Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cannara Biotech's Fiscal Q4 and Fiscal Year 2025 financial results for the three and 12 months ended August 31, 2025. My name is Scott Carroll, and I will be your moderator today. As a reminder, this presentation is being recorded. Following the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please submit your questions to investors@cannara.ca or in the chat option in your conference browser. Before we begin, please refer to slide two and three of our earnings presentation. All information presented today is subject to our general disclaimers on financial measures and forward-looking statements, which are available to be read in detail at sedarplus.ca. I will now turn the call over to Zohar Krivorot, Founder and CEO of Cannara.
Thanks, Scott, and thank you, everyone, for joining. When I started Cannara, the mission was simple: do things the right way, no shortcuts, no compromises. That's been our foundation from day one. There is no guidebook for building a cannabis company, but there is one for building a strong, profitable business, and we've stuck to it. Run efficiently, deliver quality, listen to customers, build real advantages that grow stronger over time. Cannara wasn't built from an office; it was built on the facility floor. I've always been hands-on, working with the team, improving our processes, and pushing our quality higher every year. One of our biggest strengths is the custom platform we've built to run this business. My IT background helped us create our own software to manage cultivation, packaging, and quality. And now we're taking it even further with AI.
The industry has been anything but stable: fast growth, corrections, new competitors. Through all of that, Cannara has stayed disciplined, resilient, and profitable. Thank you for your ongoing support. I'll now hand it over to Nick Sosiak to walk through our Q4. Thank you.
Thank you, Zohar. My name is Nicholas Sosiak, Cannara's Chief Financial Officer. I've been with the company since 2019 and have had the chance to grow with it, working closely with our teams across cultivation, processing, finance, sales, marketing, and product development. It's been a chance to help shape both the numbers and the products behind them, and I'm looking forward to walking you through our fiscal 2025 performance. Fiscal 2025 was a pivotal year for Cannara. We set the new financial record in almost every single quarter as we continued to prove the strength, scalability, and most importantly, profitability of our best-in-class operating platform. We completed our fiscal 2025 expansion strategy, increasing our annual cultivation capacity by nearly 18%, while also unlocking a significant yield gain as a result of our cultivation research and development, which contributed an additional 25% capacity improvement across an already above-average operation.
As a result of these two expansion efforts, our capacity versus fiscal 2024 has nearly increased 50%, reaching our fiscal 2026 expansion target a full year ahead of schedule. This has allowed us to begin our next phase of expansion to support additional processing capabilities at our Valleyfield facility. We also closed out the year with strong double-digit year-over-year improvement in market share nationwide, a result of our leading quality-disruptive price strategy and newly expanded capacity. Fiscal 2025 was the strongest year in Cannara's history. I'm proud to say that. We set new records across every major financial metric as we scaled into our added capacity and continued to capture unmet demand for our products. We reached all-time high in revenues, gross profit, operating income, Adjusted EBITDA, net income, operating cash flow, and free cash flow.
For the full year, we generated just under 149 million in gross revenue, or CAD 107 million in net revenue, up 31% year-over-year after paying CAD 42 million of excise tax. It's a clear reminder of why federal tax reform would be welcomed, with excise tax representing over 30% of our cannabis revenues. But with no meaningful reform on the horizon, our ability to remain profitable in this environment puts us in a very strong and unique position: one of sustainability, cash flow leadership, and real leverage. We delivered CAD 44.5 million in gross profit before fair value adjustments, a 41% margin up from 34% last year. We generated CAD 28 million in Adjusted EBITDA, a 26% margin versus 18% last year. Net income reached CAD 13 million, compared to CAD 6.5 million, a 105% increase.
Operating cash flow came in at 20 million versus almost 11 million last year, and free cash flow was nearly 14 million, compared to 3.2 million, a 225% improvement. All of this comes down to scale. As we grow into our facilities, we unlock significant operating leverage, expanding revenue, margin, and cash flow without needing to proportionally increase our operating costs. During the fourth quarter, we achieved record revenue of 28.3 million, up 3.5% quarter-over-quarter and nearly 21% year-over-year. Growth was driven by deeper penetration in our existing markets, new product launches under our leading brands, and expanded distribution into new stores. Importantly, we still capture less than 3% of the available retail doors outside of Quebec, leaving meaningful room for further expansion. We generated CAD 11.8 million in gross profit before fair value adjustments, 2% lower than Q3, but over 68% year-over-year. The small sequential dip is strictly product mix.
The year-over-year strength reflects what's really driving our performance: scaling production, greater efficiency through automation, new rooms coming online at Valleyfield, and improved yields across our platform. Gross margin before fair value adjustments was 42%, slightly below 44% in our Q3, but well above the 30% we delivered in last year's Q4. Once again, we exceeded our internal 40% target. While margins move quarter to quarter, the trend is firmly upward. With additional capacity and better yields across full year of operation, we expect annual margins to continue to rise into fiscal 2026. We maintained strong cost control. Operating expenses were 6.9 million, representing 24% of our revenue, an CAD 800,000 increase quarter-over-quarter, primarily from additional salary expenses and added sales and marketing investment. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 7.5 million, down 1% from Q3, but more than up 101% from prior year.
This represents a 26% Adjusted EBITDA margin, a decline of 150 basis points sequentially, and an improvement of over 1,000 basis points from the 16% margin last year. Net income for the quarter was 3.3 million, or CAD 0.003 per diluted share, a slight decline from Q3 due to an additional operating and tax expense. Operating cash flow was CAD 2.8 million, compared to CAD 13.9 million in Q3 and CAD 3.2 million in the same period of last year. The large operating cash flow in Q3 was due to the timing of cash investments made into inventory and an early payment of excise tax in Q2 of this year, which resulted in a negative operating cash flow in Q2. Free cash flow was CAD 1.4 million, compared to CAD 11.7 million in Q3 for the same reason, and CAD 2.7 million last year.
We invested CAD 1.5 million in CapEx during Q4, bringing full-year CapEx to CAD 6.4 million of invested capital, largely to bring Rooms 11 and 12 online at Valleyfield. This added 50,000 sq ft to our canopy, bringing our total active growth to 300,000 sq ft, or 50,000 kilograms per year, exactly 50% of our full potential target. This quarter also marks our 18th consecutive quarter of positive Adjusted EBITDA and our sixth straight quarter of positive net income. We continue to have one of the strongest financial track records in Canadian cannabis: net income positive annually since 2021, operating cash flow positive since 2022, and free cash flow positive since 2023. At year-end, we recorded 91.4 million shares versus 90 million shares in the prior year.
After issuing 3.7 million basic shares over the last three years, subsequent to year-end, a major shareholder converted CAD 6.2 million of its convertible debt and interest into 3.5 million basic shares at the initial exercise price of CAD 1.80, a premium of CAD 0.11 compared to our average closing price in the last 30 days. This marked the final conversion of our major convertible debenture, the Olymbec, issued in August of 2021, and demonstrates a vote of confidence by one of our largest shareholders. Cannara has over 50% insider ownership between our CEO and a member of our board of directors, which means Cannara is led by operators with skin in the game, fully invested in building long-term value alongside our shareholders. Our top 10 shareholders own over 70% of our float, so we maintain a very close, friendly, communicative shareholder relationship.
As of November 19, our 30-day average estimated market cap was CAD 160 million, with an average closing price of CAD 1.69, representing a 156% year-to-date increase in our stock price. Moving on to our balance sheet, our quarter-end, we held CAD 14.4 million in cash, flat versus Q3, and we held a working capital position of CAD 48 million. We maintained CAD 82 million in current assets against CAD 34.2 million in current liabilities for a 2.4 current asset ratio. Additionally, as a result of our consistent financial success, we now, for the first time in the company's history, recorded positive retained earnings for the company. This means we've covered all our losses since the inception of this company, a rarity in Canadian cannabis and a reflection of our continued scaling profitability. During the quarter, we executed on three actions to strengthen our balance sheet even more.
As mentioned first, we converted CAD 6.2 million of convertible debt into equity at CAD 1.80 per share. Second, we closed the sale of an unutilized building and its associated land for CAD 5.5 million in proceeds, which we applied towards reducing the principal balance of our existing term loan. And finally, we completed an amendment to our existing credit agreement with BMO, a leading Canadian bank, upsizing our CapEx facility by an additional CAD 10 million to fund the initial phase of our post-processing expansion at our Valleyfield facility. Cannara continues to maintain one of the cleanest balance sheets in Canadian cannabis, with ample cash flows to fund our expansion strategy and to service our debt position and have no significant near-term maturities until December of 2027. Our market share continues to grow faster than our peers. That's only possible because of our low-cost structure and the efficiencies we unlock as we scale.
We grew our estimated retail market share across all provincial markets with a 31% share growth nationally, supported by a 53% share growth in our home province of Quebec, a 32% share in Alberta, the nation's second-largest cannabis market, and a 44% share growth in British Columbia, the nation's third-largest cannabis market. We hold second market position in Quebec. As of October 2025, only two months after our quarter-end, we reached a 13.5% market share, up from 12.7% in fiscal of Q4 of 2025 and 8.3% in fiscal Q4 of 2024. Our strong performance in our home province is extremely relevant and often overlooked by cannabis investors. Given Quebec's regulations do not permit sales and marketing spend, our success is a strong indicator of our ability to capture market share to product value at scalable cost. Diving into our product portfolio, we continue to report market leadership across multiple categories.
First, we are extremely proud to report that our success in Quebec has propelled the Nugz G Sherb Infused Pre-Roll to be Canada's number one selling infused pre-roll, majority fueled by Quebec's market share, where infused pre-rolls command 70% of Quebec's infused pre-roll category. Our Tribal brand maintains number one nationwide share of the mass premium 3.5-gram flower market, growing share by 10% over the last 12 months to now over 19% share of the category, up from 17% share where we were in fiscal of Q1. We continue to maintain our number one position in premium vape category. This leadership is an important metric as it represents our ability to win, even when positioned as the highest price option in the category.
Supported this has been our existing 510 cartridge product line, in addition to our recently launched Tribal All-In-One , which commands over 20% of the premium live disposable vape sales in Canada. This leadership in the premium vape category is also a strong potential indicator of future performance once our home province of Quebec launches the vape category this week. Cannara has been approved for five of the total five SKUs for the province's initial vape category launch, and we view this as a significant opportunity to expand our leadership within our own home province through our leading house of brands that consumers already know and love. Finally, we remain number one in market share across Canada for our hash rosin and our CBD flower. We continue to stand out against our peer groups.
In August of Q4, we achieved our highest ever estimated monthly national retail sales figure of CAD 20.8 million. This means Cannara is delivering more than five times the national industry growth, with a 41% year-over-year gain in retail sales. Subsequent to quarter-end in October of this year, we have broken this record again, achieving a monthly estimated national retail sale of CAD 21.3 million. Our leading brand portfolio and the consistent success of our product launches showcases our ability to continue expanding our capacity and, in turn, our revenues and market share. And this comes as the Canadian market continues to mature and other operators lack the ability to expand within their own footprint. Our market share continues to grow, and we still do not see a clear demand ceiling.
At the same time, the unbranded wholesale market is strengthening, international demand is building, and there are several product categories and formats we do not yet offer. Taken together, these factors support our view that there is a significant runway to keep expanding capacity. As our recently operationalized rooms and increased yields have completely fulfilled our current post-processing capacity, we will now begin the approximately CAD 10 million build-out of our new processing facility at Valleyfield. We're starting to break ground on this project and expect it to be completed by the end of fiscal 2026. In addition, we will be investing in finalizing three additional grow zones so that we may be ready to activate them going into fiscal 2027.
This additional post-processing capacity will allow Cannara to operationalize the remaining 12 rooms at Valleyfield, which will begin turning online in fiscal 2027, and we will continue through fiscal 2030, increasing our total cultivation capacity by 50% to 100,000 kilograms per year. I remind our investors that the remaining rooms are already fully built out within the Valleyfield facility and only require minor CapEx such as HVAC, lighting, and tables. Each room will cost about $1 million to bring online and can generate over $11 million in revenue in the same year. This expansion is, in our view, one of the most significant ROI opportunities of any Canadian cannabis company and is our primary objective through the immediate future. Fiscal 2025 was another record-breaking year for Cannara and another proof point for our operating and investment thesis, delivering strong year-over-year growth across almost every metric, even with constrained capacity.
Cannara continues to win in Canada by choice. Most competitors cannot operate profitably here, losing market share, struggling to build brands, and failing to run an efficient operation. And as international markets mature, we expect the same pressures to emerge abroad, leaving bulk-focused, unbranded Canadian exporters with little long-term advantage against rising domestic competition. Cannara's success comes from the ground up. Our highly disciplined, deeply focused operation team is paired with best-in-class commercial execution and a truly premium product portfolio. Everything we build is designed for long-term, not short-term survival. And we are not just another cannabis company. We are a CPG business engineered for sustainable, profitable growth. Looking ahead, this week's launch of the vape category in Quebec is another chance to differentiate and reinforce our leadership.
We are also preparing to execute our fiscal 2026 post-processing expansion, which will unlock the remaining 50% of our facility and position Cannara for its next phase of growth. Thank you for joining us today. Zohar and I, thank you for your interest in our story, and we would be happy to open the floor to take your questions.
We will now begin the Q&A in person of our webcast. We've received a number of questions sent directly by email, and you may also ask questions today via the Q&A feature on this platform. Direct chat to myself, or we welcome live questions by raising your hand via the reactions option, and I will unmute your line. Should any of your questions not be addressed, we will follow up accordingly via email. Let's start with the first submitted question.
What is the company's current outlook on margin trend, and specifically, how much runway remains for gross margin growth going forward, especially as new rooms are brought online?
Yeah, absolutely. So this quarter, as you saw from our financial results, we are at 41%-42%, a little bit down from Q3, but well within our target of above 40%. As we scale, of course, we're going to have margin efficiencies. One through our pheno hunt program, as we increase more yield and we find winners in our pheno hunt program that produce more yield, our cost of goods sold reduces, and therefore we have a better margin. As well as we scale and open up more rooms, we're definitely going to see that improved margin.
And as well, there will be some margin improvements by our post-processing facility that we're building at Valleyfield, because now we're moving most of the post-harvest process from Farnham to Valleyfield. So transportation, employee synergies, facility synergies, we'll definitely see margin improvements because of that. So our goal, again, is being over 40%, but as we develop, we could see that 45% to even 50%. We're going to also have to juggle the other side of the equation, which is sales and marketing, product mix, pricing, so that we have a perfect mix and we attain our gross margin targets.
Great, thank you. The next question that was received is, you activated two additional grow rooms recently. Have you already harvested from these rooms? If not, could you describe the timeline between activation and harvest and when you expect to harvest?
We harvested already from those rooms.
So the two grow zones that we activated was a few months ago, and we already, I think one of them is harvested, the other one is late stage, so probably in about a week or so. But yeah, all 12 zones are active. The greenhouse is separated in 12 rooms on one side and 12 rooms on the other side. We call it the East Wing and the West Wing. So the entire West Wing is up and running and active, doing about five harvests a year per room.
Great, thank you, Zohar. Next question was received by the chat function. So it's as follows. I know it hasn't been a focus, but international markets seem to care more about quality growing standards than they once did. What does that mean for cultivation practices in Canada, and does it make the opportunity more attractive for Cannara?
I think quality in general is a driving force for any cannabis producer. Quality, consistency, and price, so just because it's international or domestic, when we pheno hunt, what Nick does is Pheno Hunting, and when the team chooses a pheno, then I take over in the garden and make sure that it behaves good in our environment, in our growing facility, but yeah, we focus a lot on quality. The consistency, it's a combination of quality and consistency because it's one thing about growing something nice during a pheno hunt, but then it needs to be consistent from batch to batch, so yeah, I think Europe is realizing that quality is just as important as price, and then we do that all day long, quality, consistency, and price because of our size.
For us, we'd still focus, even though that's the equation and it's aligning more towards our vision of quality first, we're still focused on Canada. We'll definitely look at international markets to put our foothold in and see the opportunities. But the main business and the main focus for the next three to four years is Canada.
Great, thank you, Nick and Zohar. Next question is as follows. What do you believe the market is undervaluing or not fully recognizing in Cannara's current roughly CAD 160 million valuation?
I mean, it's an interesting question. Retail investors have their own reasons to invest or not to invest. Our job is to really build the best cannabis company in Canada, as we've been doing for the last few years now, and keeping it efficient, keeping it lean, making sure that we squeeze every gram of every plant we can.
I think at the end of the day, that's what's going to make us a profitable and sustainable company. I think as far as the market goes, it's just a matter of time before they realize who the real players are.
Yeah, I would add it's I think our facility is underappreciated. The facility that we acquired in 2021, the Valleyfield facility, it's 1 million sq ft purpose-built, best-in-class cannabis facility pretty much worldwide. At this point, we had enough consultants and individuals coming to our facility to confidently say that. So we're very, very happy with the Valleyfield facility. We're only 50% activated. There's still another 50% left to go. And all that synergies and all that cost efficiencies is happening under one roof. There's not many players that can have that much scalability all under one roof with quality grow, right?
The open greenhouse of a million sq ft, and you continue in trying to open more rooms, you'll never achieve that quality point that we're looking for. So having all that under one roof, individual compartmentalized facilities, state-of-the-art. I remind you again, there's over CAD 250 million that was spent into this facility, plus the money that we've spent. We bought it for CAD 27 million. So on our balance sheet, it's valued at CAD 27 million. That was back in 2022. We all know the cost of construction and what's happened these days. So I think
To replicate this facility today will be upwards in over CAD 350 million. I mean, just the land alone, the power infrastructure, the quality of the build, this was purpose-built. It wasn't just a tomato greenhouse that was converted to cannabis. So yeah, I think that alone is worth more than our market cap today.
So yeah.
Great, thank you both. This next question was received by the Q&A function. It's as follows. Curious what your strategy is to expand in Ontario. LPs paying for shelf space is rampant in the province, and I suspect you've been reluctant to pay these fees. Could owning a piece of a retail chain be a part of the solution?
Maybe. For us, what's important is in order for us to open more rooms, sales need to be there, right? So we're 12 rooms now, and I'm only going to open more rooms as we increase sales. Becoming a part of a retail chain could be an option. Organically growth is also what we've been doing now. But yeah, we are looking. We are open. I think the retail space is still trying to figure out what's the real business case. A lot of them are not profitable.
A lot of them are losing money. A lot of them have no choice but to charge producers to be in business. So we're very cautious. We don't want to just throw money out for no reason. But we're comfortable that with Quebec and organic growth in the rest of Canada, we can achieve fully open within the next 24-36 months. And when I say fully open, I mean all 24 rooms up and running.
Great, thank you, Zohar. There's a few questions related to the Quebec vape launch. I'll try to summarize two into one as follows. What is the investment made to address the vape Quebec launch and in regards to capacity to produce vapes? And what is your objective in the matter of market share in Quebec?
Then I guess maybe the last part of that would be how long do you think you'll need to have a sense of the market's reaction towards the Quebec Vape launch?
I mean, we didn't really do that much investment. We were already in the vape business in the rest of Canada in the live resin and the cured resin. So we just actually, well, the only thing we did, we did a weekend shift just to increase capacity. Our fresh frozen business has been a thriving business. We got it down to science. So we didn't really feel any requirements to add more capacity for now. It's just we open a weekend shift and we utilize the same equipment that we have in place. As far as the forecast, where this business is going to go, we hope it's going to do good.
I think vape is doing really good in the rest of Canada. I think Quebec has a good chance to get there as well, but we'll see. It's launching this Wednesday. We're excited. We got five out of the 25 SKUs, so we're excited for sure.
I mean, to give you a range, we're 13% market share overall. So I mean, I think that would be the minimum given that that's a key vapes are a key product for us and then we could look to our infused pre-roll category where we're 70% of the market share because of three to four SKUs that are overperforming and taking 70% of the share. So anywhere between 10%-70%. I think the last part of the question was how long will we know? I mean, it's launching on Wednesday.
We'll have to at least give it a month to see customer trials and customers going through the product. And then I think after the first three months, sales will settle and customers will choose their products. And one thing about Quebec is Quebec customers are loyal. They like the products that they consume, and they like to go back to the store and consume the same product over and over again. Of course, like any other cannabis consumer, they like to change, but they're more often sticking with the same product. So within the first three months, we'll know how successful our vape launch is.
Great. Thank you both. Next question received via the webinar chat is as follows. Could you explain the change in value of inventory and how it impacts earnings?
Yeah. So from an accounting concept, there's a concept called fair value of our inventory and our biological assets that we must apply in cannabis accounting. So what it is is as the crop is growing up to the point of harvest, that's a biological asset. The plant is alive. So we have to capture what we believe and build a lot of assumptions of what we believe the value of a plant is based on the sale price, what the final product will be, how much yield it will be, and the time it takes to grow the plant. So we have to accrue and fair value that plant all the way up to harvest. That goes into biological assets. When you look at biological assets, you have cost component, which is the hard cost that we put into, and then a huge chunk, which is fair value.
We break that down into the note. Then the same thing with the inventory. There's a cost component, and then there's a fair value component. If you back out the fair value component, and it's one of our metrics how we evaluate our inventory balance, is we look at our cost of goods sold before fair value, which is about 16 million. We look at our cost of inventory on the balance sheet without the fair value to compare apples with apples. We're about 16 million cost and about $32 million of cost of inventory. We sell about our inventory within a six-month period, which is exactly our target of growing cannabis. We have a target of selling the product within six months. We're exactly on track with that. Going back to the fair value, same thing with inventory.
As soon as we harvest the plant, we got to figure out what the product is going to be and the value of the end sale price to the end consumer, and then we bring that back into a fair value of our accounting, so a lot of accounting gains and losses. I know it's hard for a non-accountant to understand the concept, but essentially, it just brings in revenue, a non-cash revenue ahead of time, so you kind of know where the company's going. If their fair value's increasing and they're getting more gains, that means there's future gains coming in the future quarters because we're bringing revenue ahead of time. For those that don't want to deal with it, it's very easy. You can just ignore the whole change in fair value lines and look at our income and profit and EBITDA without those changes.
Great. Thank you, Nick. Next question received via Q&A is as follows. Zohar alluded to AI in his opening remarks. Can you expand on your vision with AI and which opportunities it can unlock for Cannara?
I think AI is something that a lot of companies are going to look at, at least. In agriculture, we look at it as potentially facilitating a lot of our progress. So example, if we have certain genetics that yield, then how can we take this data? How can we take the room data, our building management data, all the climate control data, everything, and then sort of put it in one big AI layer and then start querying it and identifying ways to improve yield, being more efficient in the garden? And what I meant by AI, I really meant AI in the garden, not in other aspects of the business.
It's really in the garden. It's how can we get the most from our crop and be more efficient and see if AI can help us achieve that? And we hired a small team to start building the AI stack. We looked at specific open-source models that are already out there. And we're going to try to build a model that really caters to the agriculture. So it's not like your ChatGPT that can do everything. It's really model-specific for agriculture, and in our case, growing cannabis. So we hope that in the next six to 12 months, this could be the core of our growing platform. Right now, our growing platform uses a lot of static algorithms that we've put in, and we learned from each and every harvest.
But we're hoping to fine-tune this model where it can make its own decision and perhaps give us the input that we need to grow more efficient and more consistent from batch to batch, given the size of our platform, the size of our facility. It's a large facility. So the more help we have, the better it is. So that's what we're doing with AI right now.
Thank you, Zohar. The next question received via Q&A is as follows. When it comes to developing sales in the rest of Canada, what is the general feedback from your field salespeople added during the last 12 months?
Yep. I mean, the feedback is positive, right? We're only in 3%. If you take off all our SKUs that's available and in all of the stores over the total number of SKUs and stores available in Canada, we're only 3% points of distribution.
We've grown to this point where we are today. Let's say, call it just until last year with two salespeople across Canada. We really grew word of mouth. Just starting last year, we started investing in our sales and marketing team and grew that team. We have one individual in BC. We have two individuals in Alberta, and we have, I believe, three to four individuals in Ontario. We're still an extremely lean team for the size that we are, but we're growing. The key with our salespeople is building that relationship with the budtender. The budtender is super, super important for us because in the cannabis purchase cycle, most of the clients, when they go into a store, they're asking for the recommendation of the budtender just because of the overwhelming products that are available when you walk into a store.
Targeting that budtender and making sure they're well taken care of, they understand our product, they like our product, they see the quality. And that's super important for us. And that translates to our people that we hire on the ground, right? They have to love our product. They have to walk the same walk as we do. So they have to truly be passionate about our product, sell the product to the budtenders who are also naturally passionate because of the quality and the branding. And then that just keeps on, the cycle keeps on building. So to answer that question, our reps are saying that Cannara continues to excel on the ground, Tribal, Nugz, Orchid. We have great brands. These brands we created in 2019. One of the few cannabis companies to grow three brands, and Orchid represents 2-3% of our revenue.
So, really two brands. To grow it from in 2019 to 2026, we are today to over CAD 140 million of gross revenue generated from those brands. And we still don't see any room for the ceiling for those brands. So we're going to continue doing that. We're going to continue focus on our brands. Our employees love our brands. They love our products. They pour their passion and love into our products. And that's what we send out to the market.
Great. Thank you, Nick. Next question submitted by email is as follows. Any color that you can add on how the company plans to deploy excess cash generated from operations?
Yeah. Firstly, most importantly is investing in our CapEx. We have a CAD 10 million processing building that we took out a term loan where we have a CapEx line that we'll initially draw on to fund it.
But yeah, it's to generate operating cash flow to fund our CapEx for that project as well as the next three to four years opening the next 12 rooms. Then second would be paying off debt. We've just recently converted a high-interest debt into shares at CAD 1.80 from one of our largest shareholders. We were trading at CAD 1.69 or something like that. So it shows good confidence, strong confidence in our business by that investor. And so, right now, we only have debt with BMO sub 5.5% interest. So we're really good interest rates. So we'll see the opportunities, but we're going to need to build a cash reserve as well. As someone suggested, there's M&A opportunities. There's strategies that we'll have to implement. We're going to look for the right one.
We're going to assess the right one and make sure that we have a cash reserve to deploy for those moments in time. So building cash reserve, investing in CapEx, paying off debt. And then if all that happens, it's share buybacks and dividends eventually.
Great. Thank you very much. Next question that I received via Q&A is as follows. Outside of cost of goods sold and scale, what would you consider the biggest sustainable differentiator for Cannara? Outside of cost of goods sold, it's the people.
Yeah. I mean, the facility, as I mentioned, but that was another question, so I won't take that question. It's the people. At Cannara, you have one of the most hands-on executive management teams in Canadian cannabis. Zohar, IT background, started in 2019, started the company in 2018.
I remember when the first operation cultivation at Farnham. He was in the garden that day in 2019 and today still in the garden from Saturday to Saturday. I've been in the garden since then. That's why you guys don't see him, right? He's been in the garden. I had to pull him out of the garden to answer these questions, but we are hands-on, so you have Zohar in the garden, myself, CFO, finance, accounting, all that fun stuff, but I'm very passionate about the product. I created all the products. These are my brands, so I put a lot of love and passion into that, and I cost it out at the same time. So at the end of the day, I know where we are going in the future, so I'm able to guide the ship.
Then we have, what, over 550 employees at the facility that we've hired. I've hired every single individual. Zohar knows every single individual there by name.
Not by name.
Not by name. Okay. But we are there, and you can ask any employees. They see us there. They can ask questions to us, so we're able to problem-solve on the fly. So very, very hands-on management team and a group of employees that are dedicated to the plant, dedicated to Cannara, put all the love that they have into the products. I think that's why our ticker LOVE. I said it many times because we love cannabis. We love our business. We love the company. We love our people. We see us thriving in the future.
Great. Thank you both. Next question received via Q&A is, what are the key milestones investors should look for over the next year?
Key milestones, so continued execution, quarter-over-quarter execution. We're not stopping. We're just, like I say many times, every quarter is a rearview mirror. We're driving on the highway. We're driving up. We got a plan. We're opening rooms. We're investing in sales and marketing, and we're just driving, and some quarters, depending on launches with product innovation, because if we can create 100 products and get them to the market, it would be over. But we have to wait in time. We have to sell our product to the government. They have to accept it. There's a three-month gap window before you go into the product. So we're not going to rush it. We're not going to rush it for quality.
If one quarter we stay stagnant or go up a little bit or down a little bit, that's fine, right? The goal here is to continue growing up over on an annual period, but you're going to see the continuation. You're going to be able to print that out quarter for quarter and see where we're going to be at the end of the year for every year. So there's not going to be any we don't forecast any crazy spikes up or crazy spikes down, just a constant continued growth for us. So yeah, I think that's really important for Cannara to stay course, not rush it, continue innovation, continue product development. Pheno Hunting is super important and takes time. We create all these genetics ourselves, right?
This is IP that we're building within the organization that no one has access to, that we've invested years and years and millions and millions of dollars Pheno Hunting to get these genetics that are exclusive to us. And we continue to do that. So we need that time to build out that portfolio and just continue growing the company.
Great. Thank you, Nick. Next question received via email was as follows. Would management consider acquiring distressed assets given current industry consolidation?
I mean, every second week, I get something on my table. Would you buy me or bail me out, or would you consider buying this? There's a lot of toxic assets out there. We're not really looking for any right now. We still have 12 rooms to open, so we have rooms to grow.
So I think the answer to that question is, unless it's a really, really, really attractive deal where we can get back our money really quick and it makes sense, then the answer is yes. But everything I've seen in the last year that came across my table didn't really excite me.
Great. Thank you, Zohar. Next question received by email is as follows. What is a management strategy regarding future capital raises, and how will the company approach this without causing significant dilution for current shareholders?
We have no really any plans for more capital to raise unless it's to if the right opportunity or acquisition that we want to do and we don't want to use our cash, we may want to go out and raise. But besides that, we don't have any plans.
Yeah. So it's really organically. We don't have plans right now at this time to raise more capital. It's going to be organically financed through our operational cash flows, like I've said before. And you could see in our financial statements how much we're generating in 2025, CAD 20 million. And the CapEx is not significant for the size that we're building, right? The CAD 10 million of the processing building is already funded by BMO. And then there's a million dollars per room for the next 12 rooms to turn on, right?
So it's actually nine rooms because three are already accounted for.
In the 10 million. Yeah. So if it wasn't clear, a part of the processing building, the CAD 10 million spend, we're also turning on, activating three rooms. So going into 2027, we can just turn on the room right away.
So that is actually going to is already spent in the CAD 10 million. So we only have nine rooms, CAD 9 million. And also, we just recently bought chillers for a significant discount, which is a big chunk of that CAD 9 million CapEx. So we're actually going to bring that down, but that's for a later point in time. And yeah, so it's really operational.
If the right deal comes through for us to acquire somebody, then instead of using cash, we'll probably go out and we'll make sure it's ac cretive forever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great. Thank you both. Next question related that was received by email is as follows. What is the expected payback period for the 2026 processing center expansion?
I mean, the processing expansion, technically, we needed to turn on the next 12 rooms, right?
So if you want to look at a payback period, it's when that first, the 13th room is going to start generating revenue. So that's in year 2027. And like I said, each room generates CAD 10-11 million a year at 40% gross margin. You could see the profit that we can bring. And we're turning on three rooms going to 2027. So payback period for that investment is 2027.
Great. Thank you. Next question received via Q&A is as follows. What are your views on the edible segment? Any path to growth for Cannara to grow its product portfolio into?
So edibles, unfortunately, it's a 10 milligram, the 10 milligram limit, which is out in the legacy market and the current black market that still exists. Edibles that are being sold are well above the 10 milligram mark.
Health Canada tried to address that issue by having multiple 10-milligram packs within a bigger pack. But then it's just packaging and additional costs that doesn't make it. It doesn't compete against the legacy and black market. So for us, it's about setting foundation. We are doing research and development. Eventually, probably going to bring in an in-house kitchen as we build out here. It's not a priority, but it's something on our to-do list to do. And when we get there and the regulation still hasn't changed, we'll launch a couple of SKUs in the 10 milligrams. We have a roadmap that's out there with a partner that we're currently working with. And then when the rules change, that will definitely be an opportunity that Cannara will play into.
Great. Thank you, Nick. Next question received by webinar chat is as follows. Has your aversion to international strategy changed at all? Is that now a potential opportunity that you are exploring?
It hasn't really changed. We were approached by a few brokers that currently do business in Germany. They've entertained the idea of maybe bringing some of our brands to Germany. So far, until I don't get a real PO with some real numbers and it has to make sense per gram, the answer is no. We haven't really looked ourselves in trying to get our foot into international markets. We still think Canada still has a lot, a lot of potential. And it's been kind of our focus, really, is build your brands here, and then if the time is right and it still makes sense, then expand international. But right now, but things could change.
I mean, like I said, we were approached by a few large brokers out of Germany, and I told them, "Bring me an offer. I cannot refuse." So we'll see what happens.
Yeah. The goal with that is just to get our feet wet, just understand the direction. We're not going to build, we're not going to invest capital into expanding Germany or anything like that. We're not going to. It's going to be a minor percentage of our revenues for the next four years. This is just to see what else is there as we complete our project over the next three, four years. We want to be ready for year five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, right, and beyond. So we're going to start over the next four years.
You will see some of Cannara branching off into different projects and different strategies as we start, as we keep our core business and develop our core business. We will evaluate what direction we need to build for the next five to 10 years.
But it needs to be - it needs to make financial sense. We're not just going to get it out the door for cost. It needs to make financial sense.
Great. Thank you both. Next question was received by email. What general feedback are you receiving from retail boards, retailers, and customers alike?
I think it comes down to the same question our people are seeing on the floor, right, which is Cannara is a great supplier. We're 100% our scorecard for SQDC, and most of the boards are at this point 100%, right? And that's what's important for a government entity.
If you're a government and you are buying cannabis, right, you don't want to buy cannabis from 20, 30, 50, 100 LPs that, yeah, you issue a PO and they can't meet the PO. You have a product launch and you don't get the product launch. All those factors are extremely, extremely important for the government, and that's our focus. That's why we don't want to branch international, because as soon as you branch international and you focus on another client and you take away from the government client, that's where you can lose, right? Our goal is to cater to the government client. The government sees that. We're 100% scorecard across the board. Whenever we send out innovation, we get accepted the product calls. Then we have SKUs that stand the test of time, right? Like Cuban Linx, Gelato Mint.
SKUs have been there for three, four years and are still selling, which is not normal in their product portfolio, right? So they see that trend. They're able to invest in new products with us. We get them out to the market. That satisfies the government, and then at the retail level, the budtender, the retailer likes our product too because it's well-priced, good quality, good value proposition, and then the customer also likes the product because they're also in the value proposition equation, and that's all flowing through, and we're just getting better and better and better. You can imagine that five years ago, we're not the same organization. We're not the same experience level. Our learning curve. We're at the top right now, and there's still a lot more to learn.
But we're in a much better position where we are today than where we were five years ago, without a doubt. So if we were to be able to expand to where we are today in five years against all odds, against what we've been facing, against heavy competition, what's going to stop us the next five years from execution, right? And that's what keeps us going every morning is that it's like, "This is tangible. It's real. And we're going to do it."
Great. Thank you, Nick. Next question was received by email. Given the importance of genetics in Cannara strategy, how is the company managing its product pipeline, particularly concerning vintage genetics?
So the pheno hunt program, it's every year. To every quarter, we're putting 250, 300 genetics under the gauntlet and hoping to get one, two genetics out of that. So we're investing that.
And we are being extremely hard. Before, we were not as hard as we were, and it's getting harder and harder and harder. The checklist is becoming longer and longer and longer. We're making sure that when we choose a genetic, it wins, right? That was the Bubble Up. That was the Neon Sunshine. The Cuban Linx, Gelato Mint, and everything in between was a bit of a, we got lucky, let's say, and we learned and we hit it. But everything now, there's a reason, right? There's an understanding. There's a checklist. So we're making sure that every genetic innovation, we start with the innovation. We start with the genetic. Once we find those genetics, then it comes out into many, many different products: joints, infused joints, live resin carts, live resin all-in-ones, flower, bigger packs, all a bunch of product innovation from one genetic.
If you get that genetic right, the innovation cycle on your product development across Tribal, Orchid, and Nugz happens automatically. And then we have another division, which is also looking for opportunities that might not be genetic-specific, like infused pre-rolls or vapes or some trend in the market that we're seeing. And then we bring it into our product portfolio. Vintage genetics, it's like we do so much work in terms of understanding the genetic. It really just becomes the test of time, right? We launch the genetic, we create the portfolio, and we have enough reason for it to survive and do as well into the market as long as possible. And then over time, there might be another genetic that we bring into the market or another one that just eventually reduces the sales to a point where it just doesn't make sense to commercialize it anymore.
And that's when we pull the plug on it, and then we continue the innovation cycle.
Thank you, Nick. We're coming close to time, so I'll open the floor for closing remarks.
You want to do a closing remark, Zohar?
Yeah. So I mean, pretty much what we—all our answers that we gave so far, you can make up a closing remark with that. We're staying focused. We're spending a lot of money and time fine-tuning the garden and making sure that it's running as efficient as we can, as lean as we can. We have some pretty nice assets: our Valleyfield facility, our Farnham facility, which is our post-harvest facility. Great people. It's a team play. And yeah, I think if anybody is an investor who's really comparing us to other cannabis companies, they can probably appreciate what we did, and the numbers reflect that. Yep.
The only thing I'll add is if you are an investor or are invested to look to be an investor, the proof is in the pudding. Our facility, we're happy to show. We have an open-door policy. We're excited to have people at the facility to see the size and the scale and the quality of operations that we have at Farnham and Valleyfield. So if you're an investor or thinking about being an investor, please reach out to me by email, and we'll coordinate a tour. And otherwise, I'm always available by email for any additional questions we weren't able to answer today. I thank you again for all your time, and we look forward to fiscal 2026. Have a great day.
Thank you, everybody.