Good afternoon, welcome to the Muscle Maker Inc. First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded and all participants will be in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions from analysts. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Frank G. Pogubila , Muscle Maker Inc's Investor Relations contact.
Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone to Muscle Maker Inc.'s first quarter 2023 earnings call and webcast. Before we get started, we would like to state that this call may include forward-looking statements pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. To the extent that the information presented on this call discusses financial projections, information, or expectations about business plans, results of operations, products or markets, or otherwise makes statements about future events, such statements may be forward-looking. Such forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of the words such as should, may, intends, anticipates, believes, estimates, projects, forecasts, expects, plans, and proposes. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, there are a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements.
You are urged to carefully review and consider any cautionary statements and other disclosures, including the statements made under the heading Risk Factors and elsewhere in documents that Muscle Maker Inc. files from time to time with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of the document in which they are contained, and Muscle Maker Inc. does not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements except as may be required by law. For this call, all numbers and percentages disclosed have been rounded. On this call, we will refer to Muscle Maker Inc. as MMI. With me on the call today are MMI's Chief Executive Officer, Michael Roper, and Chief Financial Officer, Jennifer Black.
Michael and Jennifer will be presenting prepared remarks related to MMI's financials filed on May 10, 2023. Those documents may be found on MMI's website, Newswire feeds and on the SEC's website linked from the MMI IR pages at www.musclemakerinc.com. At this point, I would like to turn the call over to MMI's CEO, Michael Roper. Michael.
Thanks, Frank. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that Q1 was a strong continuation of Q4 and marked the first full quarter of MMI's significant pivot towards a diversified global food organization through the creation of our wholly owned subsidiary, Sadot LLC. As you may recall, in late 2022, we began a transformation from a U.S.-centric restaurant business into a global food-fork focused organization with two distinct business units, Sadot LLC and the MMI Restaurant Group. Our first business unit, Sadot LLC, is our newly formed international agri-commodity subsidiary specializing in the trading and shipping of food and feed commodities such as soybean meal, wheat, and corn. Today, Sadot is our largest operating unit and has been instrumental in our performance for this quarter.
This pivot into a new business and operations was done with a long-term strategic view of the opportunities in the global food supply chain. Instead of only focusing on food retail or restaurants, we broadened our view and saw that there is an increasing need for companies that can build and operate sustainable supply chains and can take part in providing food security to global communities. Along with vast financial opportunities, this creates social and environmental values and correlates with our long-term values of providing food that is healthy and fresh around the globe. Our second business unit, the MMI Restaurant Group, is our legacy business, which includes 50-plus restaurant units across two fast casual concepts, Pokemoto and Muscle Maker Grill, with Pokemoto being a high-growth restaurant brand. The restaurant group also includes the subscription-based fresh meal prep service, Superfit Foods, with 30-plus points of distribution.
Let me take a couple minutes here and discuss some of the Q1 highlights. I'm pleased to announce that MMI achieved top-line revenue of $213 million for the first quarter of 2023. This revenue announcement marks the accomplishment of five consecutive months above $50 million in revenue per month for the company and demonstrates the continued performance of Sadot with a total revenue since inception in November of 2022 of over $361 million. Overall, our first quarter non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $2.4 million in 2023 compared to a $1.5 million non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss in the first quarter of 2022. The $3.9 million increase is primarily attributable to the net income generated by Sadot as we continue to execute against our new business plan.
This excludes the non-cash charges required under GAAP to account for the issuance of shares to Aggia, the company providing consulting and operation support to Sadot. I'll share more about Aggia in a moment. We see Q1's results along with other strategic actions as a foundation for our future growth and diversification within the global food supply chain. In addition, we announced in the second quarter that we've instituted a share repurchase program. Regarding Aggia, as disclosed in an 8-K filing on November 18, 2022, MMI and its wholly owned subsidiary, Sadot LLC, entered into a service agreement whereby Sadot engaged Aggia to perform services related to the purchase and sale of physical food commodities. The service agreement allows Aggia to nominate up to eight board directors, one upon signing the service agreement and an additional seven nominations upon Sadot generating specific net income targets.
Two directors at $3.3 million, two more at $6.6 million, and the final three at $9.9 million. Since inception and through March 31, 2023, Sadot has generated approximately $8.7 million in net income. As Sadot crossed the second threshold of $6.6 million in net income, Aggia nominated, and MMI accepted two new board directors, Marvin Yeo and Paul Sansom. Both of these new board directors bring industry specific knowledge and a wealth of experience. As of today, MMI has added five of the possible eight new Aggia nominated board directors. We believe the agreement with Aggia to be an intelligent and creative investment in the strategic future of our company. We are confident that Aggia will continue to provide valuable insight and expertise as we grow our global food organization.
We are committed to the execution of our strategic vision and to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the global food market. MMI's success this quarter is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, and we look forward to building on this momentum as we move forward. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, Jennifer Black, to review the financial performance of the company for the first quarter of 2023. Jennifer?
Thanks, Mike. Thank you to everyone joining us here today. Before I begin, I would like to note that our financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 on Form 10-Q were filed with the SEC on May 10 and in a press release that same day. With that, I'd like to give an overview of the financials for the first quarter of 2023. For the quarter ended March 31, 2023, our company-wide revenues significantly increased and totaled $213 million compared to $3 million for the prior quarter ended March 31, 2022. Of the $213 million revenue increase, $210 million was primarily due to the commodity sales revenue generated by Sadot and its servicing agreement with Aggia.
Sadot completed 19 transactions in Q1 with the average revenue per transaction of $11.1 million and an average cost of goods sold per transaction of $10.8 million. These 19 transactions were completed throughout 11 different countries. The MMI restaurant business unit generated total revenue of $3 million. This consisted of $2.7 million from company-owned and operated locations, and $300,000 in royalty fees collected from both Muscle Maker Grill and Pokemoto franchise locations for the quarter ended March 31, 2023. Company-owned and operated location revenue decreased due to the closing of underperforming and non-profitable Muscle Maker Grill restaurants. While royalty revenue increased by 36.5% as the company continues to focus its restaurant business unit strategy on franchising the Pokemoto concept.
As of today, the company has over 45 additional Pokemoto franchise agreements sold but not yet open. The increase in franchise royalties is due to an increase in Pokemoto franchisees and a closure of one Muscle Maker Grill franchise. Overall, our first quarter non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $2.4 million in 2023, compared to a $1.5 million non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss in the first quarter of 2022. The $3.9 million increase is primarily due to the net income generated by Sadot as we continue to execute against our new business plan. Our Sadot subsidiary generated a net income of $4.3 million, while our MMI restaurant brands generated a net loss of $406,000 for the first quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA excludes non-cash charges required under GAAP to account for the issuance of shares to Aggia and the gain related to the issuance of these shares, which we feel is an intelligent and accretive investment in the strategic future of our company. The issuance of the common shares to Aggia for the stock-based consulting agreement was the most significant change in our expense in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. The stock-based consulting expense of $3.4 million for the quarter ended March 31st, 2023, is the result of common stock to be issued as consulting fee to Aggia for the Sadot net income performance. Based on the servicing agreement with Aggia, the stock-based consulting fees are calculated at approximately 80% of the net income generated by the Sadot business unit.
As of March 31, 2023, we had a cash balance of $6.4 million and a working capital surplus of $6.4 million. The cash decrease in the first quarter of 2023 was due primarily to Sadot offering terms on the commodity trade transactions to generate higher margin on these trades. In addition, the company deployed capital into smaller such trades which tend to generate higher margins. The company has over $4 million in receivables that are due in less than 60 days. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Michael Roper.
Thanks for the financial review, Jennifer. We're excited to report that our new diversification strategy and company pivot towards a diversified global food organization is starting to bear fruit. We firmly believe that adding our Sadot subsidiary has created significant value for the company. We are very pleased with Sadot's performance to date and our diversification strategy into the agri-commodity space. We've spoken a lot about Sadot and its impact on the overall company. Let me say a few words about our restaurant unit. As we've mentioned previously, we are focusing our strategy on growing the Pokemoto franchise business while also optimizing our other restaurant concepts, which could include closing underperforming locations or investigating other strategic alternatives.
We currently have over 45 Pokemoto franchise agreements sold, but not yet open, and also have recently launched a new dual concept unit that combines our Pokemoto brand with our Muscle Maker Grill concept under the same roof. This leverages our existing infrastructure, reducing our overall costs while offering a wide variety of options for consumers while potentially turning a negative impact location into a positive impact location. More to come on these types of initiatives. Investors may notice that our public company brand profile and investor communications have started to shift this quarter and will continue in the current quarter to better reflect the growth story around Sadot and focus on performance from that business unit. We believe there is an ability to become more vertically integrated with the goal of generating higher contribution margins and further diversification. These are opportunities we'll explore as we move forward.
It should be noted that the agri-commodity business is slightly seasonal during the U.S. winter months. Our last two quarters are a good indication of baselines for us to grow upon. Investors may also notice a growing disparity in the operating results between the two business units. Management is committed to focusing our resources on the path that will create the most value for shareholders moving forward. In summary, we're extremely pleased with MMI's performance this quarter, fueled by Sadot and our new diversification strategy. We're confident in our strategy and look forward to continuing growth in the months and years to come. Let's open the call to questions from the analysts.
Thank you, Michael. We'll take our first question from Aaron Grey with Alliance Global Partners. Aaron, if you go ahead, please.
Can you guys hear me okay?
We can, yes.
All right, great. Good evening, and thank you for the question. First question from me, just, you know, nice to see the revenue, the fourth quarter of Sadot. Just on the margins side, so came in a bit lower, 2.2% versus the 3%. You know, could you offer a little bit more color in terms of maybe the reasoning for that margin coming in a bit? And also, Jennifer, I think you spoke to potentially giving some terms to help improve that margin. Further color in terms of that impact that it might have had would be helpful. Thanks.
Okay. Hey, Aaron, it's Mike. How you doing?
Good, good.
A couple of things that are in there. First off, why did the margin come in a little bit lighter than it did in the previous quarter? One thing to consider, it's more than just the margins on the given trades. The trades themselves came in within the industry standards and kind of what we expected. We just remember that the net income is also taking into effect the overhead costs of MMI that are attributable directly to Sadot, right? Increased audit fees and all that kind of stuff kind of play into this first quarter as well, as long as some of the costs that Aggia has as we build that team out.
You know, that's why you see some of the margins being a little bit slightly lower because we had some of those higher costs in those areas. Then do you have something, Jennifer?
Yes. When it comes to, you know, the way to increase margins, it's we're now offering terms to some of our buyers where we may do it, where the profit is extended 60- to 90-day terms just to give us you know, any additional edge we can have on margins.
Okay, yeah, just to follow up on that quickly. If I'm just thinking about just straight margin, just off of the Sadot revenue and commodity expenses, would that have been you're saying that would have also included some corporate expense within that?
If you look at the commodity operating expenses, there's labor in there, and then there's other, what's called Other Commodity Operating Expenses. Those are to pay the traders, to pay the office expense, you know, general operational expenses to get those trades done, is in that line.
Okay. Thanks for that. Then on the working capital needs kind of going forward, right? It sounds like these terms you're offering kind of changed up from what we had seen in 4Q with the business. How do you think about, you know, working capital needs as you potentially offer more terms to your customers?
Yeah, look, I always view all this as really a cash flow scenario, right? You know, one way to look at it is, you know, we've got plenty of cash on hand to take care of all of our operational needs here for the short term. We also have, you know, as we indicated, you know, a little over $4 million coming in here in the next. It was 60 days, a little bit less than that now, right? You know, as each day moves on. You know, we started receiving some of that capital today, as a matter of fact, right, as some of those deposits. We're not really too concerned about needing some of that to execute our business plan at this stage.
Okay, great. Thanks. That help. That's helpful. on the top line, you mentioned, you know, some seasonality in the winter months. you know, offer some further color, if you could, in terms of what to expect now going to the summer. it sounds like that'll be a benefit. if you could provide some more color just in terms of, you know, the clientele, you know, how diversified you are and how you might be looking to increase that diversibility, I think that'd be helpful, to get better color on the Sadot business. Thanks.
Okay. Yep. A couple of things in there, and I'll let Jennifer talk about some of the clientele and the products and things with some stats in there. When you start thinking about the revenue, you know, just in general, there is a seasonality component to this, right? That's really, you know, where your clientele is and the commodities you're trading, whether you're in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere. You have all kinds of different factors that play in there. In the beginning of the year, you also have, which has affected us at the beginning of this quarter, you also have, like, New Year's, right? That in different parts of the world is, you know, extends a lot longer than it is just here in the United States.
All that kind of plays into the seasonality role that's there. One thing to kind of look at and, you know, that I like to really kind of view this as, is we've had five consecutive months now, really since inception, that we've had +$50 million in revenue, and some months going as high as $90 million, right? We think that's a pretty good range, you know, to think about as we move forward, you know, as kind of our maintain area, if you want to say, right? Look, we're trying to expand this obviously, right, and expand the revenue. Some of the ways to do that is through diversifying our operations, and we can do that by adding. I like to call it horizontal, you know, integration.
You can do that by adding additional trade lines or traders, you know, different, you know, clientele that they have across different countries and product types. You can start to, you know, level out, if you want to say, the seasonality factors as you move forward. You know, as you increase the different commodities in different areas in the world that you're trading with and working on. You know, really, it's kind of like if I went and started trading in both hemispheres, I'd be able to reduce some of that seasonality. You know, if we expanded our commodities into things like, you know, pulses and peas or, you know, just different commodities that we aren't trading today, you can start, you know, leveling out that fluctuation, I guess, is one way to view it.
Do you want to talk about the components of that, though?
Yeah. Absolutely. We'll take quarter one, for example. We completed 19 different trade transactions, and of those transactions, that consisted of nine different products from four different suppliers, and we sold those to 15 different buyers throughout 11 countries.
Do that matrix.
I know. That's a lot, sorry. Because of that, you know, as we are able to expand, and we're able to use different buyers, different products, you know, different suppliers in more countries, then that seasonality or that focus, it just expands, and it gives you more, you know, a little bit more leverage on that. You know, in this last quarter, we also shipped multiple types of grains, both human and for animal consumption. The majority focused on, you know, wheat, corn, soybeans. We other did some palm oil and rice. You know, we only had a few different areas that we focused on in Q1. As we expand on that, the seasonality will decrease.
I do think it's important to mention that, you know, the Aggia team, you know, that we're working with, they've got a, you know, a huge, you know, level of experience and a wealth of knowledge that they're bringing to this equation. You know, that's allowed us to, you know, you know, get over the hump of some of these initial startup inefficiencies, if you want to say, and allowed us to hit the ground running and are running pretty hard. It's really good that we've got that experience that's out there and the know-how, and it also allows us to grow, right? They've got, you know, more experience in different commodity areas, for example. They got more experience in some of the vertical integration stuff of farming and shipping and all the other things in between, right?
As we expand this business and bring on these other revenue sources, you know, they'll be able to expand right with us without having to have some of those inefficiencies when you start up these businesses. We are going to be bringing in some additional, I'll just say, personnel. You know, really it's more like traders, and those traders come with their own clientele and their own sources, you know, of product. It's kind of like bringing their, I'm going to use an old-fashioned term, their Rolodex, right? I don't know if everybody even knows what that is on the call, right? They bring their list of contacts, their LinkedIn file, I guess, now, right? You know, and so, you know, you're able to start expanding your commodity trades and all that.
We're taking a look at some of these additional capabilities, you know, specifically in like North America, will probably be the next area that we start to pull stuff in. Hope that answers your question, Aaron.
No, that's helpful. Appreciate the detail, and I'll go ahead and jump back of the queue.
Thanks, Aaron. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Jennifer. We're going to take the next question from Tom Kerr with Zacks Research. Tom, if you want to ask your questions.
Sounds good. Can you guys hear me?
We can. Yes. Thank you.
All right. Just one quick follow-up on the Sadot business and have a few Pokemoto, but I just wanted to beat the dead horse again on the revenue line. You said that the $90 million is a monthly base that you're trying to achieve, but there's still lumpiness. Does that mean the $270 million a quarter, but it might be $200 million 1 quarter, it might be $350 million? You're speaking to $90 million as an average monthly base, if I heard that right?
Well, you know, we don't like to really provide guidance on that per se, but, you know, just in the general discussions, you know, I think it's safe to say that, you know, we've achieved at least $50 million per month, right. Since inception, we've had a couple months as high as a little over the $90s, right. I know that's a pretty wide range, you know, and it can fluctuate like that depending on the quarter and the season that you're in. Somewhere in that range is what we're expecting to have as, you know, as a base, and then we'll start growing off of that by adding all these different, you know, verticals in, into the equation.
Okay. Just following up on that. There's not an extreme lumpiness. There might be a little bit up and down, but it's not where you'd see $210 last quarter, $150 next quarter, $350 the third quarter or anything like that.
Yeah. I'm not sure I have enough experience in it, you know, in history since we started this to really, you know, dictate how it looks for the rest of the year. You know, I think it's pretty safe to say you'll be in that range, right? You know, the, you know. Yes, it will be a little bit lumpy depending on the season, but, you know, we'll kind of watch that out as we kind of move forward.
All right. That helps a little bit. Quickly on the Pokemoto, there's 45 that are expected to be opened. Do you have a timeframe on that? Is the first part question. How many will be open and operating by the end of the year?
Mm-hmm.
If you do that even by quarter. Second part of that is, Any headwinds that in these openings, is inflation a problem, labor, real estate? Anything like that that might slow down these openings.
Okay. Yeah, let me kind of go into that a little bit. Pokemoto, you know, is part of our restaurant division. As you guys know, we have, you know, Muscle Maker Grill restaurants, Pokemoto restaurants, and Superfit Foods. Pokemoto is what we're focusing on. That's all of our strategy and our growth on the restaurant side of the equation. As you mentioned, we've got right now today, we have roughly it's actually a little bit more than 45 locations or agreements that have been sold but haven't been opened yet. As a matter of fact, we just sold four more locations here in the last couple weeks. We sold a three-pack in Houston about a week ago, which, you know, adds to that market.
We also sold our first franchise agreement out of Alabama in Mobile, I think it was, that we sold as well. We're expanding into more states there. A lot of growth that's happening in Pokemoto. There are fluctuations from when you sell a location to when it actually opens, and that is totally strictly dependent upon the individual franchisee and the real estate availability in their market. Some franchisees will already have a location lined up. They've already negotiated the lease. They're ready to go. When they sign the franchise agreement, they're off and running, and you can open that, you know, in two months to four months, right? You get them through their training and they're ordering their equipment, any build out, and they're up and running, right?
Other franchisees will wait to start looking for real estate until they sign the agreement. Obviously, that will take a little bit longer. In those instances, you know, on average, it's somewhere between six months and nine months before they open. Could be sooner, could be later. Again, it all depends on the negotiations with landlords and availability of space that's there. For 2023, we are projecting, based on what we know of franchisees who have locations or are close to having locations, we're projecting to open up between now and the end of the year, I'm sorry, 15, not 50. 15 and 20 locations between now and the end of the year. We're pretty confident in those numbers. Could grow, depending on, you know, how some of these landlords, you know, come in.
You're also signing up franchisees along the way. As those are opening, you're also then refilling your pipeline, right? We'll continue to have a pipeline for openings, you know, as we move forward on this. Again, if somebody signs like the three-pack in Houston, they're not going to open all three at the same time. You know, they'll open them, they'll stagger them over a couple of years, right? Or, or even, you know, sooner than that if they're comfortable. You know, usually it's over a couple of years for that amount of stores. You do have that that's in there. You asked about inflation and all that kind of stuff and headwinds. It's interesting. My experience in franchising is you'll sell franchises when the economy is great, right?
Because people will be like, "Okay, I'll buy a franchise. I can invest in a business." You won't sell as many as you will when the economy glitches. That sounds weird, okay, but when layoffs start in the economy, a lot of times people look to how do I create a job? I just got laid off somewhere, you know, there's not a lot of hiring going on. I'm worried about what I'm going to do, and they get angry. I'm never going to work for someone again. I'm going to do all this. A lot of times it actually starts shifting in the franchise sales. I know that sounds, you know, a little bit opposite of what you would think, but that's been my experience in the past. We're starting to see that a little bit now, okay?
As the economy glitches, our leads are still coming in, but as layoffs are starting to occur, we are starting to see, you know, some acceleration in franchise signings over the last, you know, 30 to 45 days. That might be a glitch, a one-off, I don't know, That's been kind of my experience as you move forward. You do have some concern out there from franchisees in general. As the interest rates go up, a lot of these guys will finance the build out, right? As interest rate goes up, that obviously you know, affects their costs, right, to build out a location. That does become a little bit, you know, problematic as interest rates get too high. You're always, you know, going across this.
Now, I think did you also ask me, Tom, about just in general how, like, inflation and food costs and all that is basing on it, or am I reading into that too much?
No, that's just the general input into whether it's affecting these openings that have already been signed.
Okay.
Is it just all part of the plan?
Yeah, I don't think it's really. I mean, like I said, we've already got the 15-20 that we got pretty much on the books. We're really confident in those. Those are people that have either, you know, most of them have already got their funding. They're already in some kind of a process with opening up construction or finalizing off their negotiations with the landlord. We're pretty confident in those, you know, for coming across. We haven't seen really anything slowing that down per se. Again, you know, if interest rates go through the roof or whatever, then that could be a problem, but not anticipating that happening right now.
Great. That's helpful. I'll get back in the queue.
Okay.
Thank you, Tom. Thanks, Mike. We'll go ahead and take the next question from Rob Goldman with Goldman Small Cap Research.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Hi, Rob. Yep.
Great. Thank you. Great job on the quarter. A couple of questions on Sadot and one on MMI. With respect to Sadot during the quarter, was there any notable concentration of business in a specific food or commodity or geography? I know Jennifer went through some of those numbers, but I didn't know if there was a heavy concentration in one particular segment there.
When you actually look at that, you know, like I said, we were in 11 different countries and stuff like that. There wasn't two countries where all of it went to. It was pretty evenly spread amongst the different countries that we worked in. Same with the suppliers and the buyers. It wasn't one buyer or one supplier that made up the bulk of it. It was pretty spread evenly between those.
Okay. Perhaps then, given this, albeit short experience, the ability to reduce some of the variability in revenue, might be then, some of these initiatives that Michael mentioned earlier, on whether it be the product side, or geography. I guess...
Kind of making that flat, so to speak, what would be a combination of both or are you leaning more toward growth in a product line first and geography second, or is it just too early to give us that information?
I think it's actually going to be a combination. You know, looking to expand, you know, when you expand the traders, you add traders, those are adding different commodities, different areas, you know, different countries. It's adding all of it. When picking up new products that we are buying and selling and going into new geographical areas, I think that combined will actually level it out.
Okay.
Does that answer your question?
Yes. Then on the legacy business, what type of metrics does Grill plan to use for some of the combination Muscle Maker Grill, Pokemoto locations to be considered a success? Is there a number that you have in mind that you plan to open this year and next year?
Yeah. Let me jump in here. I guess the way to look at, the way I look at these dual concepts, right? Just so everyone's on the same page, what this means is we take an existing Muscle Maker Grill restaurant, like we just did this in Fort Sill, in Lawton, Oklahoma. It was a Muscle Maker Grill restaurant. We add a Pokemoto to it, right? It's two restaurants running under the same roof. You get to leverage the same manager, you get to leverage the same, you know, facilities like freezers and coolers and all that kind of stuff. You know, you get, not a lot of the product per se, a little bit, but you get to leverage those type of things, right?
Which, you know, gives you better, you know, efficiencies and helps reduce your costs. You know, the first thing that we did, and we just launched this first one about 30-45 days ago, and the numbers we're seeing are very impressive so far. I mean, we literally are, at this stage, probably, you know, 3x-4x the revenue at the Pokemoto than we had at the Muscle Maker, right? Which is significant. You know, we're looking at revenue. We are looking at overall blended food costs. Really, it's trying to take, you know, locations that are underperforming and get them to be performing, you know, for lack of better definition, right? That's our first measurement, right? To get these things at least to break even and then start making money afterwards.
Again, only being 45 days into it, we don't have a whole lot of, you know, data behind it yet, but so far it looks pretty encouraging from that. We'll be looking at the standard, you know, revenue and food costs and labor costs and, you know, on the bottom line on these. You also asked about how many we're thinking to doing here. You know, we have our second one opening up here soon. If not this week, then next week. We're just literally waiting for our final inspection basically, and it shifts around a little bit, but in Chelsea, New York, right? We'll have that in the Chelsea area for anybody that might be up there.
We've got a couple other ones that we're contemplating on a couple other of the military bases, that we have locations. That'll be kind of how we start addressing the legacy business. As we mentioned earlier, we're looking at each one of the different locations. We're trying to figure out, you know, if there's underperforming locations, can we close it or what can we do to make it performing? This is one of those ways of looking at it. We're aggressively trying to analyze some of that legacy business.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you, Rob. I guess we'll go ahead and move on to Mr. William Gregozeski . Hopefully, I pronounced that right. Mr. William, we'll take your questions now. You are with Greenridge Global, I see. Do you have any questions for us?
Yeah. Just on the restaurant business, what is the plan, I guess, near term, and then after Aggia, you know, effectively takes control of the board of that restaurant business in general? You mentioned strategic alternatives, is that something where you might sell all of them off or part of it or divest in some way? What's their kind of plan for that business?
Yeah. I was having a little bit of trouble hearing you, but I think I got it. You're asking about what is the plan for the restaurant business, moving forward just in general. Excuse me. Sorry. The way to look at it, again, there's three segments that are in there. You've got Muscle Maker Grill, you've got Superfit Foods, and you have Pokemoto. Pokemoto is what we're focusing on. Our strategy there is to grow Pokemoto through franchising. I keep mentioning franchising over and over again because we are taking a look at our legacy business when it comes to corporately owned and operated locations. You know, in a lot of those instances, those are underperforming, and some of them are old locations that have been around for a long time.
We're taking a look at those to see whether or not we should close them. Or if not, if the leases don't allow us to do that or it just doesn't make sense because that is a, an issue to consider, you know, then we look at, you know, making it a dual location or even in some cases, a complete conversion. We're going through that from the Muscle Maker Grill locations one at a time, trying to figure out how we can optimize those. We do talk about strategic, you know, alternatives, or initiatives that are out there. You know, look, we can take a look at. That's really more of a longer-term thing.
Is there a way for us to, you know, eventually, if the business warrants it, to spin off the restaurants or a portion of the restaurants? Again, we're still looking at all that stuff, but our immediate fix now is to, you know, sit there and try to get these locations profitable and/or if we can't, to close them down and cut some costs from that perspective. Yeah, we're taking a look to, you know, cut costs in that area, that side of the business, which allows us to focus in, you know, just on Pokemoto itself and then also the Sadot business.
Okay. On the cash that's being generated now from Sadot, what is the plan for that cash? Do you guys foresee any need to go back to the market to raise more money?
Yeah. Right now we're not going back to the markets to raise money. We don't need that. You know, today, we're able to execute our business plan. The cash that's being generated out of Sadot, you know, what we're really doing is, you know, taking a look at it from a strategic perspective. That money is going to get reinvested into Sadot in one capacity or another. We've got a, you know, a share buyback program that we announced, so some of the cash can go towards that. We do want to be hiring in some additional trade personnel. As we mentioned earlier, that's kind of the, you know, the horizontal integration of the business, right?
As we add more of those trade personnel, they bring in their clients or their Rolodex, whatever it might be, you know, for that to come in. You know, we take a look at that as well.
We're also using some of that money, you know, that cash in there, you know, to give additional terms, you know, to give ourselves a little bit of leeway so we can offer terms to our customers to kind of build our margin. We're you know, using the cash that way to reinvest in Sadot.
Yeah. When I do say we're not going back to raise capital or whatever, we are opportunistic, right? As we look at the vertical integration stuff that's out there and some opportunities, you know, that could require, you know, us to maybe take on some debt or something like that to, you know, acquire some of these things. Again, we're analyzing all that stuff as we speak and, you know, it's a little bit early for us to talk through more than the just that at this stage.
Okay. Last question is, you mentioned adding the traders for Sadot. How many traders do they have now? Then how many, you know, are you looking to add, just to get a sense of how fast the revenue might grow?
Yeah. Well, I think a good way of looking at it is, you know, how many people are in Aggia, because a lot of these guys aren't just pure traders, right? They do other, you know, facets of the business as well.
We have roughly 20 people-
Yeah.
on the Aggia consulting team. They consist of, you know, traders, operational people.
Is there any, like, number you're looking to add on that?
You know, I don't think I have an exact number, because. Again, I'm oversimplifying it by saying add the trader. It's more than just one person. Sometimes you're, you know, making a partnership or an agreement with a trading company, you know, or whatever to do stuff. It's a little bit of a, of a gray area to answer, I guess, right, directly. It's not one-to-one, but it's really more of looking at the different businesses that are out there to do it.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, William. I think we have run out of time today. That's all the time we have. Let's go ahead and wrap up the Q&A. Thank you everyone for your questions. Mr. Roper, do you have any final comments?
Yeah. Look, just in closing, you know, I do want to thank all of our shareholders and stakeholders for their support. You know, and supporting our initiatives that are out there. I know we've done a major pivot, and there could be a lot of questions that are there, and we're doing our best to get the narrative out there of exactly, you know, kind of what we're doing. We do feel that, you know, the message, you know, is getting better and people understanding kind of what's happening here on things. You know, I do appreciate the patience, and I do want to thank our employees for everything they do. I do think we got an incredible team, not only at MMI, but also at Aggia who are working with us. You know, we're working really well together.
You know, between the two, they're really, you know, who deserve all the credit for our success so far, and that was you know, being part of what we built, you know. We're going to continue to build here and move forward. You know, with that, I'd just like to thank everybody and, you know, one last final thing, go Blackhawks. They got first in the, in the draft and get to get Connor Bedard.
Wonderful. Thank you all for joining. We'll go ahead and conclude the call.
Thank you.