Village Farms International, Inc. (NASDAQ:VFF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

We’ve always said we need to know what we’re launching in ’26 right now and plan for that, so that’s where we stand. With Delta 2, actually we’ve turned that back on and we see good things coming ahead there for us going forward, so.

Pablo Zuanic: Can you share some color at the provincial level – I mean, there’s been quite varied–according to Hifyre data, significant variance in terms of your penetration by province. Can you give color there in terms of what opportunity is like? Thank you, if you can.

Ann Gillin Lefever: Pablo, sorry – we missed your question. Can you ask it again?

Pablo Zuanic: In terms of provinces, whether it’s BC, Alberta or Ontario, whether you can give any color in terms of the momentum in share. When I look at the Hifyre data on [indiscernible], there seems to be significant variance in terms of the company’s share penetration across provinces. I don’t know if those numbers are right, but whether you can give some color in terms of your room to increase share across the various provinces, if you can give that type of color. Thank you.

Ann Gillin Lefever: Pablo, it’s Ann. It’s a great question. You are correct – we have strongest share in Ontario and it tapers off from there, and this is something that Orville and his team are very focused on. There are nuances in each province as we get closer and closer to understanding what drives consumption – it does vary, and they’re really onto addressing each province’s variances quite directly, so I think that’s a place that you’re going to see some share improvement going forward.

Pablo Zuanic: Okay, thank you. Then just one follow-up, Mike, on the international side. I guess again a two-part question. Your export number, 1 million to 2 million per quarter, that’s in the range recently, but I understand that a good chunk of your wholesale business not branded domestic gets re-exported. I don’t know if you can give some color on that number, would it be, like half, one quarter? I don’t know if you have visibility on that. But also related to that, when you look at the opportunity in Germany, do you need to get–I think the question came up before, but do you need to get more aggressive in terms of going deeper there, in terms of finding various importers or even selling branded product there? How are you thinking about that? Thank you.

Michael DeGiglio: Yes, we are very aggressive, and we will get more aggressive. But you know, these companies that Steve had mentioned, a lot of them are starting up and they don’t have the wherewithal, the balance sheet, so we’re working with a number of companies, distributors actually in Germany, and very solid in the U.K., so I think it’s going to start showing more so, but we are aggressive about it. We’re increasing our staff going forward. But look – I would probably say, I wouldn’t be surprised if across the board, we approach a third of the cannabis that’s being exported in one form or another, through us or through others, is in the international market today, so we made a decision that with the capital markets the way they are and not knowing what the future is, we want to continue to generate earnings so we can plow that back into expansion, like Steve mentioned Leli Holland – we’re funding that completely ourselves.

So right now, that B2B business especially on the international side is interesting for us, but it’s on parallel track with us developing our own brands internationally as well, so we like that sweet spot right now, building out but keeping our balance sheet strong and generating cash flow. But I would say probably 35% of the exports internationally are probably coming through Pure Sunfarms.

Pablo Zuanic: Got it, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Livshits with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Eric Livshits : Hi, Eric Livshits in for Frederico Gomes. What kind of impact do you potentially you see from recent developments in Germany and the Netherlands having on near term international sales, and you mentioned that you are looking at expanding to other European markets, would you be able to provide some color on what other markets you currently find attractive? Thank you.

Michael DeGiglio: Well, it’ the markets that become legal, like Denmark. Some of these markets are much smaller than others – you know, Germany is just a whale, but Switzerland, there are markets talking about recreational as well. The Netherlands for us, being the only North American company that has one of the 10 licenses, we love how the Netherlands has set it up. When we look at how we operate in Canada–you know, the Netherlands is a limited license country and if you look at the U.S., where the greatest margins are by the LPs in the U.S. they’re in limited licensed states, so take that same philosophy to the Netherlands, 10 license holders, no excise tax, the Dutch government wants to hold pricing, our pricing is very–the margins we expect there are very high.