Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Mama Mancini's fourth quarter fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by one on your touchtone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment, please lift the handset before making your selections. This conference call is being re-recorded today, May 31, 2022, and the earnings press release accompanying this conference call was issued at market open today. On our call today is Mama Mancini's Chairman and CEO, Carl Wolf, President and COO, Matt Brown, and CFO, Larry Morgenstein. Before we get started, I'll read a disclaimer about forward-looking statements.
This conference call may contain, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws regarding Mama Mancini's. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements expressing the company's intentions, beliefs, expectations, strategies, predictions, or any other statements relating to its future earnings, activities, events, or conditions. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, and projections about the company's business based in part on assumptions made by management. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may, and are likely to, differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to numerous factors discussed from time to time in this report and in other SEC documents that the company files with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
In addition, such statements can be affected by risks and uncertainties related to factors beyond the company's control. Matters that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, among other factors, the loss of key management personnel, availability of capital and other major litigation regarding the Company. In addition, this conference call contains time-sensitive information that reflects management's best analysis only as of the date and time of this conference call. The Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, information, or circumstances that arise after the date of this conference call. At this time, I'd like to turn our conference over to Carl Wolf, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Carl, the floor is yours.
Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for joining us today. I'd like to welcome you to our fourth quarter fiscal 2022 financial results conference call. The fourth quarter was highlighted by the acquisition of premier gourmet food manufacturers, T&L and Olive Branch, a highly symbiotic pairing with our distribution network. We expect to generate at least $35 million in sales in fiscal 2023 from the two acquisitions. The acquisition significantly expanded our existing business in the rapidly growing fresh prepared food segment, where we believe we can achieve a substantial increase in sales and EBITDA by leveraging established national distribution partnerships. This was quickly demonstrated during the quarter with the addition of T&L products into existing relationships at Sam's Club.
Integration of the acquisition has proceeded rapidly, bringing with it over 3,000 new locations for the combined company and over 10,000 spots on retailer shelves. Given our ongoing growth and the addition of revenue from the acquisitions, we believe Mama Mancini's will generate substantially over $20 million in sales in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 and approach a $100 million annual sales run rate over the next year. This is possible through pushing more of our SKUs per relationship and driving stronger sales per location with complementary products with minimal overlap. Looking ahead to continue this momentum, we see attractive multiples in the food product space, and we'll evaluate additional acquisition opportunities that are immediately accretive and have complementary products that are good candidates for our national distribution network.
Our continued new product innovations paid off in April as our first-ever QVC sale of the original Meatballs in a Cup product promptly sold out and received a notable order backlog, which we filled in the weeks following the QVC live presentation. The high protein content of 16 grams and very modest calories are attractive attributes to health-conscious consumers. This product has the potential to efficiently service the existing convenience store, supermarket, and university food service opportunities. On the margin front, we are starting to more rapidly pass on price increases to our customers with minimal lead time, which should enhance margins going forward. This margin compression, compared with $748,000 in acquisition expenses and $276,000 in inventory write-offs and increased expense accruals, is what drove our temporary reduction in profitability in the fourth quarter.
Our growing sales are a result of our high quality and innovative new products and our effective multi-pronged marketing efforts. These have historically included radio campaigns, social media efforts, and continued work with QVC. I'd like to touch on a few of these now. On the social media side of things, we continue to maintain a robust reach, engaging new customers and encouraging repeat purchases. To date, we have over 500,000 likes and continue to geo-target likely consumers who live within a five-mile radius of specific retail locations. Our QVC efforts have seen record successes as well, with Dan Mancini live pitches driving impressive sales on their platform. As many of you are aware, we were winners for three QVC Customer Choice Awards. Best Meatball, Best Sauce, and most of all, Most Recommended Brand.
Perhaps most notably, a Mama Mancini's product was named the coveted Today's Special Value deal on QVC on December eighth, securing approximately five hours of airtime throughout the day, which drove expected sales of $2 million spread throughout fiscal 2022 and 2023, inclusive of auto delivery customers over the year. QVC is North America's largest direct-to-consumer marketer and is available in over 100 million homes throughout the US. In summary, the last several months were a time of foundation building for the year ahead, from which our vision of Mama Mancini's as a national platform company will emerge. I'd now like to turn the call over to Larry Morgenstein, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk through some key financial details for the fourth quarter of 2022. Larry.
Thank you, Carl. Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 increased 38.5% to a record $13.9 million, compared to $10 million in the same year-ago quarter. Revenue for fiscal 2022 increased 15.4% to a record $47.1 million, compared to $40.8 million in fiscal 2021. The revenue increase for the year was the result of establishing a greater balance of major customer volume attributed to growth in sales across a strong portfolio of both national and large regional grocery chains and club stores. Gross profit decreased 26.8% to $2.4 million, or 17.4% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, compared to $3.3 million or 32.9% of total revenue in the same year-ago quarter.
Gross profit decreased 6.3% to $11.9 million or 25.2% of total revenue in fiscal 2022 compared to $12.7 million or 31.1% of total revenue in fiscal 2021. The decrease in gross profit in the fourth quarter is primarily due to increases in raw material, packaging, and inbound freight costs, which outpaced sales price increases during fiscal 2022, Q3 and Q4. Operating expenses totaled $3.8 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 compared to $2.4 million in the same year ago quarter. As a percentage of sales, operating expenses increased in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 27.2% from 23.8%. Operating expenses totaled $11.8 million in fiscal 2022 compared to $9.3 million in fiscal 2021.
As a percentage of sales, operating expenses increased in fiscal 2022 at 25% of sales as compared to 22.7% in fiscal 2021. Operating expenses in the fourth quarter increased mainly due to transportation rate increases and fuel surcharges, $0.75 million in acquisition related expenses, $0.2 million in increased accruals for freight and marketing expenses, as well as costs associated with uplisting to the Nasdaq. Net loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 was $1.3 million or $0.04 per diluted share as compared to a net income of $1.7 million or $0.05 per diluted share on the same year ago quarter.
Net loss for fiscal 2022 was $0.4 million or $0.01 per diluted share as compared to net income of $4.1 million or $0.12 per diluted share in fiscal 2021. The decrease in net income was attributed to lower gross margin, higher freight and shipping expenses, acquisition related expenses, as well as increases in marketing accruals and tax expenses as compared to a tax benefit of $0.7 million in the prior period. Cash and cash equivalents as of January 31, 2022 was $0.9 million as compared to $3.2 million as of January 31, 2021. The difference in cash balance is chiefly due to substantial use of cash to fund the acquisition made in December 2021.
We do not anticipate in raising additional equity at this time and are confident that cash on hand, combined with the cash generated from operations each quarter, will be sufficient to sustain our core operations as we grow. This completes my comments. I'd now like to turn over the call to Matt Brown, our President and Chief Operating Officer, for an operations update. Matt.
Thanks, Larry. On the operations side of the business, fiscal Q4 2022 was an exciting time as well as a challenging time. With the acquisition of T&L and Olive Branch, production for MamaMancini's Holdings, Inc. doubled overnight, requiring numerous trips back and forth on the Long Island Expressway to help learn the operations and meet the team. Once acclimated with the business, our first task was to evaluate and identify purchasing synergies between the companies. Packaging material was an immediate low-hanging fruit as we were able to introduce T&L to a key supplier of Mama Mancini's. Through this introduction, T&L was able to switch over from their current packaging supplier, saving the company over 50% on key items by late spring. Basic suppliers were another easy switch. We anticipate 25% savings across the board on these items moving forward.
We are currently working together on sharing common raw material suppliers for protein and other volume items where our buying power again will enable us to see some major cost savings. The operations at T&L are not all that different from those at Mama Mancini's, which will enable us to better evaluate on a project-by-project basis where we see the best fit for the production of these projects based on facility capabilities and line time. I am excited to open the doors and see what we can achieve between these two facilities. Meanwhile, back home in East Rutherford, the plant was busy with the launch of two new projects that were mentioned earlier and prepping for these projects back in fiscal Q3. Our Meals for One line and our Meatballs in a Cup.
Meals for One or MFO grew out of the post-pandemic needs of our supermarket partners to have access to ready-made meals due to the labor shortages internally in their commissaries. To accomplish this, the plant, in record time, built a dedicated room for the assembly of these meals over the Christmas holiday and began first shipments in early January. Products included our mainstay spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmesan, chicken fettuccine alfredo, and sausage with peppers and onions. All were made available in a microwavable 14-ounce tray. This MFO line continues to gain traction and has increased to include a total now of 12 offerings to date. Project number two, Meatballs in a Cup, grew out of an old concept to offer our traditional beef meatballs and sauce in a portable cup that could be heated and consumed on the go.
As Carl mentioned, QVC was the first to launch Meatballs in a Cup in fiscal Q4, and to no surprise, it was an immediate sellout. In addition to QVC, in fiscal Q4, we obtained authorizations from two convenience store chains and a supermarket distributor. We anticipate first orders to occur within the next 60 days. As mentioned earlier, all this success was not without challenges. Supply chain delays continue to become the norm, and we spent a good part of fiscal Q4 looking for more alternative suppliers for raw material. We were successful in keeping production in full swing, but at a cost of the overall margins in the plant as key components saw as much as a 25% increase in cost. We continue to monitor commodities of beef, turkey, chicken, milk, and wheat with hopes that consumer pushback will eventually cause a softening of these never-seen-before inflationary prices.
We are quicker to react to these increases with appropriate adjustments to our customers. However, the laws of supply and demand must eventually play its role, and we can once again see the margins that we've been accustomed to seeing in the past. At this point, I will turn the call back over to Carl for some final notes before wrapping up the call for Q&A. Carl?
Okay. Mr. Wolf's line has disconnected. We will reconnect him as soon as he arrives.
Hello? Can people hear me? This is Carl Wolf.
Yeah. Yes, Mr. Wolf, you have been reconnected to the conference.
I don't know what happened. Okay. Hi, everyone. Hopefully, you can hear me. I was online. I don't know. Evidently, conference call had a disconnect. All right. Where I was, in summary, the last several months were a time of foundation building for what should be a record-breaking year ahead from which our vision of Mama Mancini's as a national platform company will emerge. I look forward to continuing execution in the months ahead as we strive to create long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator to begin our Q&A session. Operator?
Yes. Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press the star key followed by one on your touchtone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star key followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment, you will need to lift the handset before making your selection. The first question comes from Howard Halpern with Taglich Brothers.
Good morning. Congratulations on navigating this, these wild times right now.
Thank you.
Just a couple of housekeeping. Are there gonna be any additional charges or write-downs in the first quarter of this year, or is that all in the fourth quarter?
There is a small acquisition charge.
Okay.
related to the acquisition, about $55,000.
Okay.
which is a non-recurring expense. As far as I know, that's the only charge.
Okay. You know, as Matt was talking about, you know, with gross margins and the headwinds that are there, even with the headwinds, are you gonna be able to get gross margins back towards the low 20% area, low- to mid-20% area by the end of this year, even if the conditions persist?
Well, first of all, the margins are a little distorted because T&L and Olive Branch have lower gross margins with very low overheads.
Okay.
However, margins are increasing substantially right now for the quarter. Even though it's an average and overheads are in line, so we expect results to be substantially greater, better than the fourth quarter. What's interesting is, I think you in your projection had just about projected what we would earn.
Okay.
Sales were lower, so you know, it was not a total surprise as to having the headwinds this quarter.
In terms of what you said, I guess low, you know, operating expenses. In the fourth quarter, if you take out the one-time charge, it's about, what, $3.1-$3.2 million. It'll go incrementally up from there, but not substantially higher from there?
It should not be.
Just.
It should not be substantially higher.
Okay. That's good to know. Are there on the raw material and protein buying power, how long does that really take, how long is that gonna take for you to get your hands around that and get that implemented? Is that more a second half of the year story for you?
Some of it's occurring in the first quarter, very substantial margin improvement. There should be very additional substantial margin improvement in each quarter going forward. One of the issues has been the trade's lack of accepting price increases. They now are much more flexible, so we've had much greater ability to pass along price increases quicker. The other thing is, some of the commodity prices are defying gravity, and
Right.
We expected them to normalize there. Over the years in commodity prices, eventually they do normalize. As an example, I just read in the Wall Street Journal today, lumber prices have dropped by 50%.
Okay.
In the last two weeks.
Okay. This is more about, I guess, your core operations. You had a number of good authorizations throughout, you know, the fiscal year you're just reporting on. When are we gonna start seeing those authorizations really hit the shelves and begin to ramp up with recurring orders going forward?
Well, we're seeing some of that in this quarter.
Okay.
We'll see more in the second quarter. Sales are very robust. You have to remember that in the long run.
Mm-hmm.
Our company is geared to earn an 8% operating profit. That's our norm. We projected an over $100 million sales run rate this year. Our goal is to get back to the norm.
Okay.
The norm is, you know, $8 million operating profit.
Okay, where do you stand beyond, I guess, the two convenience store authorizations, where do you stand within that segment and the college and university area, going forward into towards the end, I guess, of this year?
You're talking about the original Meatballs in a Cup?
The Meatballs in a Cup and general food service, going forward.
Food service is going slow, slower than we had hoped. The original Meatballs in a Cup, there were a lot of technical issues to properly heat the product. We've gone very slow. We have 3 orders we're holding right now, actually, waiting for the final version of the cup. What we sold to QVC was a different cup. We didn't have the constraints of a convenience store. Once we start, we can give you a better read on that.
Okay. Okay, guys. Keep up the great work.
Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to return the floor to Carl Wolf for any closing comments.
Okay. Thank you, operator. As a final note, we will continue to be active in attending top investor conferences across the U.S. If interested in scheduling a meeting with management when we are in your region, please reach out to Lucas Zimmerman from MZ Group and our firm to arrange. We're planning to be at the LD Micro Conference next week, so if any of you are there, we'd be happy to meet with you. Thank you again for joining us today. We look forward to continuing to update you on our progress.
Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.