Hydrofarm Holdings Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HYFM) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

But that part of the industry is very stagnant right now. There is not a lot of building going on and you see it really show up in all of our numbers, all the industry numbers on the durable side and particularly on the durable manufacturers that have that much more exposure. But yes, I think we are going to get kind of a normalization in the legacy states, if you will, and you will get new adapters in these new states eventually. It’s just been a lot slower than we all hoped, and we all thought would happen back 2 years ago.

Bill Chappell: Absolutely. Thanks so much.

Bill Toler: Thank you, Bill.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Jesse Redmond with Water Tower Research. Please proceed with your question.

Jesse Redmond: Hey guys. Congrats on the progress this quarter. My question was also on growth opportunities, specifically as it relates to new states opening and what impact do you see that happening? For example, this year, we saw Missouri earlier this year. And now with Maryland on July 1st, you saw a lot of the MSOs ramping up production. In anticipation of that, so curious how helpful that has been – and also looking forward into like a ‘24, it looked like there may be some good opportunities with big states like Ohio and Pennsylvania moving to adult use. So, just curious what kind of impact you have been seeing in ‘23 with new states opening and any thoughts on how the landscape might look in ‘24 and how that might impact you?

Bill Toler: Yes. Thanks Jesse and appreciate the question. Yes, you are kind of on the right track there. Those new states are nice parts of the opportunity in parts of the upside and the green shoots that we are seeing. The challenge is that we used to call it the tri [ph] here, right, the California, Michigan and Oklahoma. Those three were doing 50%, 60%-plus of the industry at one point. And it didn’t matter what happened in Missouri, in Pennsylvania and even in Vermont. If those three don’t come along with you the scale of numbers never work. And so what’s happened is at least finally now the legacy, the older states, which always go to California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, kind of that core group they are not in as bad a shape as they were, so they are not in the drain they were.

And a few of the newer ones are coming on. We used to use a rule of thumb that a state would legalize and about nine months later, you would start getting some volume from it now. It’s getting pushed out with all the legislative bureaucracy that’s going on, the lack of alignment on how these things need to get rolled out and how they get licensed, that’s really creating this delay. So, places like New York, New Jersey have been a couple of years now, in some cases, 3 years. They really haven’t seen a lot of the benefit from that. And so you are going to see more of that. I think that people have learned and watched and realize that these people that implemented slowly all of space and hurt what the citizens want and so let’s get on with it.

So, places are going to get smarter, like Missouri is doing a pretty good job on it. I think Pennsylvania and others are going to come along and they get it all that straightened out. But New York and New Jersey have been the ones that really kind of dragged our feet and hurt us. But we think there is a little bit of signs of hope there as well.

Jesse Redmond: Any read on how California is looking and in California, and it still feels miserable here cannabis wise, maybe on the margins, not getting as miserable. It seems like we had a pretty significant – pretty significant reduction in canopy, which I am guessing, was it helpful for you guys. I was just curious if you are seeing any stabilization or potential green shoots here?