, we have a question from Ralph Mazza. If tariffs are coming, how will this affect Burcon's supply chain?
Excuse me. Hi, Ralph. Thanks for the question. First, we can say that the facility is located in the United States. It's located in the state of Illinois. From a production and sales standpoint, since the primary customer base will be inside the United States, minimal impact there. Second, I can also share that from a raw material perspective, we have been working with raw material providers both in Canada and in the U.S., both to ensure we have redundancy for execution and also to be sure if there are any tariff-type issues that we have a supply chain that's robust enough to handle that situation. We do not see the tariff situation, however it evolves or unfolds, affecting our business today.
Thanks for the question, Ralph. Next question comes from Joe Sawyer, and I'm just going to summarize his question. His first question actually revolves around the situation where China was dumping a lot of low-cost pea protein into the country. How would this affect Burcon, and what are the risks going forward in terms of future cheap product coming into the country, if at all?
Sure. Let me speak to the China dumping piece, which was really around pea protein. That has been addressed with substantial duties applied to incoming Chinese products in North America. They're in the 300%-400% range. If you look at pea protein prices in the market today, they reflect that. That specific issue has been resolved, and we see excellent pricing opportunity in the marketplace specifically for pea protein. In a broader sense, our best defense against unforeseen market actions is the strength of our portfolio. One of the reasons it was critical for us to have a facility where we could market pea, canola, hemp, and sun is that, first of all, we're highly differentiated. We can ensure we control the production, deliver that to customers, but also because each of these have unique strengths.
They all have the opportunity to be highly profitable for us, and we will listen to the market to understand how do we evolve that mix moving forward. If there is a negative market influence on, let's say, pea protein or canola, then we will pivot and focus on hemp and sunflower. The China situation for North America resolved. Moving forward, the diversity of our portfolio is our best strength to unanticipated market situations.
Okay. The second question too from Joe Sawyer is this is around the capacity of the new facility. He's wanting to understand what is the output capacity of the new facility and its ability to expand production at scale to meet this high consumer demand that seems like we're getting a lot of demand from our customer funnel.
Thanks for that question. Let me start with why we picked this facility, right? We had choices. We were trying to determine what was the best fit for Burcon today. What was the best fit for our partner, ProMan, on the buying and capital insulation side? We got our best choice, our first choice. There are really a few reasons for that. One is it has an existing workforce. It has a plant manager. It is up, and it is running. We are not starting from ground zero. Second is it is the right scale from two points of view. First of all, for our target customer base, it is the right scale. We are relevant to our targeted customers, those entrepreneurs, those cutting-edge companies. We are very relevant to them.
We could get to a place where we have 20, 30, 40 customers, be relevant to them, and it fit very well within our own scale. Third, and maybe most importantly, this facility is of a size and a scale for Burcon and on our own, just in this facility, to be financially strong, to move to a place we are highly, highly profitable. Relative to the future, there is also opportunity here at this facility to expand capacity in a relatively capital-efficient manner. We have certainly expansion opportunities there once we fill up this facility on its own. It is the right place because right scale, right size, right place because it is up and running. There is an existing workforce there today. It is right because there are pretty capital-efficient capacity improvement opportunities in the future once we sell this facility out.
Okay. Thanks for that. Next question comes from Bob Hodgkinson. What is the revenue share between ProMan and Burcon, considering the expected operational cost versus the cap costs and improvements to be borne by ProMan?
Thanks, Bob. Let me go into a little bit about the relationship between Burcon and ProMan. The first key was finding a facility that could do all the things I just talked about and could be bought at the right price, right? Could be bought at the right price so that our partner could afford to purchase the facility and equip it, but then we could afford to lease it back from them, essentially, through a contract manufacturer relationship, in a manner that we could afford and would drive a return on investment for them. In essence, together, we bought the facility at the right price, which gives us flexibility for them to get a return on their investment through our lease payments, essentially, and then for us to drive a highly profitable business on our side.
Okay. There are more questions just came in, actually. I apologize for jumping back and forth here. This actually was a follow-up to the tariff question. This question comes from Paul Brunet. What about suppliers for each product? Is tariff a problem? Are future tariffs going to have an impact for Burcon?
We do not see it now. No. I cannot predict the future, what various governments will do. What I can say is that on the supply chain side, we have identified redundant raw material supply both in Canada and in the United States. I think we have done what we can to ensure that we will have a reliable supply that is of a quality and a cost that fits our financial model.
Okay. Next question comes from Chester Kmiec from Leede Financial. With respect to the Puratos, are they paying some of the cost in developing possible products? When might we see something further regarding Puratos?
It is an R&D project together, right? We are both putting in research and development assets to then create an opportunity for both companies, right? I think it is a cost share from that perspective. When we launch, right, we both share in the rewards. They get to launch a more innovative product to market, be that in Canada or Europe, and we get to supply a key enabling technological solution to the product they are launching. A lot of work to do there. I mean, we'll see how that work goes. We're highly excited about it, and hopefully in the near future, we'll be able to speak more to that.
Thank you. We have one more question. This comes from Randall Lewis. Any thoughts on moving back onto the Nasdaq in the near future?
Thank you, Randall. Certainly, that is something that it's discussed. It's out there, right? Now, I think where I would go back to is what is our 2025 focus? Our 2025 focus is execution. It is our partner completing the facility transaction. It is us installing our proprietary equipment and producing those first commercial products, moving to ongoing continuous production, and then moving to the space of ongoing production and ongoing recurring sales. I think we need to do those to establish our foundation, prove our ability to execute, and then maybe we earn the right to have that conversation in the future.
All right. Those are all great questions. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions. Some of the questions I did not read out is because it was already addressed already. Thank you to everybody. Ina, back to you.
Thank you. That ends our question and answer session. I will now hand the call back to Mr. Kip Underwood for any closing remarks.
Just a final thank you for your time today, your confidence in us, and maybe a parting thought that, again, it's a great time to be part of Burcon, and we thank you all for going on this journey with us. Have a great day, all. Cheers.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.