Good morning. Welcome to EnWave Corporation's Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Donna. I will be your operator for today's call. Joining us for today's presentation are the company's President and CEO, Brent Charleton, and Dylan Murray, EnWave's CFO. As a reminder, all participants are on a listen-only mode. The conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I would like to remind everyone that this call will be made available for replay via a link in the investor section of the company's website at www.enwave.net. I'd like to turn the call over to EnWave's CEO, Mr. Brent Charleton. Sir, please proceed.
Thanks very much. Hello to everyone who has joined us today for EnWave Corporation's Q1 Earnings Call. Consistent with our past quarterly earnings calls, the information we will present today contains forward-looking information that is based on our management's expectations, estimates, and projections. Our statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Please consider the risk factors in the filings made by EnWave on SEDAR when reviewing this information. All amounts discussed will be in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. We will continue to refer to our proprietary vacuum microwave technology business unit, inclusive of machine sales, royalty generation, and toll manufacturing as EnWave, and our subsidiary that sells dried cheese snacks, which we recently announced an orderly wind down of, as NutraDried.
Today, we will summarize our consolidated financial performance, highlighting the clear reasoning for beginning the orderly wind down of NutraDried and the choice to allocate existing resources towards our growing technology business. The NutraDried wind down process and value maximization effort is going according to plan thus far, and we remain optimistic that our efforts will yield a cash neutral or cash positive outcome when complete. EnWave's vacuum microwave technology business outlook is materially better. As I'll discuss in detail, we have several large-scale machines starting up in the near term that will enhance our royalty-generating potential and some exciting new projects that hopefully will yield new licenses, have us sign additional RevWorks contracts, and witness several material product launches this year.
After my update, Dylan Murray, our new CFO, will expand on our Q1 consolidated financials, as well as point out the critical metrics that support our recent strategic corporate decision. EnWave's Q1 was light on announced deal flow and heavy on effort behind the scenes. During the quarter, we agreed to and announced the rental of additional vacuum microwave equipment to Dole that will provide bridge manufacturing capacity prior to the commissioning of their 120-kilowatt large-scale unit. We opportunistically bought back a 120 kilowatt for less than half of what we sold it for from a U.S. cannabis company, resold that unit subsequently in Q2 to a major Canadian cannabis co. This cannabis company being one of the more respected in the space. We also signed a technology evaluation and license option agreement with a leading U.S. egg manufacturer.
The development of our licensing machine sales and RevWorks pipeline continued. We welcomed Dylan as our new CFO. NutraDried's performance continued to deteriorate through Q1 to the point that a decision to begin an orderly wind down in Q2 was a necessity. Dylan and I have been very active executing our wind down and value maximization plan. Overall the process is going well. We haven't encountered any significant obstacles to date. Working capital has been better than anticipated and are working with several prospective buyers of NutraDried's capital assets. From our efforts, we hope to assign a new license to use Radiant Energy Vacuum equipment to produce cheese snacks in the U.S., sell the Moon Cheese brand, and begin to generate real cash royalties from a new royalty partner.
There is still an immense amount of work that needs to be done in order to complete this process, but as recently mentioned, we're confident that we should recoup cash back to EnWave after all expenses are paid and liability settled. Our target timeline to complete this process is within the current fiscal year. Our stock price was already under pressure prior to the NutraDried wind down announcement, but has since fallen to a 52-week low. Perceived uncertainty around the NutraDried wind down, the slow deal flow in Q1, and cannabis partner delays and missteps have all contributed to investor pessimism, and we intend to address each of these concerns today. EnWave's gross margin in Q1 was 37% in Q1 Fiscal Year 2023, normalizing slowly to where we would expect it to be longer term.
We also generated CAD 2.8 million in revenue, with CAD 412,000 of that being third-party royalties, generating a net loss of CAD 466,000. NutraDried generated -11% gross margin in Q1 and produced a net loss of CAD 1.7 million. The oversized infrastructure of NutraDried, when combined with declining sales and negative gross margin and the higher than normal input costs, created an imminent and material cash need, one that would erode EnWave's capital resources if the decision to begin an orderly wind down was not made. The lion's share of our operational cash need has been directly attributed to the NutraDried business. We expect our operational cash need to materially reduce going forward after the wind down is complete.
Our opportunity in the cannabis sector to materially commercialize REV technology will depend heavily on the maturation of key players in the industry. To date, more times than not, licensed royalty partners and prospects have been mismanaged and disorganized. That being said, we are thankful for the professionalism and commitment demonstrated by TGOD, our Illinois-based partner, and our most recent Canadian licensed royalty partner. There is a silver lining here, and the quantitative data collected and shared by these partners continue to advance REV's clear value proposition, which includes lower bioburden, higher cannabinoid and terpene retention, as well as positively reviewed smoking experiences. Continued perceived risk and lack of capital to build out REV infrastructure are present challenges in this space, but I do believe that REV has the opportunity to become the preferred drying method in the future.
Beyond our cannabis potential, the number of high-impact REV dried food product launches and/or distribution expansions that are scheduled to take place this fiscal year gets me very excited. We recently completed the installation of a 120 kW unit for Orto al Sole in Italy. They have secured meaningful domestic distribution for their ultra-premium fruit and vegetable snack line and are considering future manufacturing needs already. These products are outstanding and have resonated with some of the largest grocery chains in Italy, including Migros, which is one of the larger grocery companies in all of Europe. Dole's 120 kW will be commissioned in March. Their Good Crunch snack product line has officially launched, and I do encourage everyone on this call to Google Dole Good Crunch to view their top-tier marketing materials.
Given the size of Dole, additional large-scale REV machinery will be a necessity to address the markets they're pursuing. Further capital investment will be driven by prospective launch success. We continue to work with the Dole team to develop new SKUs and improve processing efficiencies. The 60 kilowatt installation for our Japanese royalty partner and the second 120 kilowatt installation for our U.S. cannabis partner are still expected to take place in the latter half of this year. The 120 kilowatt for our most recent Canadian cannabis partner is scheduled for commissioning this spring.
Additional product launches that are scheduled to occur in fiscal 2023 include a pepperoni meat chip in North America by a currently unnamed partner, a shelf-stable cheesecake snack in June by a RevWorks customer, Pure Joy, who is our Costa Rican royalty partner, new distribution of their premium tropical fruit snack in the U.S. Næra Snacks of Iceland launch of their fish jerky snack in North America, a company called Aitana, who is leveraging Fresh Business Peru's manufacturing capacity to launch REV dried fruit snacks in Australia and New Zealand, among several others. We are also continuing to work with the U.S. Army through our relationship with Bridgeport Foods, excuse me, as well as the recently announced major egg manufacturer who signed at Solowa. A large-scale purchase order from the U.S. Army is still targeted for this year, with cheesecake rations being their focus.
RevWorks toll manufacturing contracts are expected to be robust in the latter half of fiscal 23, and we have a clear understanding of the immediate needs of the primary prospects that intend to use RevWorks manufacturing. Line trials and sample production have taken place, and we are prepared for more intense, consistent commercial production. Recall, RevWorks is an initiative to lower the new product development thresholds for prospective and current royalty partners, leading to incremental processing revenues and more REV machine sales for EnWave, and it's working. I look forward to sharing more details regarding these potential contracts in the very near term. Now, the decision to wind down NutraDried was absolutely the right choice. We're optimistic regarding our ability to monetize assets and potentially award a new license to Breeze Moon Cheese that will pay us cash royalties.
Once we complete the transfer of assets and finalize the orderly wind down, our full energy can be put towards our technology business. Our third-party royalties are expected to grow this year. We expect to sell more machinery than the year prior, and we have major food partners that have committed significant resources to grow their respective REV dried businesses. With that, I'll now ask Dylan to summarize our Q1 Financial Results in more detail.
Thanks, Brent. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us today. Please note that the figures I'll be going over today can be found in our press release from yesterday and in the financial statements and MD&A filed on SEDAR. All amounts are in CAD unless otherwise noted. I will make reference to adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-IFRS financial measure, so please refer to the non-IFRS financial measure disclosures and reconciliation to GAAP net income, both in the press release and in our MD&A. Also, please note that the comparative period I'll refer to throughout this presentation is the prior year Q1 ended December 31, 2021. Consolidated revenues for Q1 were CAD 4.7 million, compared to CAD 6.3 million in Q1 2022, a decrease of CAD 1.6 million or 25%.
EnWave accounted for 60% and NutraDried for 40% of total Q1 revenue, respectively. EnWave's revenue was CAD 2.8 million for Q1 2023, compared to CAD 4.1 million for Q1 2022, a decrease of CAD 1.3 million or 32%. The decrease was due to the timing of revenue recognition on large-scale machine contracts, a decreased number of small-scale machine sales, and in Q1 2022, we had the benefit of reselling a 120 kilowatt machine that was purchased back from a cannabis partner. EnWave had third-party royalty revenue of CAD 413K for Q1 2023, compared to CAD 505K for Q1 2022, a decrease of CAD 92K or 18%.
Some partners have higher base royalties during the calendar year, resulting in a smaller royalty obligation during the quarter to meet the minimum annual royalty threshold. Additionally, some partners decide to forgo exclusivity. As our royalty partners grow their business and increase capacity utilization on REV equipment alongside new REV installations arising from new sales, we hope to see royalty growth over the coming quarters. NutraDried reported revenues of CAD 1.9 million for the three months ended December 31st, 2022, compared to CAD 2.2 million for the three months ended December 31st, 2021. A decrease of CAD 301K or 13%. NutraDried sales decreased due to a decline in overall Moon Cheese sales and an absence of Costco Canada sales in Q1 2023, which is offset by an increase in sale of Moon Cheese crunchy snacks.
Consolidated gross margin for the company in Q1 2023 was 17% compared to 43% in Q1 2022. EnWave generated a Q1 2023 gross margin of 37%, while NutraDried generated a negative gross margin of 11% for the period. The consolidated margin compression is a result of two things. In Q1 2022, there was a fully fabricated large-scale unit that was purchased back from a cannabis partner and resold, resulting in lower direct costs. Two, NutraDried continued to experience significant margin compression in Q1 2023 with higher cheese prices and trade spending costs. SG&A expenses, including R&D, were CAD 2.6 million for Q1 2023 compared to CAD 2.8 million for Q1 2022, a decrease of CAD 200K or 7%. We reduced G&A costs as part of a continued focus on managing non-revenue generating spending.
Adjusted EBITDA is a non-IFRS financial measure. Please refer to our MD&A for the reconciliation from GAAP net income to adjusted EBITDA. The company reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of CAD 1.2 million for Q1 2023, compared to an adjusted EBITDA profit of CAD 301 thousand for Q1 2022, a decrease of CAD 1.5 million. The performance of the NutraDried business segment, which were reported a net loss of CAD 1.7 million for Q1 2023, was the primary driver of decreased EBITDA for this period. We finished Q1 with cash on hand of CAD 4.2 million and a net working capital surplus of CAD 10.1 million. The increase in inventory was primarily a result of the machinery that was purchased back from a U.S. cannabis licensee and resold in Q2 2023 being included in inventory as at December 31st, 2022.
Aside from a small COVID-19 relief loan and our facility leases, our balance sheet remains debt-free. As Brent discussed, NutraDried's financial performance through the past three fiscal years has deteriorated materially. After assessing the longer-term viability of NutraDried's operations, NutraDried's capital requirements, and other current and expected economic factors, EnWave's board of directors and executive management decided to cease funding this loss-generating business unit and commence an orderly wind down and value maximization process for the business segment. NutraDried had revenue of CAD 1.9 million versus CAD 2.2 million in Q1 2022, gross margin of -11% versus +20% in Q1 2022, and a net loss of CAD 1.7 million versus CAD 900K in Q1 2022. By winding down NutraDried, EnWave will materially reduce expenditures, allowing capital to be prioritized towards advancing the core business strategy of the company.
As at December 31st, 2022, NutraDried had CAD 3.4 million in inventory, CAD 2 million in plant and equipment, and CAD 1.8 million in trade and other payables. The wind down and value maximization process continues as planned, and management believes completion of this process should be cash neutral or cash positive to EnWave.
Thanks, Dylan. I'd now like to open the call for your questions. Operator, please provide the appropriate instructions.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. If there are any questions outstanding at the end of the call, the company will be happy to take them by email at ir@enwave.net. Once again, that's star one to register a question at this time. One moment please while we poll for questions. Mr. Charleton, we're showing no audio questions at this time.
Thank you, operator. We do have some submissions on the webcast questions, which I will address one by one now. The first question is to the point. Stock price is at its lowest in 15 years. Does this reflect the financial reality of the company? My response to that is I do feel that the current stock prices, our business is undervalued regardless of the orderly wind down process on being undertaken for Nutra. I do see this as a buying opportunity given the prospects that our technology business has, I'll leave it there for now. Next question. I would like to understand why the company has not made cannabis drying a bigger focus and priority.
With the length of time for evaluations to start paying a royalty, it seems like cannabis would finance future growth and the time needed to support food and pharma markets. Good question. I'll respond by stating the first part of it in that the commitment to trying to drive that business development has been there. We've engaged with every single known cannabis company in North America to try and get them to trial our technology. We've offered them our smaller scale units to be deployed and used at their facilities at no cost in an effort to try and reduce the roadblocks to demonstrating the clear value proposition that our technology provides.
There are multiple continued conversations with some of the bigger players in the U.S. and Canada, and for whatever reason, are choosing to delay those evaluations and have not yet scheduled the time nor put the effort forth and organization to execute that. We will not give up. We will continue to go back and push, push, but for whatever reason, that particular industry seems to be in disarray at this point in time. Next question. What about India? When will EnWave machines be sold there? What is EnWave sales team in India and the pipeline locally? Part of our strategy to broaden our footprint for sales and business development in different continents is to engage with third-party machine resellers who are already known for representing different reputable food manufacturing equipment. Now in India, we partnered with a company called Kanchan Metals.
They have provided us opportunities to participate in trade shows, which we've gone and done. We've now have a pipeline of about 6 to 8 projects, which seem to be viable, that we're hoping to close sometime in the next 12 to 18 months. We have an announced partner in India, in LD Food, who currently have a 10 kW on-site doing product development and are expected to make a decision to scale up or not within this fiscal year. Further, LD Food has been a good partner in the sense they've allowed other companies that are looking at the tech to visit their facility and to conduct small scale market trials. Next question. Can you update us on the cost of the legal challenge with the former directors and what have you budgeted? Rather specific question.
We budgeted several hundred thousand CAD, but we don't believe that we will be spending that much given how things are playing out at this point. In terms of an update, it has been made aware to us that the defendants have chosen to change counsel given the multiple setbacks that they've had during this process. We feel that we're in a strong position to defend EnWave's business, the protection of its IP, and ultimately hold these folks accountable for the actions that they took. Next question. Do R&D costs include costs of trial runs for new candidate clients? If not, are some of the more significant R&D expenses because the REV technology itself is fully mature?
Included in R&D, yeah.
Included in R&D. Okay, next question. Will you be providing ongoing updates on the progress of the NutraDried wind down, or will it only be on a quarterly earnings announcement? The answer to that, we will announce all material developments that we're hoping will take place in the relative near term during this process. I alluded to a couple of those points in the presentation earlier. Next question. Could you please explain a little bit why clients do not want to keep exclusivity, i.e., licenses that we grant to certain food companies typically will start with an exclusive right on a product type in a specific geographic region, and in exchange for that exclusivity granted, they pay a minimum royalty per annum.
Those minimum royalties aren't meant to be punitive, but they're meant to be put in place to hold the user accountable so that they are materially putting forth an effort to commercialize the products that have been bestowed in their license. The reasoning behind that, simply put, is in some cases, some of the companies have been able to grow as fast as they had hoped, and they looked it as a cost benefit analysis and determined that exclusivity wouldn't grant them any additional benefit in their respective markets in which they're selling products. All of our licenses, exclusive or non-exclusive, do not prohibit the licensed partner from selling their products wherever there is a buyer.
What it does do, it restricts the geographic region in which the machinery can be domiciled to produce the products with the hope that it offers some form of economic benefit regarding lower raw material costs, lower labor costs. It gives them a competitive edge, again, in the markets that they're looking to address. Next question. I love your sell and resell strategy on the cannabis installs. Do you forecast additional install buybacks and resells? I mean, these are situations that were opportunistic given the mismanagement of certain partners. Thankfully, we had interested buyers to take on those assets, and we were able to generate healthy margins during those transactions.
When I look at the large scale machines that have been purchased and are scheduled for installation in our pipeline, I do not foresee any further opportunities for a buyback on large scale equipment and resale, other than obviously the resale of the assets that are currently at NutraDried to new partners to leverage. Okay. With that, I do not see any further questions submitted on the webcast. Thank you for joining us today for EnWave's Q1 earnings call. At this time, you may now disconnect.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.