Burcon NutraScience Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

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August 12, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Revenue rose to CAD 1.3 million in Q1, up 54% sequentially and more than threefold year over year, while the operating loss declined 7% quarter over quarter.
  • Positive Sentiment: Burcon reported more than 40 active buying customers, recurring orders across its protein portfolio, and continued records in daily and weekly production, supporting management’s claim that its technology is scaling commercially.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management expects revenue to reach a double-digit monthly run rate by year-end and cash flow to turn positive early in the calendar year, driven by new customer conversions and increasing order frequency and volume.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The company plans to raise up to CAD 8.1 million through convertible debentures, with proceeds earmarked for labor, inventory, production capacity, efficiency improvements, working capital, and debt repayment; the financing could also create future shareholder dilution.
  • Positive Sentiment: Burcon sees significant growth potential from mainstream demand for higher-protein, lower-calorie foods and GLP-1-related dietary needs, and intends to expand Galesburg capacity to capture anticipated demand while retaining longer-term licensing opportunities.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Burcon NutraScience Q1 2027
00:00 / 00:00

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Burcon NutraScience Corporation fiscal 2027 first quarter conference call. Joining us today are Kip Underwood, Burcon's Chief Executive Officer, and Alex Varty, the company's Interim Chief Financial Officer. Following their presentation, we will open up the call for questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. Before we conclude today's conference call, I will provide you with the company's Safe Harbor statement with important cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made during this call. Now, I would like to turn the call over to the CEO of Burcon, Mr. Kip Underwood. Sir, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Natasha, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and thank you to all of those who have joined the call today. For today's call, we would like everyone to walk away with three takeaways. The first is there is a convergence of things right now that present tremendous opportunity for Burcon. Consumers are seeking more protein. Food companies need innovation to deliver against that consumer need, and Burcon's proven technology enables food companies to deliver against that need. We solve food companies' problem. Second, simply put, we are executing our plan. We are producing and selling day by day, week by week, against our expectations. Third, we are investing in our future. We see demand, customer demand, coming down the pike, and we are going to invest to be ready to meet those future customers' expectations. Our Safe Harbor statement. I mentioned the market, the protein market specifically.

Speaker 1

You cannot watch television, stream a show, walk through a grocery store right now and not see that protein is everywhere. Not too long ago, protein was niche. Now it is a mainstream consumer sought-after benefit. 30 years ago, people who sought after protein were motivated. They were athletes. They were willing to make trade-offs. Today's consumers will not make that trade-off. They want higher protein, lower calories with no compromise on the eating experience. They want their protein to be food that they enjoy. That is all further accelerated by not just health reasons, but consumers on GLP-1 weight management medication. They specifically need higher protein and lower calories, and they need to be able to incorporate those foods in their everyday life. It is a great time for a company that delivers protein to food companies as well. We can quantify this growth.

Speaker 1

Tremendous demand, CAD 17 million-CAD 20 million in incremental protein growth. There are supply constraints out there. As demand has increased, supply constraints has surfaced against our potential competition. Tremendous growth, particularly with GLP-1. We are only at the beginning of the growth runway, long-term growth runway for consumers seeking protein and then companies that provide that protein to food companies. Why does this matter for Burcon? I mentioned the convergence. We have consumers seeking protein. We have food companies who are trying to figure out how they meet that unmet need without taste trade-off. The way companies meet those consumer needs is they need purity. They need purity to put protein in a food product and still deliver the taste expectations everybody wants. They want them to buy that food product once, twice, three, four, five times.

Speaker 1

Burcon's unmatched purity that is delivered by our technology platform enables food companies to solve that problem to meet those consumer unmet needs. Specifically, it's not in the platform. It's not across one product, it's across multiple products. We have launched our Sunflower protein, our Peazazz protein, our FavaPro protein, and our Puratein canola protein. All of these are delivered by our technology platform and their core feature, their core benefit is unmatched purity, again, which enables food companies to deliver against those consumers' unmet needs. Details on our presentation today. We've talked about the market, what a great opportunity it is. We've talked about why our technology is so relevant in today's market. We need to get to some of the details. We'll talk about the highlights from our fiscal 2027. We have a sales update, production update. We'll talk about the financing that we released today.

Speaker 1

Why are we doing it? What does it mean? Summary, and then obviously we will have time for closing remarks and Q&A. First quarter highlights. I mentioned one of the takeaways was execute the plan. This slide is we have executed the plan. The first piece is customers. We've surpassed over customers purchasing our ingredients. This is the ultimate validation that we can in fact deliver against our promise. We can deliver that unmatched purity that then enables food companies to deliver to their consumers. Every day, every week, we consistently produce more protein, produce more products by shift, by day, by week basis. You've heard me say before, we cannot sell it until we can produce it, and we are producing more every day.

Speaker 1

We are investing today, right here, right now, to increase our capacity to meet the customer demand we see coming down the pipe from our sales funnel. Again, I've mentioned several times today, simply put, we're executing our plan. With that, I will turn it over to Alex Varty for our financial highlights. Alex, please take it away.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Kip. Burcon's Q1 financial results demonstrate the progress we continue to make on our strategic plan. In the current quarter, we earned revenues of CAD 1.3 million, representing a 54% growth rate quarter-over-quarter and an over threefold increase over the prior year-ago quarter. More notably, Burcon has posted sequential quarter revenue growth every single period since we launched operations at the Galesburg facility. Further, as we've scaled production and revenue at the Galesburg facility, we have done so while maintaining a focus of our resources and our financial spend on production. This quarter, we generated a 7% decrease in the operating loss quarter-over-quarter, driven by that revenue growth and supported by our relentless focus of our resources on revenue generation and on production. Today, we announced an offering of convertible debentures raising gross proceeds of up to CAD 8.1 million.

Speaker 2

In this transaction, we expect significant insider participation, underscoring the belief that insiders have in our forward-looking vision and in our ability to execute on our strategic plan. The convertible debenture financing is expected to allow for investments in growth, through direct investments in labor, in inventory and production capability, in planning future capacity expansions, and increasing efficiency of production. We also intend to use a portion of the proceeds to retire certain debt obligations and for working capital, thereby shoring up our balance sheet and our capital structure. Remains an exciting time for Burcon. Kip does an incredible job of explaining how our operational progress and on the market opportunity and as well as how we can and how we are positioned to capitalize on that opportunity. There is incredible power in seeing the translation of those operating achievements into the financial results.

Speaker 2

In particular, how we continue to scale the production volume and the revenues every single quarter, with there still being significant growth available for us. I will turn it back to Kip to provide more color on the sales and on production.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Alex. I mentioned 40 active buying customers. We do have tremendous growth quarter-on-quarter, on year-on-year. What I would like us to focus more on is what is the direction of the travel? Are we seeing sequential growth? Are we broadening our customer base? The answer to that question is an emphatic yes. Across our 40 active buyers and our more than two active products, we have great diversity across the type of customer, some large, some more entrepreneurial, more cutting edge, across types of food products. It ranges from beverages to powder mixes at home to plant-based foods. So great diversity across different food types. Lastly, great diversity across our products. We have sales of our entire portfolio into all these products and all these types of customers.

Speaker 1

Really it is about the trajectory of the sales and the growth quarter-over-quarter and then eventually year-on-year. We cannot sell it until we can make it. Day by day, week by week, we are driving production excellence. We have mentioned in the past, we have achieved several record production levels. That could be on a day or by a week, and this matters fundamentally because we are clearly demonstrating that our technology platform scales across multiple products in a day in, day out production environment. Not just internally by our information, by the customers I just mentioned. The best validation in the world of are we delivering day in, day out consistently, is customers going from the evaluation process to the purchase process to repeat buy. That is the best validation that our technology is delivering and our production facility is delivering that technology in a consistent basis.

Speaker 1

Because of all of those things, we see tremendous demand coming down the pipe. The market opportunity, the differentiation our technology provides, and our sales funnel. We've announced a fundraise. Fundamentally, that raise is to expand production. It's to invest in people, efficiency, and equipment. It's to support the expansion of our portfolio. And fundamentally, as that demand comes at us, are we ready to fulfill that demand? I also want to just take a moment and go back to our strategy. We started off our strategy, it was relatively simple. We would put our technology in the Galesburg facility, prove that technology, prove commercial relevance, prove margins, prove price points, and put Burcon on a strong financial footing. Then we would scale through licensing after that point. What we have discovered is we have an incredible capital efficient way to expand capacity here at the site.

Speaker 1

We have a capital efficient way to expand capacity. We have obviously the tremendous demand coming from the consumers that we've talked about. This really says it's not a change in the strategy, it's we would obviously be foolish not to take advantage of this growth opportunity, put Burcon on a stronger footing, further prove out the value of our technology, and then in the future after that, the licensing opportunity still exists. To speak to the financing a bit, again, we expect significant insider participation. We're currently working through a bridge loan to get us to the financing completion. That is, again, all about leaning in and investing for growth, expanding in people capability, production capability, and the funding ability to meet and exceed our customers' expectations.

Speaker 1

The finance will be a convertible debenture, 48-month in length, and we still do have access to a CAD 3 million remains undrawn on tranche two from our senior secured loan. This entire package allows us to continue to accelerate growth investments today, right now, today, tomorrow, and the day after, while we finish the future fundraise. This is also on a parallel path. We are working with our manufacturing partner, ProMan, for them to also make subsequent investments that allow us to increase the overall capacity and capability of the facility here in Galesburg, Illinois. When I look at Burcon today versus a year ago, we've come a long way, and the technology is commercially proven. Customers are validating our products. They're buying the most important way is that it's repeat purchase. They're coming back and buying our product again and again to deliver that product to consumers.

Speaker 1

The only way they're doing that is if consumers are buying that product again and again. That is the ultimate validation that our technology delivers against the expectations. As we continue this progression, revenue growth will follow. Our job is to execute day by day, week by week, month by month. As we convert more of our pipeline into customer adoption, we grow recurring revenue and build out the facility here into an engine of strong growth and financial performance for Burcon today. What I want everyone to walk away with, really, I want to repeat this, is the opportunity is there. It's huge. We have a technology platform that delivers unmatched purity, which enables food companies to meet consumer unmet needs, and we are executing in a manner that we will capitalize upon that opportunity.

Speaker 1

We'll continue to post percentage growth quarter-on-quarter, year-on-year, but I want people to pay attention to the trajectory. Day by day, week by week, we continue to grow our production capability, our sales capability, and we will keep doing that. We'll eventually deliver strong financial results. With that, I will leave it to Natasha, to the operator, for any questions. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the 1 on your touch tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Dave Storm with Stonegate. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hi, everyone. Evening. Thank you for taking my questions. Kip, I wanted to start with the 40 active buying customers. Could you help us get a sense of who's still testing products, who's moved on to repeat orders? Maybe not who, but as a percentage, who's testing, who's moved on to repeat orders, and maybe how that compares to the top of the sales funnel that hasn't converted yet?

Speaker 1

Sure. Thanks, Dave. I appreciate the question. Let me provide a little texture there. First, what we look for in our sales funnel and in our actual sales is diversity again. So we have active sales across multiple food types. First is think about any food product you see that says 10 or 15 or 20 grams per serving on the front of the package, that's a bullseye for our technology. That happens in beverages, it happens in powder beverage you mix at home, it happens in nutrition bars, and then it happens in a variety of plant-based foods. So those all food types we both have customer projects in and active sales in. Second thing is the type of customer. We are very clear with everybody. We want to work with smaller, more mid-sized entrepreneurial brands. They move fast. They're on the cutting edge.

Speaker 1

We're aligned on values. They're more profitable, and they grow faster. The majority of our funnel is, in fact, those types of customers. We also have a couple of what I call anchor customers. These are brands that most people would know and recognize, and they provide kind of the foundation volume load for the facility. The last is, again, those two first categories, type of food product, type of customer. We have sales of all of our products across those. So great diversity in terms of food type or application, type of customer, and across our entire portfolio, which really gives us a strong foundation for growth into the future.

Speaker 3

That's great color. I appreciate that. In the response there, you mentioned diversity. Again, I know you've kind of touched on that a lot this call. Even with the diversity, though, are there any product lines or food types that are maybe leading the charge that you see having an outsized growth or maybe that you get most excited about?

Speaker 1

I think first, a lot of protein in this area is really sold in powdered beverages for general health and wellness that you mix at home. That's where most protein companies start. So that's where a lot of our business is. Where I'm most excited about moving forward is there are a whole host of foods that did not have protein traditionally. Think snacks. Think more snacks or beverages that don't traditionally have protein, but now people need those to have protein in them. That's a really difficult thing to do. It's very difficult to put protein into a snack at a level that's meaningful, and then also that snack still tastes great, still tastes like a snack.

Speaker 1

We have lots of projects in that area in plant-based foods, where without our technology, without our unmatched purity, maybe food companies couldn't deliver to those end consumers, both the protein level and the taste experience those consumers want. So those are the areas where we get most excited, the maximize of our technology, enabling food companies to do things they could not do before.

Speaker 3

Understood. I appreciate that. Maybe pivoting over to the financing, is there anything more you could tell us about that, maybe in terms of how much is earmarked for growth spending, the anticipated deployment of that capital

Speaker 3

how long does it take you? Anything like that?

Speaker 1

Well, a couple thoughts. First of all, we anticipate the close to be very quickly after our annual shareholder meeting on September 16. So from a close perspective, think late September, early October. From a usage standpoint, this is entirely about growth, Dave. This is about investments that drive production efficiency, investments in people that drive better customer response or better customer outreach and/or drive production scale. So 100% of these proceeds really are about us getting ahead and driving growth and being prepared for not just the demand we hope for, the demand we can see in our sales funnel coming at us in the near future.

Speaker 3

That's great to hear. I appreciate that. Maybe one last one, just a macro question, and you mentioned GLP-1 usage at the top here. Just any further thoughts around maybe what inning we're in? Are you still seeing a lot of experimentation, maybe a lot to be captured if you're a first mover? I know I'm throwing a lot at you here, but also, are you seeing any differences between the U.S. domestic market versus international markets with GLP-1 uptake and maybe the downstream impacts of that?

Speaker 1

Well, I guess first I would say we're in the first inning of a very long baseball game, to continue the analogy. We're just getting started. I think it's good to remember that protein in general was already being sought after by more and more consumers. You're really stacking the GLP-1 usage on top of growth trend that already existed. The last GLP-1 consumer penetration numbers I saw for the U.S. were high single digit. So there's certainly tremendous, much higher consumer adoption expected for GLP-1 usage. Then as that continues to occur, then people's diet needs will change, which is great for us. Relative to global, I believe there's a good opportunity in Europe, but Dave, I'm not really qualified for that. We're very focused on North America right now.

Speaker 1

There's plenty of opportunity here in North America for us to meet, if not far exceed our financial expectations.

Speaker 3

I completely understand. Looking forward to 2027 and thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Dave.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. We have a question from Spencer Propper with New Finance. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Yeah, thanks for letting me. Just a quick question here. With Q1 revenue reaching CAD 1.3 million and repeat orders beginning to build, can you give us some indication what revenue run rate you believe is achievable over the next two or three quarters? What specifically needs to happen for Burcon to reach cash flow breakeven?

Speaker 1

Spencer, thank you for the question. What we've communicated is we expect double-digit revenue by the end of the calendar year. Right into the calendar year, we expect to cross over to be cash flow positive. The drivers for that really are we execute the plan. We have our customer funnel, so we know who the customers are. We continue to work with them as they launch new products or change price in the marketplace. That's the opportunity side. To meet that opportunity, we need to continue to execute on the production side. That's shift by shift, day by day, week by week.

Speaker 1

Towards the back half of the quarter, we're going to need to have some of the capacity expansion pieces we're speaking to in place to ensure we can continue to meet the growing customers in the calendar Q4 and calendar Q1 of 2027.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you very much. That pretty well answers my question.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

As there are no further questions, I will now hand the call over to Alex Varty. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hi, I am just going to read the questions out from the webcast here, we have one minute.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 2

Hi, Kip. Congrats on another growth quarter. It is great to see the company has recurring sales. Is the company still on pace for CAD 10 million per calendar 2026? That would make for a significant second half to this year. Do you have any idea what revenues might look like after the infrastructure investments?

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jason. We always knew that our revenue growth would be somewhat backend loaded. First is we have to be ready from a production side to deliver. Second is as we get another customer across the finish line to adoption and purchasing. Each new customer is growth. Then as you get a new customer, the first thing they do is they will buy once a month, then the next month, they buy twice a month. Then the next month, they buy a larger quantity, but twice a month. Then eventually they buy a larger volume month on month on month. Your growth really stacks two ways. It stacks both as we bring in new customers, then remember, our customers are attacking this growing protein market.

Speaker 1

Then you stack their growth on top of our growth, and that is how you get to both a backend loaded, if you think about the calendar year, backend loaded growth. Then that is how you see really an exciting run rate going into calendar 2027.

Speaker 2

There is no more questions from the webcast.

Operator

Thank you. Everyone, that is all the questions we have for today. At this time, this concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Underwood for closing remarks. Sir, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Natasha, and thank you, everybody, for taking the time today. I would like to finish where we started, the three takeaways. There is a convergence of things going on in the marketplace today that present tremendous opportunity for Burcon. Consumers seeking more protein, food companies needing innovation to meet that consumer need, and Burcon's delivery of a proven technology platform at commercial scale, at the ready to solve those problems. Second, sometimes boring, we are executing the plan. To hit our financial expectations, we have to do by day, by week, by month, is produce and sell. We are executing that plan, and we will continue to do so.

Speaker 1

Third is with that tremendous opportunity in front of us, we need and must invest for the growth that we know is coming down the pike, and we know we will be ready and can be ready for that in the future to drive further growth for Burcon into 2027 and beyond. Again, thank you all for your time. I appreciate it.

Operator

Before we conclude today's call, I would like to take a moment to read the company's safe harbor statement. This call contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements or forward-looking information involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements or forward-looking information can be identified as words such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "project," "estimate," "expect," "believe," "future," "likely," "can," "may," "should," "could," "will," "potentially," and similar references of future periods. All statements other than statements of historical fact included during this call are forward-looking statements.

Operator

There can be no assurance that such statements will provide to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements of information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Burcon's plans and expectations include the actual results of business negotiations, marketing activities, adverse general economic market or business conditions, regulatory changes and other risks and factors detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by Burcon with security regulations and stock exchanges, including in the section entitled Risk Factors in Burcon's annual information form filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators on www.sedarplus.ca. Any forward-looking statements or information only speaks as of the date on which it was made.

Operator

Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Burcon disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Although Burcon believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and accordingly, investors should not rely on such statements. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded, and the webcast will be available for replay on the company's website starting later this evening. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us today for our presentation. You may now disconnect.

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