Good afternoon, and welcome to the Eastside Distilling third quarter 2023 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tiffany Milton, Controller. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Eastside Distilling's financial results for the third quarter of 2023. I'm Tiffany Milton, Eastside's Controller, and joining us on today's call to discuss these results are Geoffrey Gwin, the company's Chief Executive Officer, and Bruce Wells, Craft Controller. Following our remarks, we will open the call to your questions. Now, before we begin with prepared remarks, we submit for the record the following statement. Certain matters discussed on this conference call by the management of Eastside Distilling may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
The forward-looking statements describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as may, future, plan or plan, will or should, expected, anticipate, draft, eventually, or projected. Listeners are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements.
Such matters involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, the company's acceptance and the company's products in the market, success in obtaining new customers, success in product development, ability to execute the business model and strategic plans, success in integrating acquired entities and assets, ability to obtain capital, ability to continue its going concern, and all the risks and related information described from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the financial statements and related information pertaining to the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, with that said, I'd like to turn the call over to Geoffrey Gwin. Geoffrey, please proceed.
Thank you, Tiffany, and welcome everyone to the third quarter earnings conference call. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss our performance and outlook with you. While we've made strides towards our goal of achieving positive operating cash flow, both in the Craft digital printing business and our Spirits business, there are challenges we need to address. All year long, I have spoken about the collective goals I have laid out for both Craft and Spirits segments to generate EBITDA and importantly, net income, that not only allows us to invest in growth, but also to deleverage and to offset the public company costs. Now, while we've made progress toward these goals, it's clear that we still have work to do. One significant challenge we're facing is the growing economic headwinds in both the Craft beverage and Spirits categories.
Unfortunately, these headwinds have intensified toward the end of the third quarter and into the fall. The external economic environment plays a crucial role in our ability to achieve our financial objectives. Understanding and navigating these challenges will be key to reaching our targets. Now, in the Craft Digital Printing segment, the quarter showcased positive developments, with notable wins in our new Digital Printing customers, such as Born Thirsty in the water category, who, by the way, is at the forefront of using Digital Printing to market to consumers. Craft's record-breaking quarter with 4.8 million digital can orders demonstrates continued demand for our services. While we face challenges in the Mobile Printing business, improvements in scrap and utilization offset some of these issues. As we approach the fourth quarter, we anticipate seasonal softness, a trend observed in the same period last year.
Now, moving on to Spirits, we experienced a notable improvement with Spirits, EBITDA loss of only $73,000 in the quarter, a significant reduction compared to the previous year. Despite an overall decline in the top line, Portland Potato Vodka performed well, and we observed softness in various Spirits categories, including the tequila category, which has historically been a very strong performer. Despite these challenges, we managed to mitigate the impact by implementing successful pricing strategies in key markets. While Burnside and Azuñia require more attention due to underinvestment, our strategic focus on winning territories, right-sizing production, and improving the supply chain is yielding positive results as reflected in the improved EBITDA performance. Corporate and G&A expenses remain a challenge for a company our size, but we've made progress in reducing costs.
Tiffany will provide some details on the one-time loss associated with the completed debt for equity swap. But if you exclude those losses, our Adjusted EBITDA shows meaningful progress in the quarter. As we enter the fourth quarter, we acknowledge the need for further improvements across all aspects of the business to achieve positive cash flow and net income. Our ongoing efforts to address challenges, enhance operational efficiency, and capitalize on opportunities, positions for success. We remain committed to our goals and are optimistic about the future. Now I'll turn it over to Tiffany to provide additional insights into our financials and the completed debt-equity swap. Tiffany, please go ahead.
Thank you, Geoffrey, and thank you all again for joining our call today. Let's review the third quarter. On a consolidated basis, our gross sales were $3.1 million for both the third quarter of 2023 and 2022, primarily due to growth in Digital Can Printing, offset by lower Mobile Canning and Spirits sales. Craft sales were $2.2 million for 2023 and $1.9 million for 2022, as we continue to improve our printed can production. Spirits sales were $850,000 for 2023, compared to $1.2 million for 2022, primarily due to bulk Spirits sales of $244,000 in Q3 of 2022. Our consolidated gross profit was $500,000 for Q3 2023, compared to $200,000 for Q3 of 2022, due to Craft improvement from Digital Can Printing.
Our consolidated gross margins were 17% for 2023 and 6% for 2022. Craft had margins of 16% for 2023 and -7% for 2022. Spirits margins were 21% for 2023 and 29% for 2022. Excluding barrel sales, Spirits margins were 27% for both 2023 and 2022. Adjusted EBITDA was -$430,000 for 2023 and -$1.4 million for 2022, primarily due to decreased operating expenses. During Q3 2023, we recorded a loss on the conversion of debt to equity of $1.3 million, which is excluded from adjusted EBITDA. Craft Printing operations have yet to reach a turning point, demonstrating its full potential and delivering positive EBITDA in the quarter. However, we continue to gain momentum in the printing sector and are exploring avenues to streamline operating costs.
These cost-cutting measures are set to be expanded throughout the remainder of the year. We will now open the floor for questions. Operator?
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The first question is from Matthew Campbell of Laidlaw & Company. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, Geoff. I see some improvement here, continued improvement on the cost side. I was wondering if you could talk about, you know, Mobile Canning business, being down relative to maybe what the forecast was and, you know, at the same time, Craft, Digital growing and where, you know, what... How you think about that business on a going forward basis in terms of better visibility?
Right. Thanks for the question. You know, Mobile is not an easy business. I mean, if you think about it, it's a logistics business. You're moving basically a canning line remotely to a customer. You're building, you know, setting it up. If your customer is struggling with their product, they have, you know, if the temperature's not right, carbonation's right, now it's your problem, and you're trying to figure out how to basically can it, deliver a great product, and then you pack it all up and go home, and you're paying for this the whole time. So a critical part of that story is utilization. Concentration, utilization, not driving six hours, spending a lot of time on that. That's something that Craft did well for a long time.
We were, you know, in Denver, Seattle, Portland, Spokane, you know, dominant in the Northwest. And that's not a business that we want to invest, you know, a ton of money in, frankly. That, that's a business that we want to develop, you know, improve, but we want to be in the digital canning business. You know, the Digital Can Printing business. I mean, we know for a fact large consumer product companies, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, the PGA, have turned to digital printers to digitally print special edition cans for various, you know, things that they're doing, not with us, but hopefully with us at some point in the near term. That's the business that we want to invest in. So we're gonna, you know, spend less time on, on Mobile.
But, having said that, Mobile's critical right now because last year we converted almost all our Mobile customers to digital print customers, right? They were, they were important for the build-out of the, the demand curve for us. So, you know, we're gonna stay involved in Portland, Digital, Mobile, Canning, and we're gonna, serve our customers there, but we're gonna have to focus on printing.
Got it. So when you look at that business, how much of the Mobile business was, like, affected in your-
It's largely Seattle. Yeah, it's largely Seattle. We are, we initially expected to invest in Seattle, capture more market share, compete on price there, and we decided that, we're just gonna defend and compete in Portland, you know, very vigorously. We're not gonna give up any share there, and that's where we'll be. And so initially, when you looked at the year, and I was looking at the opportunity for the company, I was expecting for the third quarter that Mobile would be stronger in Seattle, and I frankly thought that we would be able to convert more, you know, of the demand that we are building on in the early part of the year, in the third quarter in Digital Printing.
And I think we got distracted at Craft, focusing on Mobile, restructuring it, exiting Seattle, and that's one reason why we weren't able to generate the EBITDA in the quarter that I thought we were gonna do for that segment.
Got it. That's helpful. And just a little bit more color around, Portland Potato Vodka. It sounds like that's starting to bounce back for you. You know, why, why is that occurring? And then a little color on Azuñia, why, why you're seeing—
Sure. So let's talk about the three major brands. Now, we have a lot of brands, but our three major brands are Portland Potato Vodka and Burnside. Those are focused in Portland, Pacific Northwest, and then we have Azuñia, the tequila brand that we purchased a few years ago. The vodka for us is a critical space because that's a place where we can do a lot of volume, and we can do a lot of volume with our concentrated footprint in Portland, we can really deliver, you know, more cases, more volume, leverage the fixed expense base. What you've seen with this company is we've been shifting investment from Spirits brands to Digital Can Printing. And a lot of people ask me, Why in the world are you doing that?
You know, and Spirits are supposed to be a hot category. And the truth of the matter is, it is a hot category, but it's extremely difficult to compete in California with the three-tier distribution system and the way that the structure of that, of this segment operates. You know, you have, you're gonna need a tremendous amount of capital, or you're gonna need a celebrity partner or someone who can pull demand through a reluctant distributor. That's a fact. I mean, that's a real challenge. However, thankfully, we have a strong market position in a control state in Oregon. And that limits the leverage the distributor has on taking gross margin from us.
So I'm growing the Spirits business back in Oregon first, and then we'll expand when we have more leverage with our partners, right? So Portland Potato Vodka is critical. So what we've done there is we have lowered the cost there significantly. Liquid cost, the bottle, packaging, the whole manufacturing process has been rebuilt. We've sized that to improve the margins. And so we're gonna put more volume through our facility in Milwaukie, Oregon, and we're gonna see those margins improve at PPV, and that's gonna be the growth driver. So what you're seeing this summer is we got aggressive with our main competitors in Portland, and we did okay.
We weren't positive in units, you know, we were mid-single digit down, but based on what we're seeing in the economy, I'm happy with that. Now, the next thing, as you mentioned, is, you know, Burnside. Burnside's a disappointment. Burnside is a... I mean, we're in a position to really grow Burnside. In fact, you know, we have some outstanding Burnside products that we're working on, one of which is a 17-year bourbon for Buckman, and we think that it's outstanding. And we believe that, you know, we have an opportunity to roll out some unique products in the Burnside line and get more interest in that brand and get some growth. But that's the challenge.
Burnside and Azuñia, tequila brand, need investment, and this company has been about restructuring and reducing costs, and the underinvestment there has been, you know, one of the things that that I think has slowed the turnaround in those two brands. But here, this is where the market makes the decision. In a small cap mar- market, the cost of capital, where our stock is, is telling us that they don't... or, you know, w-we don't have the capital to invest there. You know, it's not, it's not, you know, it's extremely expensive to borrow funds at this point. We just did the debt for equity swap, you saw that.
So, you know, we're having to pick our areas very carefully where we invest, and we have a limited amount of capital to use, and it's to retain the public company status and grow Digital Can Printing, because that's immediate. That's a, you know, investment made and we have immediate impact because we're seeing customers who you know who are transitioning to this package. So, you know, Burnside's a work in progress and the same thing with Azuñia. When we have a little bit more capital, we have a plan in place and we think we're gonna be able to execute it.
In the near term, we're gonna do some unique things in Burnside we think, that are gonna drive awareness and, you know, volume in Portland, but right now, PPV is leading the way.
That's helpful, Geoff. I mean, completely appreciate the deck of cards you've been handed here. I think it's smart, all the adjustments you've made to the business. And it's nice to see some improvement in the cost structure so we can, you know, continue to get this business turned around. So applaud the work, and I realize a lot of the work is hard for us to see today, but, you know, it's work that will pay dividends in the future. So thank you.
Thanks, Matt. Just to be clear, you're seeing the progress now. I mean, our gross margin improved, EBITDA came down, walking down significantly. We're within striking distance in Spirits to, you know, to break even and start to turn the corner. I thought we'd be there first in Craft, but, you know, based on this, we might be there first in Spirits. So let's see. Fourth quarter is not gonna be an easy quarter because I think you're gonna see it across the board. You know, there's weakness everywhere. Notwithstanding the reaction in the stock market today, there's clearly supply chain challenges, people looking, you know, to under invest in this environment. Consumers are definitely got retailers scared. There's a destocking going down. Diageo had a big, you know, blow up on that. You know, that happens in retail.
People take out inventory in the system, it has a big impact down the supply chain. So we're gonna feel that, but we're in a much better position, you know, going into next year, with where we need to be for Spirits and we're in a growth category in Digital Printing. So I'm encouraged.
Great. Thanks for the call back.
There are no questions at this time. This concludes our question- and- answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Geoffrey Gwin for closing remarks.
Great. I appreciate it, and thank you all for listening. A couple important, important things to also note is that our annual meeting this year is gonna be on December 28th, virtually. We pushed it to the end of the year because, as you know, we've been working on this debt for equity exchange to lower the debt on the balance sheet and increase our equity, which we accomplished in the third quarter. Along with that, we are gonna need shareholder approval for the increase in share count. So we're gonna have our annual meeting on the 28th, and I'll be reaching out directly to shareholders individually and encouraging you to vote the slate, vote the increase in shares, which is critical for us in continuing to operate as a public company.
So, anyway, I appreciate, again, you guys participating in the call, and if you have any questions, feel free to call me at Tiffany. Thanks.
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.