Charlotte’s Web Holdings, Inc. (OTC:CWBHF) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Fortune: And one last quick follow-up, you mentioned — provide a little more color near-term. I mean, you said the softness is kind of executing the transition, right, were going on. But I heard in your comments, you’re seeing a little bit of the consumer challenge inflationary prices. How much of kind of softness is tied to kind of maybe transition versus the consumer side of things right now?

Jacques Tortoroli: Yeah, look, I think there is clearly a shift in the consumer, there has been a shift from the consumer to the tincture format, which is at a high price point into a more affordable price format. So I don’t — that’s hurting our revenue because of the mix, the price, the products mix issue is depressing revenues in that regard. But for me, it’s really more about our execution and some of the things I just mentioned in your last question. We’re This is a year where we’re, we really laid a foundation for the company across up and down the P&L in the organization, in our strategy and resetting to be able to grow as we go forward. And I can’t wait to get to 2023 and beyond at this point.

Operator: Your next question comes from Derek Dley of Canaccord Genuity.

Derek Dley: I was just wondering on the pricing side, given the price compression or at least the consumer shift towards the more of the value end products, are you starting to see some of the smaller — I guess they’re all smaller, but some of the competitors in this space start to go away just given those challenges that they probably can’t — they probably can’t handle them?

Jacques Tortoroli: Yeah, well, great question Derek. But, in our remarks, I think in Greg’s remarks we talked about, in food/drug/mass and in the natural channel, the shrinkage of facings on shelf in store in some of those customers and in those channels, and that’s taking products that don’t turn off the shelf. So our competitive set is losing shelf space at a much higher rate than we are. We believe that, when you say — and in my experience as well is that, in interesting times their consumers tend to flock to quality and what we’ve really — through the MLB relationship through the NSF certification, it’s another stamp of quality. Why we deserve to be the premium price product in the category, and that’s only going to be helpful to us as we go forward.

So we do expect a contraction of competitors. And quite frankly, when you look at the market, the single biggest increase in the market is in vape shops and gas stations, and we’re never going to play there. That’s not where Charlotte’s Web should be, is, and will ever be. And so when regulation happens, which is what Jared was alluding to earlier, that all goes away, that all goes away, the total market may contract. But that’s okay, because we’ll just have a bigger share of the true marketplace for CBD behind wellness, behind quality and behind the amplification of awareness that MLB gives us as we go forward. So I’m super excited about the future. I think this will all shake out hopefully next year. But there’s one brand that deserves to stand, and it will, and that’s Charlotte’s Web.

And as we build out our portfolio of international markets, again, in a really smart, efficient financial way, that’s going to provide some additional top-line growth over time as well. So, I hope that answers your question.

Derek Dley: And then just on the shift that you’ve seen, and continue to see on tinctures towards gummies, is there anything you can do to drive a higher margin within that gummy product line? And it looks like it’s going to continue to be a bigger and bigger portion of your revenue?

Jacques Tortoroli: I mean, clearly at the moment, we have on gummies. But Jared, can fill you in a little bit of color there.