Jamieson Wellness Inc. (JWEL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone, to Jamieson Wellness Investor Day. This is our first ever Investor Day. So we're really happy to be here, and we're really happy that you all joined us today. And to everyone who's listening, thank you for joining in. Today, we have a great agenda plan for you all. We're going to work through a lot of details of the company. We're going to share with you our global vision and strategy. We're going to give you a peek under the hood and give you some more details on the company and really help you understand how it all comes together. Our managing directors are here. Our entire leadership team is here that functions, and they're really going to walk you through what makes Jamieson special, how we do what we do and how what we do is repeatable and how it's a process that happens year after year, quarter after quarter to drive the growth that we have and to take advantage of the growth opportunities out in the marketplace. And you'll get to meet a lot of our team members today. So I'm Mike Pilato, President and CEO. And with me today and presenting through the day, you will see our leadership team. This is an amazing team of experts in what they do, an amazing team of professionals that help drive this company forward every day. And part of the magic of Jamieson is this team. And what makes it so special is on the screen right here, you see a mix of people that have decades of vitamins, mineral and supplement experience, and you have people on here that have decades of Tier 1 CPG experience. And when you put that together, you get the amazing business that's Jamieson Wellness and you get the amazing results that we've been driving for years and especially since we became public in 2017. We have been on a mission, and we have been on a journey. And that journey has been to change the Jamieson Wellness business and internally to change the Jamieson Wellness mindset. And when I talk about it, I talk about it in these terms. We have shifted from being a Canadian company, a small Canadian company, from being a Canadian brand and from doing some business internationally. That's how we were 5, 6 years ago. We were Canadian. We did a little bit of business off the side of our desk internationally to really changing how we operate, how we are structured and what we do around the world. Today, we're a global company that has Canadian headquarters. We have global brands, and we have a strategic focus in high potential markets outside of Canada. In 2017, when we went public, our branded business was 10% of the revenue coming from outside of Canada. Today, it's more than 50%. And we've done this, and we'll show you in a minute while Canada continued to grow. As we went down this path and through this journey, the strategy has been to take advantage of some real growth opportunities and really to champion us into being a global powerhouse. And we have 4 business units from a branded perspective that we'll talk about today. First of all is Canada. This is where our legacy is 103 years. We're strong here in Canada. We're the market leader, 2 to 2.5x larger than the closest competitor. And we use that strength to launch ourselves globally. We entered the U.S. market as the next frontier when we acquired Youtheory in 2022. We accelerated our growth in the second largest market in China in 2023 when we purchased our distributor assets and did a JV with DCP, who's here with us today. And we've continued to grow in other high-potential markets like through the Middle East, through Eastern Europe and through some Asian markets, all high potential markets in our expansion strategy, and our team members will come up in a little bit and talk about each one of these. We have had tremendous results since we went public. We went public in 2017. And as we closed 2024, we took a look back and said, wow, we've grown 156% on the top line, 150% on the bottom line. Our cash flow has grown 261% since we went public, and our dividends have delivered 150% growth over that time. We've delivered over $200 million back to shareholders since the IPO. And I can tell you, we are very proud of these numbers. We're very proud of where we've taken this company, and we're even proud of where we're going to take it, which you'll learn about today. We like to say we're just getting started. We're a 103-year-old company that's just getting started. And why we say that is if you just take a step back to 2017, we were a $286 million business, 90% of our branded business and 70% of our total business was done in Canada. We closed 2024 at $734 million. 53% of the business was Canadian and it grew to $333 million. And over the next 3 to 5 years, our goal is to surpass $1 billion in revenue. And Canada will be about 35% of that mix. What's interesting is in here is we've done all of this global growth and all of this expansion. While our key market, Canada continues to grow. We continue to invest here. We continue to drive margins here. We continue to drive leadership here, expand our leadership here. And we've taken the Canadian business from $200 million to over $300 million, and it's on pace to cross $400 million in the next 3 to 5 years. So all of this global growth has happened while we've continued to grow our core, strengthen our core and make sure that it is healthy here in Canada. We've gone through some interesting times in the last 5, 6 years from COVID to high inflationary periods. And we get a lot of questions about how does the category react in these times. And if you go back to in COVID, we talked to a lot of you about how we believe that the category would just accelerate growth through COVID and that it wouldn't step back post-COVID. And this slide right here breaks down the time frames. From '16 to '19 pre-COVID, the global category was growing over 5%. When we stepped into those COVID years, we saw an acceleration of households adopt the category and stay in the category, and we saw a spike of almost 8% growth through that time frame. As COVID came to a close, and we're now through COVID and a few years of it, the category has gone back to pre-COVID growth rates of over 5%. So the category is resilient. We'll talk about some of the trends driving it. We'll talk about why, but the category is resilient. Growing pre-COVID, accelerated through COVID and then continued to grow post-COVID in a high inflationary period where costs and discretionary spending came under pressure. This category is not a discretionary category. It is a staple in consumers' lives that take vitamins and they are looking to improve their health. This, of course, is all fueled by global megatrends, some amazing megatrends that power our business. We're very fortunate to be in the vitamin mineral supplement category. It is one of the fastest-growing CPG categories in the world, and it is fueled by megatrends that have been around for a while and have just been accelerating. The first one is an aging population. For the history of the category, when vitamins were created, it's typically an older demographic that enters the category. You get into the category in your mid-40s, your 50s, and you continue to add products as you age and your health journey increases or becomes more important to you. So that continues. The population is aging around the world. We're expecting 2.1 billion elderly people or people who are in the demographic that buy vitamins by 2050, 2x today. So that's growing the category. For the first time ever, though, the category is growing by the second trend here, which is a younger demographic getting into the category at a much earlier age than ever in the history of vitamins, minerals and supplements. 56% of Gen Zs have started taking supplements in the last 2 years. We've seen this younger generation grow through the millennial generation, and we're seeing accelerate with Gen Zs. We're excited about this. We're grabbing some of that growth, and these are the consumers that will fuel this category for years to come. There's rising disposable income in emerging markets. We continue to grab hold of these markets where you're seeing more and more consumers come into the category because they want to improve their health, but also come into the category because they can afford to invest in their health, and they're taking their dollars and they're making that investment. We see increasing focus on health and wellness prevention. This is a very key trend. The world is focused post-COVID on preventative health or what we call self-care, not waiting to get sick, not waiting to react to something, not waiting for the hospital or the doctor to take care of you, but trying to get ahead of it. There's a stat out of Europe recently that 70% of European health care is spent on preventative health, not reactionary health, but preventative health. And we're seeing those trends in every market around the world and in every major market that we do business in. And number five, informed consumers. Consumers have more access to information than ever. Vitamins, minerals and supplements is a very complicated category. It is actually a category made up of dozens of subcategories to meet all kinds of different health needs. There's all kinds of different regulatory worlds out there. There's many ingredients. There's many scientific studies. But what access to information does is educate people on what they should be taking, why they should be taking it and why they should be getting ahead of their health. Two out of 3 consumers around the world feel empowered today to get control of their health, and it's because of this access to information, and we take advantage of that everywhere we are in business. You look at all those megatrends, you look at the opportunity, you look at the resiliency of the category. And we have 2 global brands that are uniquely positioned to win, and they both stand for quality. And you're going to learn about what that means today and what the consumer believes is quality and what the consumer looks for when they shop and how our 2 brands perfectly match the purchase attributes of the majority of consumers looking to improve their health. We, of course, have our Jamieson brand, our flagship brand on the left there. It's everything from A to Z expertly made product, really focused on purity, potency and presence. And John Dougherty, our Chief Science Officer, is going to be up here later to talk about what that means in our product. And of course, we have Youtheory that we bought in 2022. It's focused on elevated wellness, pure natural proven science, perfectly matches what consumers are looking for around the world and perfectly matches what Jamieson Wellness stands for. And Paul, our Managing Director for the Youtheory business will be up here later to talk about that. One of the key strategies you'll hear throughout the day is what we call globally consistent, locally relevant. Successful CPG brands around the world follow a model where they take advantage of what works globally but are able to be flexible and agile to grab on to opportunities that are local. It's not one size fits all. It's one size fits a lot, but you have to adapt to each market and make sure you're consumer relevant and make sure that you're talking to the consumers with products they want in a way they want to be served and in a message that's culturally relevant. So you'll see examples today of where we're globally consistent and locally relevant. Here are some product shots. You can see on the left, these are globally consistent products. You can see our vitamin C and our vitamin B in multiple countries around the world. They look the same. They're the same -- in the same bottle, very similar claims, maybe a little bit different regulatory profile, but they're globally consistent. You look on the right, those are local innovations that we launch for those markets. There's a couple from China there. There's one for the U.S. Those are products that are relevant to those markets, and we're able, through our innovation powerhouse and our agility and flexibility to launch into these markets with products that mean something to those consumers. So the core of everything we do in our global expansion is globally consistent, locally relevant. You'll hear a lot about that today. When we decided where to grow, we looked at markets around the world. And our big 3 growth pillars are Canada, China and the U.S. And you've heard us talk a lot about these over the last few years. To put some context to it, Canada, of course, it's our home market. We're going to continue to grow here in our home market. As I said earlier, we're the clear market leader, 2 to 2.5x larger than our closest branded competitor and expanding our market share leadership every year. We continue to outpace market growth in Canada with everything we do. And Eric is going to come up later and talk to you about where the opportunities for growth still sit in Canada. And it is really an amazing presentation to understand that even though we're the leader, there's still tons of runway for growth here in Canada. Household penetration in Canada for the category is 75%. That means at any given point in the year, 75% of Canadian households have a vitamin mineral supplement product in their covet. Jamieson is at 40%. That alone gives us a 35% gap to close over time. China, $30 billion market. We have over 200 SKUs in market today between cross-border e-commerce and our retail business. E-commerce is over 50% of the category in China. That is a great opportunity for a company like Jamieson and a brand like Jamieson to grab on to market share, to grow e-commerce is controlled by companies internally, not by retailers giving you shelf presence. So we've leveraged that market and that e-commerce growth market to really grow our business and get into consumers' households. We're also on shelves. You'll see some examples of that today. We're also in retail. But with e-com being such a big percentage and such a high-growing channel, it has given us an opportunity to really enter and penetrate that market. What we're proud about in China is we've had over 6 years now of our growth outpacing market growth in China. We now have a track record in China. This isn't happening. This is a trend, and we're going to continue to drive that trend forward. And of course, the U.S. is the world's largest market at $40 billion. We have about 65 SKUs. We have some power SKUs that Paul will talk about later. But what's interesting about China is 5 retailers only control 20% of the market, and e-commerce now is between 25% and 30% of the market. So again, a market that's accessible to brands that want to grow and emerging brands that want to scale. When you look at Canada, 5 retailers control 85% of the market. A emerging brand can't just come to Canada, enter the market, grow at speed and scale. They have to get the shelf space. They have to get the regulatory approvals. In the markets where we're growing, we can drive this in a way that leverages e-commerce, that leverages retailers that don't have control of the market and that take advantage of our strengths. Of course, everything we do sits on the values of which we live every day here at Jamieson. And those values are accountability, respect, excellence and agility. And in each one of these are behaviors that we talk about that help drive our performance. And as a company, we're very disciplined on ensuring every dollar we invest, we understand what the ROI is on that. We understand what do we expect in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, what kind of return do we think we're going to get? And then we track, are we getting it? Do we need to pivot? Do we need to change? Do we need to leverage that value of agility and do things differently. We have extreme financial discipline as a company, and you see that in our results and our margin structure and what we do as a company. We're always talking about margin, margin improvement. How do we grow the top line sustainably so that it's sticky and it's repeatable and that the consumers are loyal so that, that in turn drives margin improvement, drives scale and drives leverage. What sets us apart as a company? I look at these as our competitive advantages, and you will hear about these throughout the day. You're going to hear about them through every presentation. You're going to hear about them whether it's a business unit leader talking to you or a functional leader talking to you. This is the core of what makes Jamieson special. First and foremost, we have unparalleled consumer insights. We eat, breathe and sleep vitamins and consumer behavior and consumer insights every day, every minute of every day. We are vitamin experts, and we are noted as that on the global scale. We have consumer-relevant innovation. We are an innovation powerhouse. We launch a lot of new products. This is a market or a category. I talk about this often, that is made up of bunts and singles. There's very few home runs in vitamins, minerals and supplements when it comes to innovation. Most of what you launch starts out as a [ bunt ], turns into a single, turns into a double and then hopefully, over a few years, turns into a run. And that is because when you launch new products in vitamins, minerals and supplements, you're asking consumers to change something in their life. You're asking them to change the behavior. You're asking them to add something. You're asking them to improve their health in a way they haven't before. And you usually don't just launch and hit a run. You usually launch and it builds up over a few years. So we look at innovation on a 3-year success cycle. We have a pipeline of innovation that is multiple years long, and John Dougherty is going to walk you through how that whole cycle works today. The third thing is leading global regulatory expertise. John is going to talk about this as well. This one is really important. The regulatory models around the world are different, and you have to have the expertise in-house to understand how to meet those regulatory standards to get products on the shelf in most countries around the world. We have this. It is not uncommon for me to hear from competitors out in the marketplace that say, Mike, we're watching what you guys are doing from a registration perspective. We don't understand how you're doing it. How do you guys get all these registrations? And John is going to walk you through some of that today. And then number four, we have unmatched product quality. The entire company, everything we do, everything we touch, everything we manufacture is built on this platform of quality. We own the quality standard in Canada. We are owning the quality standard globally and consumers are looking for quality, and that's what we do every day in everything we touch. Let's talk about each one of these a little bit. When it comes to unparalleled consumer insights, it's really driven by data. We get asked a lot, where do you guys get all your insights from? And really, it is a combination of many things. We have quantitative studies that we conduct. We have qualitative studies. We have third-party research. We do some custom research. We use digital platforms, right? Every time someone buys something online, there's a data point there that you can address, that you can analyze, that you can understand. And of course, we have great customer data from customers who are willing to share those data points down to sales per store, sales by type of customer, demographics. There are some customers out there that really have good granular data, and we're able to access that and able to put that into our insights world. We bundle that all together with an amazing team of individuals led by Matt Taylor, who's also here. He's going to be on a panel later, and they are the ones who build this is what consumers are looking for. This is why they're looking for it. This is how they're looking for it. And we're able then to connect those insights to our marketing, to our innovation, to where we sell our product, to our pricing and really make this all come together into a successful company. An example of those insights is our consumer segmentation. We don't just throw products out there and say, "Hey, whoever buys it, buys it, great. We're very, very focused on understanding the vitamin mineral supplement consumer globally. This is a global segmentation model we update regularly. And what's important in the segmentation model in the CPG and marketing world is this isn't a study of demographics. This is a study of behaviors. How do these potential consumers behave? What are they looking for in their lives? Why would they buy vitamins, minerals and supplements, and who is the highest potential segment to buy that is interested in the category. If you look to the right there, you see 2 categories or 2 segments that we're focused on, and you'll see this consistency through every business today. We're focused on what we call the efficiency explorer, and we're focused on what we call the quality seeker. And when you look at the bottom there, that's the value of these consumers in the U.S., China and Canada, the biggest markets in our focus markets. Those are the 2 biggest segments. Those are the 2 biggest segments that are looking for what we offer, and we're taking advantage of that every day in everything we do. If we dig a little deeper on these, you can see that they -- we understand them and we understand how they buy vitamins. So let's just talk about the quality seeker for a minute. which is on your right, we're just missing a headline here. They're looking for superior quality and natural vitamin minerals and supplements. What we know about them by country is they buy 84% of VMS daily. They use vitamins and supplements daily, 84% of them in Canada, 89% in the U.S. and 74% in China. They're a highly engaged segment, and they want vitamins. We understand that they use 6, 7, 8 products in their repertoire. They don't just buy vitamin C and take it every day. They take up to 8 different subcategories a day, and they must have natural ingredients, be advanced, be highly effective and be of high quality. We understand this consumer as well or better than anyone. We know anything about them. There is oftentimes I'm out there, I'm talking to people, they say, how do you guys do what you do? And we say because we know more about you than you know about yourself. We know your behaviors, we know how you buy, we know where you buy. We know what you're looking for, and we're able to match that in market. Our consumer insights are deep, and this is just one example of what we understand about them. We are an innovation powerhouse. I talked about innovation a minute ago. When you have great consumer insights and you have great science insights and you match those together, that's where you get powerful innovation. And when we talk about innovation in all of our presentations today, you'll see innovation comes in many formats for us. It comes in continuing to grow in foundational growth categories that we've been in for a long time. It's innovating in emerging trends like GLP or stress relief or sleep. It's regionally specific health needs. I showed you some of the locally relevant innovations we've launched in the marketplace. Not every market is looking for the same health products. The example I always give is in China, bone health is a very over-indexed category to Canada, but vitamin D is a very under-indexed category. So we'll innovate more locally on bone health in China, and we'll innovate more locally on vitamin D in Canada. So regional specific health needs and trends we follow. New science, new science comes to the market, we're on it. We understand it. We see it 1, 2, 3 years ahead, and we're ready to go when that science becomes something that the mass markets are looking for. We innovate and training our new formats. You see gummies there on the left, Eric from our Canada team is going to talk about gummies later. And of course, new and improved. On every product we have out there, we're constantly saying, can we improve it? Can we make it better? Is there science out there? Is there an insight out there that can make this product better? Everything we do again is on the foundation of being science-backed, being leading in regulatory and ensuring that we have unmatched quality and a regulatory ability to spread these 2 great brands around the world with ease. We have dozens and dozens, I think, hundreds of registrations around the world. And at any given time, we have dozens and dozens of new registrations sitting with regulators for approval for potential innovation. We are on it all the time. With all of this, this is what we call the wheel of wellness in Jamieson. Everything I just talked about, combined with great marketing from all of these insights, really works to drive loyalty, repeat purchase and stickiness in our consumers around the world. We have very high loyalty and repeat rates around the world. You'll see a little bit of data on that, that we're willing to share today, but it is quite impressive. And it's because we take all of these great things we do. We take this deep knowledge of the consumer and deep knowledge of science and deep knowledge of the category, and we pull it all together in the wheel of wellness. It starts by getting our consumers to move into our brand on the left circle there, get them to come into the category or into our JWEL brands and just take a product. And we follow them. Take that product for 3 or 4 months. In 3 or 4 months, you really start to feel the health benefits of an efficacious product. And we have efficacy in everything we do. So they start to feel those health benefits and they start to believe in the category. And they go, wow, this works. Like this is -- I feel better. I feel I have more energy. I'm sleeping better. My inflammation is down. Whatever the health benefit they may be looking for, they start to feel as we embed this product in their life. Once they believe, then they start to grow. They start to buy more products, they start to stay compliant to their regimen. They start to trade up to higher-priced products, higher-margin products, and we can move them across to buy more categories. If I have trouble sleeping, and I'm not sure if melatonin works and I buy it and I take it and I'm sleeping well, in my head, I now go, wow, vitamins, minerals and supplements work. You know what, my knee has been hurting. I'm going to try a product for anti-inflammation or I've been getting sick a lot. I'm going to start taking immunity products or I have a gut issue. I'm now I'm going to try probiotics. It's much easier to convert a consumer once you turn them into a believer. And when you see them start buying subcategories of your brands, they become ambassadors, and they start telling the world, buy more vitamins, try vitamins, try Jamieson. And this is the algorithm that we live every day with all of those competitive advantages I just walked you through. Our purpose, of course, is inspiring better lives every day. We talk about it every day. We focus on this every day. And our mission is to make consumers healthier, to inspire better lives for everyone, including our team internally, our stakeholders, be it customers or our shareholders. Every day, we're focused on this, and I hope you get a lot out of today. I'm going to be up and down throughout the day through Q&A periods to answer any questions you have. The leadership team is now going to present for a majority of the day. I hope you enjoy meeting them all. They are an amazingly talented group. I'm very fortunate to get to work with them every day. And first up is Joel Scales, who's going to talk about China. He is our Executive Vice President of Jamieson International. He runs everything outside of Canada and the United States and strategic partners for us, and he also runs our global strategy team. Joel, over to you.

Everyone can hear me okay? Fantastic. As Mike said, I'm Joel Scales. I have the very distinct pleasure of working with our teams who lead our business in China and international, everything outside of Canada and the U.S. And I'm very happy to be able to represent what we're doing there around the world to build the Jamieson brand. Okay. When we talk about China, we're talking about building an international powerhouse. And as Mike said and you saw in the video before, it's all about how we combine this idea of global consistency and local relevance. And when we talk global consistency, for us, it specifically means that we're bringing the highest quality products and process to market with a trusted brands based on our expertise in the space and then bringing authentic in who we are and what health and wellness means to us and how we can deliver that to consumers, specifically in China. And when we think about locally relevant, we have this phrase that we use in China, call it China for China. And really what that's about is how do we take that insight, that passion, what we know about the market, what we know about the consumer and really use that to drive our growth in that market. And so what that comes together, you'll see on the other side of the page to mean for us from a structural perspective, is local general management and leadership and our team on the ground in China, in addition to governance through representation on the JWEL Board of Directors. And then our third-party partner, DCP, who you'll be hearing from a little bit later on. And together, that group is ensuring that, that local relevance, China insight, China innovation, China-based consumer understanding is permeating everything that we do to really drive that connection of the globe and local to really win locally. As Mike mentioned before, China is the world's #2 VMS market at around $30 billion. It's grown significantly in the past. We anticipate great growth in the future. And as I joke with Paul in the back, we're coming for the U.S., and we will be #1 soon in terms of VMS markets. And what that growth has meant for our business. Mike talked about our striving to be $1 billion in the near future from a Jamieson Wellness perspective. And China plays a critical role in that. You see the percentage of our business growing from kind of where we are in 2025 to where we're going in the next 3 to 5 years at about 25% to 35%. So really ambitious targets for the market. It's something that we are incredibly confident that we can deliver against based on what we'll go through in the next few pages. And so our aspiration in China is to be the most trusted and recommended health and wellness brand. And that will position us to best meet the needs, the evolving needs of the Chinese consumer. Now since we launched back in 2000, we brought over 200 SKUs to the market, and that's been the catalyst for significant growth. Mike talked about our innovation machine and how we bring that to market. That's what's driven those 200 SKUs. And that's what's provided significant growth for us over the past 25 years. And we talked about in 2023, working with a fantastic partner, DCP. We've seen acceleration of that growth, evidenced by an almost 50% growth rate over the past 5 years and strong growth predicted for 2025. Now thinking about DCP and partnerships in China, our focus is on finding the right team to combine with. That's critical for us to grow and to be successful in this market. And DCP was the clear choice because they bring these industry-leading capabilities, like a deep understanding of the consumer and their experience building brands in China that truly delight that consumer. Connections across channels, both in digital commerce and retail to ensure we have sound go-to-market strategies that win at point of purchase, deep knowledge related to government relations and business culture, how do we ensure that we can work seamlessly in that market to do what we need to do and reach those aspirations that we have. And then adept at navigating regional complexity, right? We don't know what we don't know and having a partner on the ground there really helps us understand and break through some of the walls in a complex and ever-growing market. And so we're well set up for future success through the combination of Jamieson's industry-leading capabilities and DCP's specific experience in China, and Juan will be up a little bit later to talk a bit more about that. And so now when we think about how we show up, how we go to market, what does our channel strategy look like? Our focus is on meeting the consumer where they expect to see international health and wellness brands. And for us, that means continued growth in e-commerce, both on traditional platforms and emerging social platforms. We'll talk about that a little bit later and then thoughtful expansion in brick-and-mortar retail. And you'll see an example above at the top of the page of how we've shown up in club recently. And I think it's a great example of what you'll see when you see Jamieson in market. And so when we think about e-commerce, I want to do a little bit of level setting here. So it's important to understand the scale of the marketplace across various platforms. So this outlines the size of all goods moving through these platforms. This isn't just BMS. I don't think this is just our category that's selling through there. But it gives you a sense of size. And you'll see Tmall at over $1 trillion in sales per year on down to Pinduoduo at about $600, JD.com at $500 and Douyin, who you might know is TikTok here in North America at $200 billion. And just to put that in perspective, that $1.1 trillion behind Tmall, that is significantly greater than any other channel, any other banner that we see globally. So you get a sense of the scale and the size of that market, particularly around e-commerce. And so what that means for us is that to win in a space like that, we need to be able to reach consumers. And one of the ways that we do that is through celebrity spokespeople. And when executed correctly, these campaigns allow us to reach a large number of consumers to really drive awareness. And through that awareness, we're able to bring new consumers into the brand. And so I'll give you an example. Here, we have Mr. Lin. He is a very famous actor in China. And at the time when we signed our partnership with them last year, he was putting out a movie and a couple of television shows. He was incredibly hot at the time when we signed him. And in our work with Mr. Lin, we were able to drive almost 2 billion, that's billion with a B, consumer impressions in the market and really engage with those consumers, almost 2.5 million like deep engagement. This isn't just they click through and check the website. This isn't just that they purchased. This is that they became a part of our Jamieson ecosystem and really started to follow and engage with the brand. And when we leverage spokespeople like this, and you'll see this example throughout a few of my other slides, the idea is that we need to ensure that we're hitting the consumer across multiple touch points. We like to call 360-degree marketing. It's not just one visual on your phone. It's not just one out-of-home execution. It's how do we bring it all together to consistently deliver the message and really break through in what is a crowded, competitive and fast-growing market. So in addition to celebrity spokespeople, we use KOLs, key opinion leaders, thought leaders. And we leverage these KOLs on social commerce platforms. And that's a core driver of both immediate sales, a lot of eyeballs, a lot of purchase, but it's also something that will lead ultimately to future sales as more and more consumers are introduced to the brand, become aware of Jamieson and become aware of the benefits and the products that we sell. So I've got an example of a live stream that was run in 2024 for vitamin C, and we will play that right now. [Presentation]

All right. I use that example because it is -- for those of us that are here in Canada and know the market, it's very different than what we see and very different than how we experience the brand. And so I think it's a great example of how China is different and how we take something that is globally consistent in our product and make it locally relevant to the consumer in the marketplace through these live streams. And I would be remiss if I did not point out that through this specific execution, we sold about $1 million of product in under 5 minutes. So these are tools that we use strategically on a regular basis to grow with our consumers. And so given those examples of how we engage and connect, it's important to think about the competitive landscape and what does this market look like. Mike talked about it a little bit earlier on about the fragmentation of our -- of the competitive landscape in China with only -- the biggest brand has only about 10% of the market. And we compete with local players like ByHealth, but then also international players like Swisse and Blackmores, Centrum, et cetera. And you'll see a mix of brands that are specializing in specific subcategories or those that play across multiple other categories. And why that's important for us is because this fragmentation represents an opportunity for us. So there's plenty of room to grow with a high-quality international brand that offers a breadth of product benefits across multiple subcategories and something that's as fragmented and fast growing as the Chinese market. And so to win in this market, we're focused on using digital marketing, which you saw a little bit of before, to meet our consumer where she expects and wants to see us. And our primary focus here is on driving brand awareness and trial. We've talked about the 2 billion -- over 2 billion impressions that we've gotten in 2024, which is a great start down that path. But then also, secondarily, we want to make sure that we're building the Jamieson brand equity. And we do that with a focus on quality and efficacy of our core messaging, really taking what Jamieson stands for around the world and making it relevant to the local consumer. And so we talked about a bit of how this can come to life. And this is that 360 marketing view. So if you look at the middle, this is kind of our digital marketing campaign around Mr. Lin, talking specifically about vitamin B. And then we'll see some out-of-home examples of how that came to life. So we had a great activation over there on the left. This was near our office in Shanghai, and we invited consumers to come by, experience the brand, talk to some of our spokespeople there. And then the image on the right there is just kind of in transit throughout malls, that sort of thing to really drive that message home and really surround the consumer with our messaging. And so we've generated interest. We're driving brand equity. We've got awareness, but now we've got to close the loop, right? We have to really drive that purchase. And how we do that is based on where we assess these platforms that we play on. And when assessing those e-commerce platforms and our presence here, we're very choiceful in the role that each one plays and how that fits our overarching strategy. And we're continuously evaluating and adjusting our plans based on that. And so in doing that and assessing those platforms, we look at the platform growth rate, and that changes over time. Sometimes platforms are hot, sometimes they slow down, but they are always innovating. They're always competing with each other for traffic and for sales. And then we also look at our efficiency on each one of those platforms. And by finding that right balance, we're able to take 20 to 24 platforms that we're present on and really find the right role for each at any given point in time as we execute against our strategy. And that enables us to be more efficient and effective over time as we gain more and more experience in building that business. Here are a few examples of what our storefronts could look like through digital. When we first built this slide, we had a laptop that was showing what that interface or what that website would look like, and we needed to change it to mobile because that is how most of those purchases are happening. They're happening on phones and not necessarily on the laptops that I see here around the room. But in addition to e-commerce, this also applies to our retail business, right? How are we closing the sale? How are we looking at that part of the market because it's important to us as well. And for bricks-and-mortar retail, we've got to focus on 4 key areas. Number one is about really nailing the basics of retail execution, and that includes portfolio optimization and maximizing the consumer value proposition. In addition to that, we want to make sure that we are driving and developing high-quality distribution. We want to be in the right banners, right, where it's a good fit for our target consumer and where they will value the value proposition that we're bringing to the table. And then once they're there, once they're at shelf, we've got their attention, we have to focus on conversion and closing the sale, right? It's not just about awareness. It's not just about building equity. I also need you to make that purchase. And our focus across those 3 areas is what's driving our success in our domestic retail business. And then while we do that, we're always constantly looking for those emerging channels, those new ones that are building and that are growing in a fast-growing market. It's incredibly important that we have our ear to the ground, so to speak, to understand where consumers are going, where shoppers are going and how we can best meet their needs there. Okay. And so you saw our club example a little bit earlier on. These are a few other examples of Jamieson in retail. If you didn't know it, sometimes you might think you're in a Canadian store, the presence that we've got there in terms of how we show up, but we definitely have strong presence across a variety of retailers, again, where the consumer expects to see international brands like international retailers, select hypermarkets, et cetera. And so in addition to being at the right place, at the right time, with the consumer, we also have to have the right product to really meet the consumers' needs. And so when we think about the top 5 purchase attributes that the Chinese consumer, our target is looking for, it's around brand reputation, right? Mike talked about the quality seeker. One of those key indicators of quality is the reputation that a brand has and brings with them. Our product potency, ensuring that what we promise on the front of the pack is what we actually deliver, high-quality ingredients, so they do not have to worry about what's in there. You can trust what you're getting from us, ensuring that the ingredients that we have on the label are what's in there, nothing more, nothing less. And then the ability to have that breadth, right, that broad imported across cross-border e-commerce and then domestic presence. And we do all of that across the 6 prioritized need states that represent about half of the total market. And that's energy, that's immunity, that's bone health, as Mike mentioned a little bit earlier, eye health, liver health and heart health. And by focusing on those needs and bringing the product that -- and the brand proposition that really resonates with the consumer, that's how we ensure that we're bringing the right products at the right time. And so here's how our consumer shows up in China. This is our quality seeker. As Mike talked about, this is not a demographic segmentation, but it's needs and behavioral based. But when you buy [ medi ], you buy on demos. So we've got a few demos here, 30- to 45-year-old female living in Tier 1 to 3 cities. Those are the biggest cities in China, upper middle class, and that's around $100 million that we're targeting there. So think of that as our bull's eye. If we win with her, we'll be able to radiate out and continue to grow our business as she looks to solve the health needs for both her and her family. And we've got that in the category section there. So thinking immunity, eye health, quality of sleep and energy, both for her and her kids, right? And for kids, it's the same around eye health, brain health, liquid calcium to help kids grow strong. That is a key focus of that consumer. And from a brand, she's looking for high potency, as we talked about, easy absorption to make sure that she's getting all of the benefits that we talk about on our packaging and something a little fun and engaging as well, specifically for the kids. And in addition to that primary target, we also have secondary targets of just under 200 million consumers there. So there's definitely sufficiency of our targeting to ensure that we can grow to achieve our growth aspirations for the future. And then thinking about our innovation, obviously, this is not everything, just a smattering of what we've got, but it plays a critical role in how we win with that consumer. this is another example of global consistency and local relevance as we evolve what innovation looks like in China. So starting from the left kind of in the past as we took products that were well known in Canada and geographically expanded those into China like time release vitamin C, time release vitamin B complex for stress into last year, where we're really bringing more products that are directly made for the China consumer. Mike showed this one a little bit earlier, but [ Vitapak's ] as an example of that, our [ Vitapak's ] in the middle. And then to the future, 2025 and beyond, right? So really focused on those key need states like lung health, bone health, heart health, eye health, you see all 4 represented there through a mix of kind of standard formats, but then also some fun formats. That would be our liquid calcium and our kids Chewable Lutein. So you'll see that this ties directly in with those key need states that we talked about a few pages ago and the needs of the consumer in this market. It's a great example of us taking our expertise that we've got here from John and his team and really combining that with local insight, local understanding of the consumer to form that great kind of global, local partnership to drive innovation that really works in China. And so what's critical in all of this is our speed to market, how we move at China speed through both understanding needs and building efficiency in the process. And to do that, we have to ensure that we're continuing to deliver innovation with pace, optimizing both local and global efficiencies to help us do that. And in doing so, we're able to steadily grow the value of our innovation with an innovation pipeline over the next 5 years of around $90 million, and we'll continue to build and evolve on that as the consumer and the market changes over there. And so what's next? Like where are we headed after this? So it's very simple, and I talked about it kind of throughout the presentation. Number one, obviously, you need to continue to get to know the Chinese consumer so we can continue to delight her on her health and wellness journey. And this includes driving locally relevant innovation like I just took you through, right? The better we understand the consumer, the more able we'll be able to meet her needs going forward, the needs of her and her family. And then we ensure that we win at point of purchase, right, where she expects to encounter us, where she expects to see health and wellness, we need to win, and that's both across e-commerce and retail. And as we continue to do those things, we'll see continued success in China, not just over the next 5 years, but well beyond that. So thank you very much for your time. Please feel free to ask any questions.

Thank you, Joel. Hopefully, that gives you some great insights into China, how we think about China, what some of the opportunities are. Chris will be walking through financials later in the day, some margin conversations, some revenue conversations and the financial structure of the company. We're happy to take any questions now you have for Joel. Juan is coming up next, if you have DCP questions. Juan will have a Q&A session at the end of his part 2 that we can talk specifically about DCP. But any questions for Joel about China, the strategy, the growth aspirations or anything he talked about or anything on your mind, we're happy to take.

Who do you see as the most formidable or intense competitors that you seem to be running up against most frequently?

It's a good question. Sometimes it depends on category. I think if you remember the competition slide that I put on there, we have some that are very focused in certain subcategories. So Centrum and Multis, Caltrate on the calcium and bone health side. When we think about kind of players across a wide variety of subcategories, Blackmores and Swisse are the key branded players that we're looking at and that we continue to watch in the market. But again, they don't have a huge percentage of market share. So there's still tons of opportunity for us to grow even with that competitive set in market.

We keep an active list of them all, Jeff. And we -- like who's next on that list, let's go catch them let' surpass them. Who's next? Let's catch them, let's surpass them. So Joel seems monitoring that all the time. But definitely, I would say on that list that Joel just mentioned, those are competitors we meet in a lot of markets. Like if you go back to that slide, we see Swisse in multiple markets. We see Nature's Bounty in multiple markets. We see Centrum in multiple markets. Blackmores is the one that's more unique to Australia and China.

Asia in general.

And Asia in general. But yes, a lot of them we see in other markets, so we know them well. There was one up here, yes.

So before you mentioned, I think, "we don't know what we don't know." Can you share some case studies on how DCP's partnership in China has helped you avoid or mitigate previously unknown risks?

That's a really good question. Yes, that's a good one. Thanks, Mike. We had -- as we started our journey with DCP a couple of years ago, recognizing that cross-border e-commerce was a critical place for us to grow, and we needed a leader in that division to really transform where we had been to where we were going. And DCP played a critical role in helping us find that individual to help build out that team, to take advantage of this rapidly growing part of the market. And so because of their connections in the space and their ability to, I think, understand how China works at China speed, they were able to really help us get up and running on our cross-border e-commerce business.

Yes. And I think I'd just expand on that a little bit. You saw the live stream. You saw some of the storefronts. You see the importance of e-commerce in China. It's different than anything we know or have known. So if we didn't have DCP sitting with us helping us do that, we probably would have hired an e-com leader that looks like it looks in Canada. But DCP said, no, no, no, you need a completely different talent set, a completely different skill set and a different experience. Let's go out and recruit someone that knows how to build an e-commerce business in China, and that derisks that entire channel for us. I think...

I'm Juan. I'm supposed to be up there in a minute. So you all need me in a minute. But I just wanted to just interject or just add one more -- a couple of points. I think that for the most part, the management team in Jamieson, they have been in China for 10-plus years. And so they're very well versed in what the issues are and how to manage the opportunities and risk there. Where we add value and where I feel like where we've been quite useful, because we have invested in China for more than 31 years, and we currently manage a portfolio of more than 40 companies, we basically have all the reference points for if there is some issue that comes up in the day-to-day trenches of managing an operational business in China, where, oh, we got a query from this authority or we got a message from this logistics company. We are able to provide very quickly the kind of the reference to say, "Oh, this is very common or this is an issue, so please tackle it quickly, so on and so forth. So that they're not alone. They're not sitting there by themselves reliant on the experience of a team that has been built up over the last 2.5 years, but the full 30-year multi-company portfolio and the expertise of a DCP. And I think that's where a lot of these issues that may create problems down the road just get avoided.

Yes, absolutely. We feel that every day. Like we feel the power of more than just our 50 people behind us. And it's actually not uncommon for me to call Hwan on something that is stressing me out and say, Hwan, like I'm feeling a little stress on this and I'll say, no, no, that's just -- that's what happens in China. Don't worry about it. We're good. So they support us all the way from me right through to the team in China. It's fantastic.

I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on the new product regulatory environment. And if you've seen any changes, call it, in the past year as you guys are putting new products in the pipeline for when you're getting ready to launch for government approvals.

Yes. Do you want to -- John, why don't you hand it to John Doherty. John, why don't you answer that one? You're a regulatory expert.

My name is John Doherty. I'm the Chief Science Officer and Regulatory is part of my responsibilities at the company. Yes, the China regulatory environment is very dynamic. And like Hwan said earlier, we've got a fantastic resource in him and his team and all those resources. I'd say in the last several years, there's this registration process that is quite new called the Orange Hat registration. That's the short form for it, which is a bit of a misnomer because it's actually blue, replacing the much more stringent and strict blue hat registration process that was in place prior to that, very time consuming, very laborious. It's now evolved to, call it, a more Canada style monograph system where you can reference existing science and ingredients and dosing levels. So we've seen that program expand, I'd say, quite rapidly and quite dramatically over the years. And we're very well positioned to capitalize on those changes and respond, I'd say, very quickly to any new opportunities that come through a regulatory change or modification.

Thanks, John. I think he's going here and then we'll come to you, Michael.

I'd like to understand the marketing approach a little bit better. You mentioned the two key pillars now are the celebrity and the KOLs. How prevalent is that today as a portion of the China marketing, I guess, budget, roughly speaking? How prevalent was that 3 years ago, if at all?

I won't go into the specifics in terms of split of spend and investment, but it's definitely more prevalent than it was 3 years ago. And it's not that that's all we do is spokespeople and KOLs. Those are just the two that I highlighted here, kind of the bigger awareness drivers. But we have a holistic view of the market and how our marketing team shows up. So it's not just through spokespeople. We also have presence on all of the key platforms, whether those be sales platforms or just general information platforms. We buy advertising similar to how we would in North America around digital advertising as well. And I mentioned some of the out-of-home executions, too. In addition, we had these big promotional windows, right? We really ramp up our activity around 618 and Double 11. And that's really where we see a lot of this stuff come to life in a bigger way, right? So it's bringing the online or digital elements off-line and vice versa. So it's a critical part of how we work. It's bigger than how it has been before, as Mike talked about the increased investment that we put into the market is to drive marketing to win with more consumers. And that's just a couple of examples of how we bring that to life.

I also think there's a richness in the KOL investment. It's not -- I mean, Joel showed you an example. That's one example. Even in the KOL world, there's different types of KOLs. You have your Tier 1s down to your whatever tier they go to, and we're ever evolving where we invest. Sometimes we're picking the biggest KOLs for a certain event. And other times, you're picking multiple lower-tiered KOLs that drive a ton of sales as well in combination. And it's just -- it's got a different efficiency to the spend. So even within that bucket, it's very complex in how we're moving money around based on the time frame and the efficiency we're looking for and what we're looking to accomplish in a period.

As we take a portfolio approach.

Yes, that's right. That's right. I think Michael had a question here. We got questions everywhere. Mike, right up here in the front.

A similar question on the marketing and the key influencers. Like how would you say yourself, your company relative to a Blackmores or Swisse? I'm sure they all use similar strategy. But what is -- you always highlight something that's done really well for you guys. But what about the median key influencer versus the best one you have? Like how are they targeted different than some of your key peers? And because everybody uses the same tools, but what's the unique approach versus the industry approach?

Well, I think where -- what separates us from the competition in that space is we talked about understanding the consumer, right, and really making sure that you line up your KOLs, your spokespeople, all of your marketing engagement to really deliver against that consumers' needs and behaviors. And I think that's one of the things that we do incredibly well that investment allows us to really tailor who we're going after and who we're targeting and lining up the KOLs or any of the other marketing activities or vehicles that we have to ensure that we're meeting her needs and delighting her, giving that information that she needs at the right time. And we also do that in thinking about incrementality, right, of having that kind of ensuring that the new KOLs that you bring on, you're not just talking to the same person over and over again. You're reaching a new group, driving more people in, but from a different perspective. And by being able to hit multiple people with a slightly different message but around the same theme, that's what I think sets us apart and how we win a little bit, call it, more authentically, more efficiently than some of our partners in the space.

Yes. And I think I'll just expand on that because it's the magic of every CPG brand in every market. It's not just a China phenomenon. The brands that understand their consumer target that consumer and deliver what that consumer is looking for where they're looking for, when they're looking for it, they win. We are not marketing to everyone in every country. And I think that's what we tried to bring to life in that consumer segmentation model. It's often I'm walking around and meet people and some will say, Hey, I saw your new commercial, I don't really get it. And my first answer to them is you're not the target consumer. But the target consumer gets it because they're buying, we're growing, we're outpacing market growth and it's working. So that's the magic of any CPG -- successful CPG brand in any country. In China, it's just under some different apertures like the social media influencers.

Maybe Chris is going to answer this later on, but I was curious if the incremental spend that you've put in, if whether or not it's the level is sufficient? Or do you think you're going to need another step up?

Chris, do you want to talk a little bit?

The spend in 2024 was really about giving Joel and his team the scale to make a difference to reach those new consumers. So we're committed to that level of spend, and we're committed to increasing that spend more in line with top line growth going forward than another step up. I'm not going to say it's not possible because if Joel and his team comes with a business case that makes sense that drives long-term value, we'll consider it at the time.

Yes. And as Joel talked about at the beginning and Chris will talk about later, the aspiration over the next 3 to 5 years is a 25% to 35% growth rate on China. You will see demand spend grow in that range, and it's working. And the other thing I'll say, too, is we're about to cross an annual run rate of $100 million of sales in China. Our first goal in scaling this business was to get to $100 million. Now it's what does it take to get it to $200 million and $300 million and beyond.

Mike, Joel, Chris, I'm just wondering if you could maybe speak to the types of fees that are charged by the large Chinese e-com platforms, whether those are listing fees, fulfillment. And have those been growing inflating over time? Or is that kind of stable?

It's a really good question. I think we are familiar with how these platforms work in Canada and slightly different in China. I would say, overall, the fees tend to move a little bit -- increase a bit over time. Nothing crazy or wild. But what I said earlier around the programs that these platforms are offering. There's always a new program, whether they're trying something new to break through with a different consumer. And that's what we take into account. So there's the kind of general -- here's the cost of having your flagship store up and running on a platform like Tmall, but then they might have a new program that they're using to drive traffic. And then our team takes that back, thinks through, okay, can we leverage this? How can we use that to perhaps make inroads with a new consumer, make deeper inroads with the consumers that we already have or shift traffic from one place to another, and we assess that as we build our annual plans. So as changes to platform, I don't want to say fee structure, but let's call it programs that they have as those come up, our team is continuously kind of looking at those, how do we integrate that into our plans going forward to ensure we can most effectively and efficiently win at point of sale, specifically across cross-border e-commerce.

I'd just add to that by the fact that we've been on this learning journey really for the last 18 to 21 months in China as we take control of that business. And it's that learning of efficacy and efficiency from a demand spend perspective. Those learnings will offset any type of cost creep from an individual activation perspective. So we'll still continue to get more out of what we do. And if you see Joel later, you can talk to them about our MMM process, which really allows us to understand the return on each of those different types of activations and what that means to the business. So it's with that insight that we continue to direct spend in the most efficient, highest ROI manner.

The best thing about digital is it's live. You spend, you can see what's working, you can pull back, you can increase it. Traditional marketing, you have to wait to analyze it. anything digital, you're pulling levers -- these guys are pulling levers by the minute, by the day, by the minute, they're working in 24 hours. They're looking at pricing. They're looking at what's moving the market and they're moving our dollars around to get the best efficiency for our money. Steve?

Just on innovation, which sounds like obviously a key focus for your new product offerings in China. Is there a way to think about or quantify like what percentage of that you think you're a market leader on innovation and what percentage you're maybe a market follower, but leveraging the Jamieson brand that you're building in the background?

I think it really depends on the subcategory and the benefit state, right? We've got those six key need states that we're focused on. We also have the strength of what we've done here in Canada. And in some of those areas, we tend to be the market leader. In others that are, let's call it, more China-focused and more unique to China versus Canada, we tend to be faster followers. But because we've got high-quality brand with growing trust with consumer, being a fast follower still allows you to pick up and grow market share and win with the consumer probably at a faster rate than some others can. So it's not kind of a blanket always #1 or always kind of quickly following a trend. It really depends on the subcategory format, and we try to strike the right balance between being quick to meet the consumers' needs, but also operating from a position of strength.

Any other questions on China? Hwan will be up next, so we have another Q&A after Hwan, if there's further questions on DCP. Okay. Good. The last thing I'll say is this about what Joel just presented. And I think this is a key dot to connect. China is world-class and market-leading in terms of e-commerce development and how to leverage marketing, social commerce and platforms to grow business. This is coming to North America. You can see the North American model changing slowly. You're starting to see social commerce come to the United States. You're starting to see TikTok figure out how do we do what we do in China and the United States market and then into Canada. As that happens, we have an advantage here. We've built a scale business in the world's leading and most developed digital country, and we'll be able to take all of those learnings in North America as that continues to build and as those trends come to Canada and the U.S. So this will benefit us later, and we look forward to those days. Joel, thank you very much. Chris, thanks for coming up. Excellent presentation. We appreciate it. All right. Up next, and then we have a break. We're going to continue on China. We have Hwan, who you heard from a little earlier. He's the Managing Director of DCP Capital. Hwan is not only Managing Director and partner there. Hwan is the one who did this deal with Jamieson. I met Hwan in a coffee shop, God, 4 years ago now. And that's where it all started. And we ran an entire process. That was when the process kicked off, and Hwan and his team rose to the top through that, and we're very pleased to have him here, and we're very pleased to have DCP behind us and as partners in China. It's been very successful as you've seen over the years. And we have Ruth, our VP of Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations that most of you know, and she's going to moderate a bit of a Q&A fireside chat with Hwan, and then we'll open it up to questions. Ruth, Hwan, over to you.

All right. Hwan, thank you so much for being here. So we did already just get to meet you. But for everyone in the audience, Hwan Chung, Managing Director of DCP Capital. As you know, we partnered with DCP in 2023 as part of our growth strategy in China. So glad to have you here today to share some of your perspective.

Why don't we just hop right in? Can you tell us just a bit about DCP and your experience building consumer brands in China?

Yes. Thanks, Ruth, and thank you, everybody, for inviting me to this event. And it's a real pleasure to have an opportunity to share kind of stories from this journey that we've been on with Mike and his team. It's been spectacular. I mean one of the questions that was asked earlier about the competition brought to mind one really important fact, which is that if you actually think about what our competitors in China are thinking, it's actually Jamieson who is the threat. If you look at how big Jamieson has gotten over the last 3 years in China from about a little over $20 million of our top line to more than $90 million on its way to $100 million in less than 3 years' time. That is a lot of market share gains at the expense of the buy health and the Swisse and the Blackmores and all those guys. And so one of the things that you all have to appreciate is that it's Jamieson with a spear in hand, attacking this market very aggressively. And I think that is super exciting for the local team that we've been able to recruit. Number two, obviously, super exciting for the management team that's leading the effort from here and obviously, for shareholders as well. But yes, just a background on DCP. The DCP team, we've been investing in China private equity for more than 31 years. The team originally started the Morgan Stanley private equity effort in the early 1990s when back when like China was trying to figure out how to do capitalism, frankly, much less private equity. But we were part of the early wave of pioneering private equity teams investing on behalf of Morgan Stanley's investors. And when we first started then back in the '90s, what we identified is that we are going to be investing into the Chinese consumer. It's the biggest market in the world in terms of population. It's an underserved market in terms of products and services and that as the market and the economy matures, there's going to be a ton of money to be made selling products and services to that customer. So that has been more than 50% of our investment strategy originally through the Morgan Stanley years. And then later on, as you probably know, the DCP team moved over and started KKR's Asia private equity effort in the mid-2000s until, and ran that business until DCP was started a little over 8 years ago. And so we have seen the good, bad and the ugly of the China market. We have seen when people were super excited about China after the Olympics in Beijing. We saw, obviously, the situation in 1998, 1999 when everybody was down on China, after the Asia currency crisis and obviously, the SARS crisis and COVID and everything else. And so we have written that wave very successfully. We've made money across all of those cycles. And I think when I -- when we focus on our experience there, the one kind of North Star is the focus on that consumer, that large mass of folks who want a better life, they want the same kind of life that you and I have here in Canada or in the United States in terms of lifestyle, conveniences, quality, safety, dependability. And I think we've been serving that need. And one of the great insights into -- that has driven our effort here in the U.S. because you're like, okay, so you're investing in China, but why are you investing in Jamieson? Our like very simple insight is that as that consumer market in China grows, it is not just the Chinese companies that we've invested in, the Hengan, the Ping An Insurance, Mengniu Dairy, Nanfu Battery, [ John I ], Yogurt, American Sino Healthcare, like all of these leading brands that we've invested in across those 30 years. It isn't just those companies that will succeed. It will be those companies in the West, in Canada, in the United States, in Europe, who will effectively focus their products and services to that Chinese consumer and benefit from the development of that market. And so that is why we invest in companies outside. We made an investment about 3 years prior to making the investment in Jamieson, we had a very successful investment in a company out of Irvine, California called Orgain. It's a protein powder business that's plant-based, organic, it was growing very rapidly, but the management team had zero bandwidth to build out the Asia Pacific effort. So we partnered with a couple of other investors, including Ontario Teachers, took -- bought the business and essentially partnered with the entrepreneur, said, you focus on North America, we'll build Asia. And that's what we did. We literally incubated a whole team out of Shanghai, built an organization in Korea and made it into a huge success. And thankfully, we were able to generate a terrific return for our LPs through a sale to Nestle a couple of years ago. And so we already had that experience. And so when the Jamieson situation came up and had a chance to meet with the team and Mike, we were super excited. Let's do this again. And then when we saw the portfolio that they already built in China, the blue has they had, the experience that they already had under their belt, we were like, man, these guys are a decade plus ahead of where we had built -- or gain. So we were ready to go.

Great, Thanks Hwan. So when we talk about the Jamieson brand itself, you mentioned a little bit there about what attracted you to it. I think you did a little bit of research and looked into the brand a little bit more deeply when you're having initial conversations with us. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

It wasn't a little. It was $1 million spent on a consulting firm to basically do consumer insights work into China. And one of the interesting things that we found is that, number one, when you look at -- I mean, Joel and Mike did a terrific job outlining like the purchasing criteria and why people stick to a particular brand or whatever. If you look at Jamieson. It is a 103-year-old brand. It has -- its home market is Canada, which as a nation is perceived in the Chinese market as being well educated, prudently regulated, safe, a kind of a high-quality country that is, as a general matter, like everybody's got their own ideas on the geopolitical situation, friendly nation, right? That -- those sets of criteria has been extremely beneficial. And also, particularly in the southern parts of China, the Hong Kong, Canada connection cannot be dismissed in terms of the development of those people relationships that have built up since the handover of Hong Kong in the mid- to late '90s. And so those sorts of cultural kind of connectivity between China and Canada identified Canada as a really amazing and Jamieson, in particular, as a really good and trusted brand and a set of criteria that the Chinese consumer had some affinity for. So that was one thing. But why do we even get into Jamieson in the first place or VMS? The reason why is because we have been investing in the health and wellness of China for 30 years. We invested in -- we were the first institutional investor in Mengniu Dairy, which is one of the largest dairy companies in the world, much less China. And we invested in that prior to the company's IPO in 2002. And starting from there, we have been investing in the protein sector, multiple dairy businesses, chicken poultry businesses, pork processing companies, followed up, obviously, with Orgain and other things. We have a yogurt company. We have a digitally native dairy company called Adopt A Cow, where you adopt a cow online and that cow's milk comes to you every week, that kind of thing, right? So we've had this effort for 25 years. And so -- and the reason why is because we know that this is a trend that will -- it is a super trend that will last decades. And we -- and as China ages, that's the big demographic reality of the Chinese market today. We know, as Mike highlighted, the propensity of that aging population to purchase supplements. And so we wanted to be in that space. Number two, we knew that the Chinese consumer trusted -- particularly with this kind of product category, they trusted the foreign brands. And like I highlighted, Canada had a special place in that, particularly with a brand that had a 103-year-old history. And so we said this is actually a really perfect combination of things. And so that's how we got involved.

And how do you feel about the progress in general so far?

I mean look, I think people underestimate what this management team has done. If you look at China, just look at the headlines over the last 3 years since these guys have been at this, these guys. We have been at this together. China's headline has been all about what, -- geopolitical tensions, economic distress as a result of the property market declines, consumer lack of confidence in light of all of these stresses. You look at that stock market up until 6 months ago in Hong Kong or in the CSI 3000, negative, right? Despite that extremely challenging environment, Jamieson did what you guys have seen, right? Jamieson did this recruiting a team, organizing the market, organizing the marketing effort, organizing the supply chain, organizing the product development, all of those sorts of things in an extremely challenging environment where everybody was kind of pulling in their horns. It is -- the way I thought about this is that it is the power of the brand, it is the power of the team and it's the power of the commitment and the dedication to seeing this thing through that has led to the success that Jamieson has had. And so I think it's tremendous what we have achieved together. And I think that if you look at the market share gains, and at some point, I'm sure Joel will happily boast about these. The last couple of years, we've really taken it to our competitors. And so we are definitely -- whether it's Swisse or Blackmores or [indiscernible] or even some of the local brands like [ iHealth ], they've taken notice of us. And a big part of our effort is we've been innovative. The local team has been given both guidance, but also freedom to really push and kind of leverage their insights. And so I think it has been a tremendous experience. And I think that -- now that we've kind of achieved escape velocity is an expression, but it's -- I really do think that now that we're at that $100 million run rate and people are taking notice, that basic insight that we had before, when we -- before we made the investment, which is this. When we did that $1 million study, what did we find out? What we found is Jamieson is not well known. However, the people who know Jamieson have the highest loyalty amongst all the other brands. a great deal of trust. They appreciate the potency. They appreciate the quality. They appreciate the fact that it's manufactured in a place with a high degree of safety taken care of. And I think that has led to a basic strategic point of view, which is if you can get your message out about the brand, then the repeat purchases will come, right? People will say, Oh, this thing works, it's safe. We've had great results, and I continue to trust it. So you need to reinforce that message as we have across multiple channels, but it's been -- marketing channels, but it's been highly effective.

It came up a little bit earlier in the Q&A about some of the role you play strategically with Jamieson and also sort of on the day-to-day. You mentioned supporting the leadership team with certain things and consulting with them. Are there other examples that you have of your work really hands-on and strategically with the team?

Yes. Look, I think there's -- I don't want to overstate what we do because I do think that my inclination is to just kind of puff ourselves up a bit. But I do think that it could be as little as this. The company needed a headquarters in Shanghai. We just said, hey, we have a broker. We do this all the time for ourselves and our portfolio companies. Go use our broker, just go find a great place. We already had a list. We expedited that and didn't take months to figure that out. We did it in a matter of weeks. Simple thing. More importantly, it would be kind of along the lines of what Mike and Joel talked about at the top of the meeting, which is cross-border e-commerce is an incredibly important channel. It is the primary engine for this company's growth so far as the market evolves and our presence in the market evolves. Identifying that person, not from like the big MNCs who have been general managers of this large company or whatever and used to having huge armies of people, et cetera, et cetera, but somebody who is used to actually just getting his hands dirty and pushing hard and also not to be agist, but young and somebody who is actually aware of the very rapidly changing marketing and distribution channels that are rapidly evolving in China. I think we knew these guys. Why? Because we're in the e-commerce business. We're in the CPG business. So we have been in touch with some of these guys for our own portfolio companies and others. This is what we do as part of a private equity effort that is engaged in the consumer space in China. And so we basically plucked one of the best guys that we knew and we just pushed it, and we've been able to bring them on. But it goes -- those are like kind of the big ticket stuff. I think that where we add insight, and we talked about this earlier is we're on the ground in China. So we're able to have a regular dialogue weekly, monthly quarterly with the local team, giving them insight that is beyond just their own small world -- but all the other companies, what are they facing? What are the new regulations coming down the pipe? What are some of the trends in like some of the different provinces and the different channels of distribution. So constant interaction along those lines. The business analytics because we have had so many businesses in China, and so we know how to implement some of the dashboards and other things and to make sure that we have -- we throw our own resources, our analysts and associates and other folks to go into the office and basically sit there and just help work through many of the tools that the company needs to manage their business. So those are the sorts of things that I think that we've been quite useful to the Jamieson team on. But I'd say finally, one thing, which is the -- we are there on the ground every day. So what we know is that despite -- when you're sitting in New York or Toronto and you read the headlines, it's like, oh, China's GDP was below where it used to be, whatever it is in that. And so we don't -- so sometimes it can be easy to make excuses for the China unit, right? Because you're like, oh, it's a tough environment. But we are there, and we know that there are winners and losers in any market condition. And we got to win. And if we're not winning, why aren't we winning? And because we are there, we basically are the shareholder who is there present next to them, next to the managers in China. They don't need us. We hired right. But just in case, we're there to remind them that you need to be winning. So that's -- I think that's a little intangible, but I think super important.

Okay. Well, we're almost out of time, but maybe one last question in closing. As we look towards the future of Jamieson in China, what excites you the most about that and that opportunity? And how do you view DCP's role in this moving forward?

Yes. I hope you get a sense of my excitement about our partnership here. We're in the early innings of our partnership with this company. Obviously, China, I think, is -- China is a very large country, but its economy is -- has enormous runway, right? Like you're talking about a marketplace with per capita GDP that's like 1/7 of the United States, like 1/4 of that of China -- of Canada. So like I said, the basic idea that we have is that everybody in China wants to live like the world really, really well. And we're going to help them do that, right? So the runway is huge. It's -- whatever it was, we're -- the fact that China is a smaller VMS market than the United States, that's just a matter of time. It's a couple of years, it's going to flip, right? And so the market is growing super fast. We're in the right category in terms of the foreign brands that will succeed there. And we intend to just fully back this team and to really drive its success. That's kind of long term, right? We talked about how well the team has worked. But at the same time, let's remember, when Eric first came to China to help build that team 2.5 years ago, like these guys were kind of meeting together for the very first time. So now it's 2, 2.5 years later, they're only going to get better. And so that maturation of the local team and the kind of the positive feedback loop that they've seen where their effort has paid off so well, that will just continue to build confidence and skill sets, which I'm super excited about. And look, that's long term. In terms of the near term, one thing to just remember, like over the last 6 months, China, the Hang Seng has gone up by about 40% because in November -- in December, there was -- sorry, September of last year, there were some positive policy moves by the Chinese government. In the last 2 months, there have been really positive actions taken by the Chinese leadership, kind of first inviting these Chinese entrepreneurs in February to the first meeting of these big entrepreneurs and CEOs in like 8 years, right? So it's like, hey, we're business-friendly. And then earlier this month, inviting all the foreign CEOs, the big guys to -- I don't know, Mike, why you weren't there, but it's to try to meet with she, I think there's kind of a reopening. I'm not a macro investor, right? I invest in companies, and I analyze specific situations. But the overall market, I think there is some room to be cautiously optimistic in the near term despite all the headlines that we read every day. And so I think that there's -- we remain very excited.

Thank you very much.

I think we've got some time to take some questions, right? So we're happy to open up the floor. The one thing I would just add to Hwan's last point was Tim Penner is with us as well. He's our Chairman. He's in the back there. He can talk to Tim at break and at lunch. Tim and I had the benefit of going to China about 1 year, 1.5 years ago now, just to kind of -- it was a new business. We went over there to say hello to the team, welcome the team and build some culture. The government officials came to meet us, and they came to our office, and they brought a whole contingency of officials. And really why they came is they wanted to thank us for coming to China. They want to thank us for investing in China. They want to thank us for visiting China. So the government officials in China are in the local level are engaged with our company. We're in touch with them regularly. We know them, and that relationship has been building over time. Any questions for Hwan while we have them here. He has to slip out, I think, after this or after the break. So Hwan is not here for the day. So if you have any questions, now it's the time to ask. Justin?

Great insight. Hwan, just with your portfolio of 40 companies in the country, have you found increased scrutiny as the business scale? So maybe, Jamieson right now, $100 million, maybe it's flying under the radar, but as you get into $200 million, $300 million, maybe more, have you found any scrutiny with your other companies there?

No. And the reason why we haven't is because the planogram will replay is I'll just call it innocuous. If we were investing in semiconductor chip manufacturing or we were import-exporting, I don't know, aluminum alloys or whatever, things that are "sensitive", then I think that there's definitely going to be a little bit more even like social media companies, right, anything that touches media, right? I think there's going to be an appropriate sensitivity as people -- countries all around the world take after -- look after their own national security interests. I think though that for us and for Jamieson, for many of the consumer companies that we invest in, we are outside of that focus zone. And so I don't see us having a material negative issue there. If you look at some of the larger companies, Swisse, Blackmores, [indiscernible], those are all foreign brands. right? And so I think they've been perfectly well run and allowed to be run. And so I don't see an issue for us.

Any other questions for Hwan when we have them here? Yes, Derek there, John.

Hwan, good to meet you finally. You talked about the market share gains. Could you maybe give a sense of -- in terms of the size of those gains you've seen?

Yes. We don't disclose market share data, Derek, as we talk about regularly. What we can tell you is we're growing market share. We're passing competitors, and we don't share that publicly.

We meet every month, and that there's a chart that we look at and we share them on every month.

But I would say we are substantially outpacing market growth, which gives you an indicator of the share growth in the market.

We can say what the market grew or approximately grew last year. Maybe you can compare that to our [indiscernible]?

Yes. Yes, that's the market growth.

Thanks, Hwan, for the time. Appreciate it. Are there other tangential industries to VMS that you're looking to make new investments in to capitalize on kind of that consumer wave that you're talking about?

Yes. And there's probably an interesting point to note that in December, we announced the acquisition of a company called Sun Art, which is a 500 store USD 10 billion a year revenue retailer of groceries and food. We made that investment because everything -- like I said, everything consumers have beaten down in China. And so just a quick advertisement, I think we were able to structure an interesting transaction for us. Now that company has a very underdeveloped VMS category. And so I think that we're -- with everybody's mutual benefit, working on figuring out how to work closely together with Jamieson to help build out that category for Sun Art's 500-plus locations. I think the idea is to pilot a few situations and to make sure that there is sustainable sell-through and appreciation of our particular value price point strategy and things like that. So that's a more recent transaction. Kind of adjacencies to food, like I said, like 2 years -- 1.5 years ago, we made -- we acquired the poultry business in China of Cargill. So that was a carve-out. And that was -- and so we continue to be very actively focusing on kind of the food and beverage space in China. Yes. So those are some of the names that I would probably highlight for you.

Hwan, what do you think in China are Jamieson's one or two real competitive edges or advantages that they've got vis-a-vis the incumbent competitors?

Yes. Look, I think people -- the 103-year-old thing is not to be dismissed, right? It's -- if you think about what VMS is, right, VMS is a lot of people making a lot of claims based on kind of a marketing strategy. They don't even make their own stuff. And those "innovators" have get very excitable markets to respond. The Chinese consumer is highly educated. It's a highly well-informed consumer with that phone in their hand doing research regularly. And they're able to sort out pretty quickly, are these dependable organizations, dependable brands? Where do they make this stuff? What is the potency level? What has been the reviews from different people who've used it. So I think the fact that, that is the age of the brand, its provenance from Canada, the fact that there is kind of this social cultural affinity over the decades built between the Chinese people and some of the -- of Canada itself and with some -- to some degree with China, I think that's been a big part of it. Remember like -- or actually, maybe you don't know this, but like years ago, part of the reason how Jamieson got into China was through the Daigou trade, just basically the luggage trade, right? People just in Vancouver are just like, oh, this stuff is great. I love it. I should get this over to my relatives and then you just bring it over there to Shanghai. And everybody is like, I want more, then it becomes friends and family, not just family. And so it becomes a business and then e-commerce comes in and the government makes sure they take their cut, right? So it's good. But -- so I think that, that kind of -- there's an organic nature to the way that Jamieson built its brand in the high-end market or upper middle income market in China that I think still pays off today. The other thing is -- and we -- and Joel kind of mentioned it during his conversation, but I think that we leaned in pretty hard in the first couple of years to focus on Douyin and some of the other kind of relatively -- because Douyin has been around for a while, in relatively emerging e-com channels. There's always this question, right, which is, oh, is this a marketing channel or is it a distribution channel, right? And the answer is that over time, whether you're Instagram or you're Kuaishou or a Little Red Book in China, you're going to eventually start selling stuff online, right? And that evolution is picking up pace, and we got in early into some of those transitions, relatively early, right? And I think that's paid dividends for us. And I think that, that's kind of more under the control of the company. But it really is the leveraging of this long history of its identity built up and its provenance and everything else.

I think we have time for one more question. I see Tania has got the mic over there.

Hwan, nice to meet you. Given all the tariff and trade war stuff that's going around today, can you talk to when it makes sense to institute manufacturing in China from a Jamieson perspective? I know there was some talk about potentially buying a manufacturer, but maybe it's not in the near-term picture. When does that kind of make sense?

I think you're going to -- I mean, Hwan can answer that. You're going to get a lot of details from Regan later on our capacity and when we'll need to make the next decision on investing in capacity and where some of that could be. But Hwan can definitely answer from his perspective, but you're going to get more information from that.

Yes. It's an active review and dialogue. We know all of these guys in the local market who can potentially be partners to us to accelerate because it's a transition, right? If you really think about what that might mean is, okay, we're not going to just greenfield something immediately. It would be some -- all right, let's test out a strategy of local sourcing, followed up by contracting and then with local partners. And then does that translate into the consumer mind if it's made in China versus made in Canada? And then once you were past a certain threshold with respect to those questions on certain products, then you think about, okay, am I going to put real capital behind this thing or not? Am I going to build something? Am I going to acquire something? And those are all active collaboratively analyzed questions. I think that -- I will say one thing, we're not -- I don't think we're pushing that conversation because of tariffs. I think that the tariff question is something that I think it's the weather, right? It's like, okay, it's raining today, all right, you got to carry an umbrella, right? But it affects everybody. So it's not like we're going to be at some disadvantage. Is that going to -- tariffs are taxed and therefore, it is going to be negative for growth, right? That's kind of your textbook, you can't 101 stuff, right? So that's the reality, but it affects everybody pretty equally. There's obviously going to be some modest changes to the competitive dynamic between local producers versus foreign producers. But it's not like we're sitting here saying, "Oh, we're a value for money brand, right? And therefore, oh, no, we've lost that advantage. That's never been kind of our marketing thrust as Jamieson in China. So I'm not as worried about that.

Just another piece of perspective on that, Tania, is some of the highest quality manufacturers in China, they're global manufacturers. So they have manufacturing facilities in other places. And as you know, we make like 90% plus of everything that we sell, but there are a few things we outsource. We have relationships with some of these companies, some of these parent companies that we're partnered with in the U.S. or in North America that we have a relationship already. So we want to step into some of these testing and some of the things Hwan is talking about, we have those relationships built at Jamieson, which is great. Do we have time for any more? Or we -- is that it, John? Do we have time for any more? Or are we -- is that it, John? Okay. Thank you so much, Hwan. Awesome. Thanks for coming. Appreciate it. Thank you, Ruth. We have one more speaker and then we have a break. It is my privilege to call up Paul Galbraith. He is our EVP and Managing Director for youtheory. He's done a phenomenal job since he moved down there to take over that business. Paul used to run our Canadian business. So a lot of the success you've seen over the last few years. He started as the VP of Sales. He moved into the Managing Director role in Canada and transitioned over to the U.S. not too long ago and he's done a phenomenal job since he's been there. So Paul, over to you.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning. I am really excited to discuss our brand and our overall business. So I think, Ruth, I have 3 hours or tighten it up a little bit. So just a little bit about our business. I'm representing a really passionate, committed group. And there's an authenticity and efficacy and a commitment to quality that runs deep in our business. And over the last couple of years, I realize those feel like dog years, we've worked through an integration that has solidified the foundation of our business. It's allowed us capabilities for long term, and it really helps us drive that path to $1 billion. And that -- and if you take a look at what we've done during that integration, we've grown our business since the acquisition double digits. We're guiding plus 5% to 15% in 2025, and that's paving a path for us to grow 10% to 20% long term. So I'm going to take a step back and why the U.S. And some of this is a bit repetitive, but it is an immense opportunity, untapped opportunity for us as a business. It's the world's largest market at $40 billion. And it has a high household penetration at 85%, which is strong, but substantial frequency, double the per capita consumption versus Canada. The area that this really opens up for us, though, it is a strong development online. So a highly engaged accessible opportunity for us where we can directly interact with the consumer, so 25% to 30%. So why youtheory? And this is a no-brainer for us. It's really focused on -- the brand is focused on quality seekers. We know this consumer. They're proactive versus reactive. They are -- in most cases, they are us. So it is a consumer that drives connection, drives an ambassador relationship and likes to talk about wellness. So we know this consumer intimately, and we'll continue to interact. But coupled with that is it's ingredient forward products, on trend ahead of the curve. We are high quality in our commitments, and we are in three core categories that are on trend with Collagen for beauty, Turmeric for inflammation and Ashwaganda for stress. So within this, though, and this is the stat that I'm really happy with through our research is we have -- we're over-indexing on our repeat rates. While we have an emerging opportunity in household penetration, once our consumers come into the brand, they continue to repeat within the brand. So it's going to be about us thinking about how we drive and put the work towards our investments on drive trial, but continuing to bring them into the wheel of wellness and then expand from there. And through our research, we are positioned as a modern natural brand. So we're separating ourselves from the crowd, and this gives us a distinct opportunity to continue to leverage our consumer insights, speak to those quality seekers and build a path for growth, but not get caught up in competing within our existing categories, but leading. So this gives me a lot of confidence. And when we think about our integration, there's -- a lot of our key values are aligned, the trust, science, commitment to quality. And on top of that, it's how we've integrated our capabilities, which give us that confidence for long term. And that is around innovation, R&D, our regulatory, our ROI disciplines as we model those and bring those into the business and then really our purchasing procurement scale, our negotiations with suppliers and our relationships with suppliers that give us that really strong foundation moving forward. So as we look at our growth pillars, it becomes really clear through our last couple of years of learning. We need to optimize our channel strategies. That is about being where the consumers are and where they're emerging. We need to grow our Hero categories. We are refocusing on ingredient forward innovation and then strategic international expansion. And I'll touch on each of these. So we are highly developed in our brick-and-mortar business. But the trend within the U.S. and globally is moving towards e-commerce. So this becomes a focus of ours, and it becomes our priority for growth. It's an accessible, agile, fast-growing channel that we need to lead into. And that as well, so that becomes 2 key areas of focus within our optimizing the channel strategy, accelerate e-com and then drive that sustainable expansion in bricks-and-mortar. So we'll talk about e-comm. We've done a lot of good things here in a short period of time. It was 2% of our revenue pre acquisition. Through a lot of shared resources, we've continued to develop that business. It's now 10% of our revenue. Our vision is to drive that business into 30% of our revenue. And we've had some choices from our shared resources and the great growth we've had now to invest in an opportunity that will that will accelerate that growth. So when we looked at the e-commerce opportunity, you're getting millions of points of data every minute, every hour. And it is a very highly reactive channel that you get a lot of insights, you get to develop relationship with consumers. You can develop those resources internally, which are specialized capabilities. You need to invest in technology and you need to make decisions in real time, or you -- we looked outside and you look for a proven partner in BMS that speaks our language, but brings those tools, those capabilities and that proprietary technology that you can then start to manage the data science. So a lot of data coming in, you get automated artificial intelligence. We have deepened understanding of the algorithms. So in that, we need to -- as we receive the data, be able to make real-time decisions quickly and efficiently. And then it really becomes that capability. It's a specialized capability that we can start to interact with. So we've made that decision, and we've integrated that partnership, and it sets us up for long term to continue to drive that penetration. But that doesn't mean just because e-commerce is our priority. It's going to be that continued expansion in bricks-and-mortar. And we've been successful in this. Since the integration, we've grown our brick-and-mortar business, 29%, and we've doubled the distribution points. Our goal over the next 3 to 5 years is to grow that business 81% and quadruple our distribution points. So here's where we focus. We need to be thoughtful and smart as we approach this, but you have a limited SKU assortment in club, continue to expand those relationships and opportunity. You have an assisted sale in specialty and natural channels. That is where we continue to leverage incubation. And then over decades of experience, you need to be smart and thoughtful how we expand in mass and drug. It's not a start-stop relationship. So our e-commerce business, as we continue to grow that will give us the data points on sustainability regions and be able to leverage that into relationships that drives that expansion. So our Hero categories. We are on trend and continuing to grow, and there's 3 cornerstones to our business. That is Ashwagandha, collagen and Turmeric. The nice part is us being able to react and expand those core categories, we have a star in energy right now at Shilajit, growing 400%. So lean into the successes, continue to invest, that becomes part of our core portfolio. Our fifth and another expansion within in our Hero portfolio is Lion's Mane cognitive health. So as the area that we've had as we've learned, is to focus, this is where we prioritize our investments, we prioritize our distribution, and we prioritize our messaging. But that will continue to expand when the opportunity presents itself, but keep our team focused. So ingredient forward innovation. And it's an advantage to us, and I just want to highlight this. Arguably, Southern California is the health and wellness hub of the world. So we have direct relationships with [indiscernible]. We have face-to-face relationships. We're identifying trends early stages. We're doing a lot of research, but we need to be on the cusp and taking chances. So this is -- as we look at our innovation types, it's ingredient forward innovation such as [ C-Mass ], we're launching new and improved. So like our collagen continue to improve those formulations. Another area that we need to take chances and have the courage to jump into as early stage opportunities. We are a challenger brand, emerging brand. We need to be on the cusp of those opportunities, and we'll talk a little bit about that of how we enter and the patients needed to drive it. But then continuing to think about our ingredient forward innovation is looking at different formats, for example, gummies, and we're launching those products and continue to expand where our consumers are with those ingredient forward innovations. So here's an example. And it really is in an emerging challenger brand lean into your successes pivot away when it's not working. So we're continuing to build a blueprint. And we had our traditional method, we have a lot of channels to pick from. When you think about your messaging where they show up. Our traditional approach was a lot of sports sponsorships, grassroots marketing, print, billboards. We, as a modern natural brand, it's obviously moving into the digital world. So there's a lot of exploration as we get into paid and organic social, we continue to look at online videos, and we're continuing to measure and understand that blueprint so that we can replicate it. And it's working in Ashwagandha. The category is growing 13%. And in the U.S., where it gets -- we're driving that category. We own it. We own the relationships, and we need to lean in. So continue to invest and continue to put our -- put investments into what's working to drive it further. So this is a big bet of ours, and it's working on our marketing campaign, but that's an evolution for us. Secondly, and this is where we'll talk about as we get to early stage opportunities. It is really about in these areas of showing up early test and learn and be able to adjust digitally led. This is where we get very direct interaction. And then show patients along that process. So we're ahead of the curve. We're incubating the product, but we need to be there. And Shilajit is a good example. We showed up, continue to incubate it and that product is now ready at that tipping point that we need to lean in on investment. So we're going to invest behind this, but we're going to learn as we go. The category today of GLP-1 users is that $8 million. By 2035, that will be $30 million, and we're on the cost to be in the market and working with our valued partnership with Dr. Lou, who's had decades of experience in weight loss and obesity, we have designed 3 products. Those 3 products are multi, which helps -- the high absorption multi, which drives nutritional -- or solves nutritional gaps. We have a protein muscle guard, which is with HMD that helps prevent muscle loss or retain muscle mass. And then we have a probiotic that would help with nausea and gut health that really targeted that -- targets that specific solution. So new business, new connection. We need to show up where they are, and this is a place where we'd explore TikTok shop. Where -- that's where a lot of those -- a lot of consumers are interacting for information and understanding and how do we start to show up in those areas with the messaging to help support them on their weight loss journey. So a really exciting opportunity, and we're excited to move that forward over the next 3 to 5 years. And then that becomes surrounded by our blueprint and how do we show up in all channels, we'll be thinking about a 360 campaign, but how do we show up in that organic messaging and show up where our consumers are. So our fourth growth pillar is our strategic international expansion. So although this is a small base, the model is proven. We are growing this business at 100%, really proud that we've expanded our distribution points in Canada, more than 1,500. We're in 5 new international markets. And we have a significant amount of product registrations and working through regulatory that will continue to move us forward for the future. And here's where our integration work gives us that long-term confidence and optimism. We have a global procurement scale. So that is leveraging those relationships, managing our costing and working with those relationships with suppliers. Our manufacturing efficiencies, a lot of shared practices that has bolstered up our business. Distribution optimization, we know where and when and how we choose and how we manage that and then shared R&D and innovation. This has really strengthened our business. Out of state, we're -- Southern California, we can bring those trends in, but how do we qualify them and look at sustainable growth with in those focuses. And then lastly, where we're getting a lot of efficiencies is in our marketing and media, efficiency. So continuing to share practices, channels, data and be able to work through those opportunities collectively. So to oversimplify what we're working on and focus our team, we need to lean into optimizing the execution of our e-com partnership. That is the key to growth. We will get -- we now have strong data science technology. We have a lot of data that can steer our business, but growing e-commerce and interacting with the consumer and quality seekers will drive our brick-and-mortar business and drive that interaction with consumers, and that's our focus. We'll expand that category penetration through innovation. So continuing to be on the cusp, taking chances, enabling that courage to do so, drive strategic and sustainable brick-and-mortar growth. I can't stress this enough that we focus on the right retailers that when they're ready, that it is not a stop and start. That is such a distraction. I've lived it. But knowing the velocities are there, knowing the partnership is strong and knowing that we have an invested interest together. We will continue to expand, and we're very focused on that. We have a heat map that will start to play that out over the next 3 to 5 years. And then it's leveraging our existing relationships international. That model is proven. How do we continue that expansion and continue to work together globally as well as we look at the brand in the U.S.

Great. Thank you, Paul. Excellent presentation. We're happy to take any questions you have on the U.S. So one thing I do is put a little bit of perspective and kind of wrap this up in a bow on what Paul just presented so eloquently. We've owned this business now for 2 full fiscal years. We've driven double-digit growth on a compound average growth rate. We're happy with that. It's been a success. But we know there's a lot more. We've got 2 years of learnings now of running this business. We understand the e-commerce channel in the U.S. much more than we did 2 years ago. We've made a model change. Paul's team is focused on sustainable brick-and-mortar growth. We've doubled our distribution points and a lot of those have been in recent months. And we now are working through 2025 to get that e-commerce model rolling, get that transition, now it's complete, but get the engine really rolling behind it and set ourselves up for accelerated growth beyond 2025 and really get into that 10% to 20% rate or possibly even higher on any given year where we see an investment opportunity. So the team has done a great job pushing it to this point. We've grown revenue, we've grown EBITDA, and we are ready now to take our next level of growth in the United States.

Yes. And one point I didn't highlight. So in our first half of 2025, we are on track to grow e-commerce at 40%. So that model is working and that will only compound.

Any questions for Paul? And then we have a 10-minute break right after we do this Q&A session.

So it couldn't be more clear.

Yes, right.

Thanks for your presentation and all the insights you shared. You mentioned shared practices. So with your access to DCP and JWEL's China team for social media advertising and distribution. Can you share your progress on that front? Or how conversations have been proceeding? And maybe compare that relative to what your competitors are doing?

Yes. That's in this, so we have a lot of discussions internally and we do. We have a global social media team, and we're continuing to bring those back on how we would focus. And it really is about what platforms, whereas our quality seekers showing up. And we're challenging that does become globally consistent, but how we drive that regionally relevant, it gives us a good blueprint of where we should look and what we should be extending on. One -- sorry -- one area that I would. So it is -- we know where -- we know what our competitors are spending. We know where they're showing up. A lot of them trend towards traditional consumers mainstream. We index higher towards that quality seeker. So it is about us not following their lead, but separating us from what they're doing today. So we have a strong plan to show up where those consumers are and with the messages that we want to tell.

I think what I'd add about the U.S. is it's a market where you -- winners know their consumers. It's so big, it's so fragmented. There are multiple millions of consumers in each one of those consumer segments and you have a range of competitors in a fragmented market that are talking to different consumer segments. Over 50% are looking for quality, over 60% are looking for science, and that's what we stand for. On your question on social commerce, Social commerce in the U.S. is in its infancy stage. You have some brands testing. You have some brands growing there. We are entering that fray in an early time and over the next 12, 24 months, we'll gather -- we'll take the learnings from China. We'll start applying in the U.S. We'll see can we take advantage of this small growing channel in the U.S. right now and set ourselves up for the future.

But to TikTok shop would give us a lot of insights so that we can understand.

Yes. For sure. I'm getting to wrap it up signal from the back. Is there one more question we can maybe take? And if not, we'll be in the hallways and we'll be out at the lunch and the breaks and we're happy to address them one by one.

Did I actually take 3 hours?

Yes. Yes. Anything else or anyone? One more? We'll take it up every once a break. We'll take it [ after ] break. We have I'll be around a 10-minute break, feel free to talk to any of our management team. They'd be happy to talk to you all. Thanks a lot. [Break]

Global Marketing and as well as our Managing Director of our home country, Canada, right where we are today. Over to you, Eric.

I appreciate it. Thanks, everybody. So I'm post-break entertainment here, I'm prepared to be underwhelmed. Yes. So I have the honor of -- along with our large Canadian team leading our home business and really want to tell you the story of why we think we have a lot more growth on us going forward. That's me. We don't see that. So first off, I think this page is about our role in the pathway to $1 billion. And I think I have 2 messages here, which is Canada has had a really strong growth pathway from 2017 to '24, and we won 100% expect that to fully continue even as we have strong growth agendas in China and U.S.A. that Joel and Paul took you through earlier. So that's a message here. Canada is super important to this company, and I'm going to share with you our plans for growth. And just before we start talking about JWEL, I just want to set the stage of the market a little bit. So Canada is a great VMS market. about $2 billion in total. It is growing low to mid-single digits, varies year-to-year. COVID popped it up a little bit, but in general, very consistent growth on $2 billion that you can count on. And lastly, while not a market point, we are #1. So we are uniquely -- without any growth strategies, we are uniquely positioned to maximize just our fair share of that market growth going forward. So strong market, $2 billion naturally growing, and we are really well positioned against just naturally taking growth. But our agenda and our ambition don't stop there. And Paul talked to you about 4 pillars of growth on USA. I'm going to talk to you about 3 here on Canada. The first is about expanding our distribution. We're getting the details in a little bit in 2 seconds. The second is about expanding our leadership. We lead in categories that we do. There's a couple of valuable segments. We haven't achieved that goal yet. And last but not least, it's really about developing VMS in Canada. So I'm going to bring a little color to you right now. First one up is expanding its distribution by ensuring fresher. As incredibly successful as we are in Canada, our biggest opportunity is still share shelf. So in bricks-and-mortar retail, if you walk into almost any store in Canada, you'll see a really strong set of Jamieson's SKUs. Some people call it a wallet green. Well, that's something to be very proud of. We still have more market share than we have share of shelf. And so it's a natural expectation to work with retailers and level that up. So there's a ton of growth in just capturing our fair share shelf. And at minimum, our ambitions are greater than that. At minimum, matching shelf presence with market share. The second area is in e-commerce. We're experiencing tremendous growth in Canada and e-commerce. JWEL is as is the market. And that growth is so exponential that you have continually keep your eyes on it or you can slip behind your picture of the virtual shelf as well. So behind a bricks-and-mortar share shelf and an e-commerce virtual shelf, there's more than $100 million of opportunity for us. So that alone is a very significant growth pathway for us. The second pillar of growth for us is about grabbing share gains in segments of VMS where we are not yet #1. So there's 4 called out on the page here that you can see. First is multis and that is by far and the largest. Then there's probiotics, melatonin and herbals. Jamieson is the leader in Canada. We're very proud of our success. We have a fantastic shelf presence, although more to go. But in these 4 areas, we're not where we expect -- we'd expect to be based on our capabilities and what we're good at. So in these 4 areas, simply by growing and taking, again, our fair share of these large segments, there's a natural growth trajectory for $50 million built block. And third and last, slightly more complicated, but not much. This one is about the category, okay? So what I'm sharing here with -- from a data standpoint is not Jamieson data per se. This is category data. So if we did a tour of Canada, and we went into everyone's household and 72% of them, you're going to find a VMS bottle in the medicine cabinet in the kitchen cabinet, okay? A point of interest, 40% of those households have Jamieson. So -- but when you come down to the actual segments, what product segments, what need states are people solving through vitamins, minerals and supplements. The #1 segment is actually multivitamins and it's only 26%. Next would be immunity as a space. Sleep/energy as a cycle would be up there and digestive health. You can see the significant drop-off from the category household penetration to the top segment penetration. And this would be under comparable Western markets. And so we, as a market leader, I think we have a responsibility, but there also is a very strong growth agenda to build these segments. If I were to compare our multiusage to south of the border in the U.S., very somewhat similar cultural as the nuances you would see, and we can just match U.S., you could see a 33% rise in the multi segment. So we plan on leading that development and taking more than our fair share of it as the market leaders in Canada. So that's our 3 growth pillars. I think, $200 million of opportunity we see there. Significant, significant headroom for growth in Canada. But then you might ask yourself, why Jamieson? Okay. So I see the opportunity, why are you guys the right ones get -- and I think there's 4 points I'd like to talk to you about. I'd like to talk about our portfolio, our customer relationships, our innovation agenda and the fact that we are truly Canadian. First up, I want to talk about our brand portfolio, which is unparalleled in vitamins, minerals and supplements in Canada. So first, is that Jamieson, by any measure, any KPI you want to pick is the top brand by awareness, [ trial ] and vitamins mineral supplements. It plays in a broad and very valuable space in the category called foundational nutrition, that include things like multis, include vitamin C, vitamin D, this is your foundational nutrition. And consumers respond to this brand like no other. So what you see down below is a bit of what we'll call consumption funnel, which is kind of awareness in order to try something generally have to be aware, awareness to trial and then eventually, we start talking about measures like loyalty, and that's often described as most often by. On awareness, Jamieson has 2x the category average. As you go down to trial, it expands to 3x the trial rate of the category average. And as you get down to a more loyal metric like most often buy, it expands to 6x category average. So you can see the power of this brand versus category norm is off the chart, and we're lucky and honored to have that in Canada. It's 103 years building and going. And it's in a very valuable space of foundational nutrition. On top of Jamieson, those stories doesn't stopped there. In any other segment, we have a brand to offer. So for consumers that are more into complex nutrition needs, we have progressive women's health specialty brand and smart solutions, Iron Vegan is a plant-based solution. And of course, Paul talked earlier to you about youtheory, a global asset that is also available and doing super well in Canada. So no matter what they need, we offer a brand and we offer the #1 brand in the game. It's unparalleled and completely differentiated versus competition. Second point I want to talk about is customer relations. We just talked about brands and consumers. But what about that customer? We are unique and differentiated here as well, and we have a deep relationship and respect with every customer in Canada. I wanted to give you a flavor that -- flavor for that through something called the Vantage report. So this is an annual survey through a third party that's independent and they work across all the customers in Canada, and they get third-party data on a variety of categories and the supplier -- or the customers actually rank suppliers, okay? So it's called the Vantage report. And in VMS, the survey covered 15 suppliers. Many of the names on that list would be Fortune 500 CPG companies, right? When we're talking about worldwide massive scale, massive capabilities. Jamieson finished #1 in the survey. And I just give you a flavor here for a couple of the areas where you see it. So #1 overall, #1 in e-commerce, #1 envision agility and data-driven decision-making, #1 in execution. So as it relates to our customers, we have a unique and deep respect for each other, data backed, data proven, no one competes with the depth and the respect that exists between us and our partners in Canada. Next differential point I want to share is a proven innovation engine. Mike highlight when we started, he talked about how we use insights and we turn them into action. That's a global model that is true in Canada as well. What I share with you here is a little of the output of that agenda. So if we take 2024 and we look at it across the category, Jamieson drove 3x more value, absolute gross sales in VMS than any other competitor. If you're a customer, you really, really like that. Number two, our growth while being #1 in absolute was also #1 in incremental. So if you grow, but you're just trading off, that's not so exciting. It might even be costly, but we're #1 in incrementality as well. And then last and maybe perhaps most readily to be proud of and what a retailer would care about is our efficiency. Efficiency just means the rate at which we turn a slot, a shelf position. So our innovation turned 4x the category average. So Mike talked about that innovation agenda. You can see at play here in Canada delivers differentiated and meaningful results for consumers and our customers. And the last point that I want to bring to life and increasingly important in the times we're currently in is Jamieson is differentiating because we are proudly Canadian. We employ more than 1,000 Canadians, we manufacture here, and we've been a meaningful part of the mosaic of this country and an economic engine for 103 years. This is extremely meaningful to us. And based on what's going on in the world, it's actually an extremely differentiating point in the times we're in. So many of our competitors don't have the ability. So when you put it together, you put our brand portfolio you put the customer respect we have, you put our innovation agenda at work. Can you put the fact this is all happening in Canada by Canadians? It's a pretty powerful combo that only Jamieson can bring to the party. And I just wanted to share before I close, an example. So gummies. Between 2018 and 2021, gummies was a format that scaled very, very quickly in Canada. And in the 2021 annual planning process, we run a really strong, robust annual planning process. The team identified that we were actually 3rd in gummies. Based on the growth in this format and also just the pride of Jamieson, this was not acceptable. So we put our mind to it. special team got together. We created a special plan. And within 3 years, I think it was 2 years and 8 months, we went from third to #1, December 20 -- December 2023, January 2024, we became #1 in gummies. So for me, it's just a real-time example of our case study. When you put those 4 things together the brands, the customer relationships, the innovation agenda and the fact that we're Canadian and you put it together, this is what this company can do in Canada. So growth in Canada has been a part of our history. It's here to stay. There's significant upside. I introduced $200 million of possible upside for us. We're ready to go after it, and that's what we're organizing around. Thanks for your time. I think Mike's stepping up for questions.

Thank you, Eric. Any questions on Canada? I think that was really powerful. It's a short presentation. We all know Canada well. There was a powerful presentation. It shows you where the opportunity sits, and it shows you the power of the brand. And it shows you that as we build, we have a history of doing this in Canada, knowing the consumer and knowing how to talk to them, these learnings all follow us around the world. We're not going to be Jameson in every country, but we know how to build and we know how to grow, and we know how to leverage insights to do the things that we do every day here in Canada. Any questions on Canada? Over to you, John.

You mentioned e-commerce and rapidly growing e-commerce. Is your incremental share on the e-commerce side in Canada materially different from the share you see in the typical brick-and-mortar channel? And how is that evolving as e-commerce grows very quickly?

Yes. I mean -- so we are outgrowing competition in e-commerce, and we are outgrowing in bricks-and-mortar as well. I think there's some bricks-and-mortar that shift -- within bricks-and-mortar, there's some shifting between channels. But overall -- and I mean, at the category level in terms of consumer dynamics, where people shop, but overall, if we use 2024 as a proxy, even 2023, we grew -- grew competition in e-commerce. We have grew competition in bricks-and-mortar as well.

We started the e-com journey in Canada years ago. And in 2018, we made an investment in capability in Canada. We saw -- e-com is going to take off and e-com is going to be a big portion of the category. And it's now over 10% of the category and growing its fastest-growing channel. So we've been invested here since 2018, preparing for the day when this scales to where it is today, and we're grabbing hold a bit for sure. Justin?

3x, your next largest competitor, pretty impressive. Who are those competitors? And maybe 2 questions in one. Are any of those competitors U.S.? And with the Buy Canada trend, is there an opportunity to gain some share there?

Sure. So a little bit segment to segment. Our number one, Canadian competitor would be a West, Webber Naturals. They would be a foundational nutrition brand as well, respect them immensely. But certainly, we would be significantly scaled versus Webber. As we get into subsegments, there are some -- and I'll highlight multis is one, multis is a massive segment of VMS. Centrum would be a worldwide player there. That is a USA brand, USA manufacturing. So I certainly believe in that subsegment, we will look to leverage our Canadian and domestic pride going forward.

One of the things that was amazing in this very unique time we're in right now, is this Canadian sentiment and all the news really hit over a weekend. It was like a Friday when it first started. And Eric and I jumped on the phone and we said, wow, this is like -- this is going to move fast. Like what can we do here? I think the Canadian sentiment is going to pick up really quick. Within 48 hours, Eric's marketing team had Proudly Canadian on our websites at the back end of our commercial redesign and was running with the opportunity. I do caution, though, like Juan talked about with tariffs, it's raining right now. We have the umbrella out. I think in Canada with Canada sentiment, it's sunny out right now, and a lot of Canadians are rallying around Canadian for Canadian and that will continue for some time. And as a Canadian brand, we're very well positioned to take advantage of this growing sentiment. I don't know how long it sticks around. We don't know how long this continues, but we'll continue to leverage everything we can to grow that brand here in Canada and continue to remind Canadians that this is made in Canada by 1,200 of our team members in 3 manufacturing facilities here.

Yes, a little plug for our social team. I think we've kind of used the Proudly Canadian movement to have a lot more fun with Jamieson online. So if you don't follow Jamieson on Insta, give it a follow-up. The team is having a lot more fun there, putting a little kind of Canadian fun quizzes up and how do you know your Canadian stuff like that. But A great example of where Jamieson takes off every opportunity to test and learn and our social game has massively, I think, gotten a lot more fun and enhanced in the last like 6 weeks.

Any other questions on Canada? Derek?

And what channels would you be lagging in sort of the multivitamins because if you go into a Dollarama, like we don't see a Centrum in there, for example, if we see you guys.

Yes. I think our opportunity in multis, we're investing in portfolio, Derek. So I think we're using our innovation agenda. It's less of a channel story. I think it's more of a portfolio story. So we're using our innovation agenda to jump the competition going forward. So that's where I would say this from my point of view, the #1 solve is going to come through our innovation engine and more so than a channel strategy.

Yes. I would say the dollar channel is a very unique channel, Derek. I mean, if you walk into a traditional food, drug or mass channel, you would see a great presence of Jamieson. You would see a great presence of the #1 competitor who is Centrum. It's just that -- that's all they do. So their efficiency has just been greater than as we haven't been focused there. As Eric showed in gummies, where we focus, we can drive growth, and the team is focused on where are we underpenetrated, where are we behind index in terms of share? And how do we go get that over a few years, multiple years and drive growth there? Dennis?

So I can appreciate the shelf space opportunity that makes a lot of sense. But can you give us some idea how you convince these top 5 retailers with the concentration of power, how they're going to allocate more shelf space to you?

Yes. I mean it's a good question. It's not -- it's not an easy -- I would say it's not an overnight success. We have a win under our belt in the last 12 months. So we have 1 of the top 5 in Canada, resisted this conversation for a long time. We finally got leverage that relationship, got the right story into the room supported by the right data and convince them. And they're seeing gross 2x category average, and obviously, we're benefiting from that as well. So it is possible. But it's not easy work because retailers have a perspective that they want to offer lots of variety. And when they have a brand that feels dominant shelf, sometimes it's scary to give them even more and you can sometimes invest in smaller players that just quite frankly, don't make the sense, but it's more of an emotional reaction than a mental reaction. So the consolidated retail makes it both easy and challenging. There's not that many conversations to have, but these are very powerful retailers, and we just kind of the right conversation with them, and we've definitely had a winning storyline in the last 10 months.

And powered by data, right? Linear sales and profit -- sales and profit for linear engine, right? We're just still more efficient off the shelf. You give us more shelf space, we will sell more dollars and you will make more money. To Eric's point, it's not going to happen overnight, but we have multiple wins over the last few years. We -- you pick up a little bit of incremental space every year. You start driving that category growth, it becomes material over time. Got to wrap it up. Time for one more question, and then we'll wrap up this section for Canada. And again, Eric and I will be around for lunch. The whole team will be so we can take any questions at that time, too. Anything else on Canada? Excellent. Thank you. Eric, phenomenal. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

I have the great privilege of welcoming back up Joel Scales. Joel not only runs the China business. And just to be clear, Joel runs the China business from a leadership perspective here in Canada. We have a General Manager on the ground in China. His name is James. He runs the day-to-day business in China. The whole team there reports into James, and he's on the ground with those 50 team members as our leader there. He reports into Joel. Joel also leads our international business, which is all of our other countries outside of China, Canada and the United States, working with our sales team, our distribution partners, and he's done a phenomenal job taking that business and accelerating growth there over the last couple of years and over the last 6 to 7 quarters. I'm going to hand over to Joel, and he can talk to you about some of the great work we've been doing there.

Thanks, Mike. Should have done a quick wardrobe change for the second appearance, right? We'll go with this. Appreciate the introduction. And yes, just so it is clear. I do have the privilege of leading not just our China business and James and the team in China, but also our international group. So think about here, we're talking everything outside of Canada, the U.S. and China when we think about our international business. So this is about building strength abroad, right? And how do we take everything that we've talked about that's great about JWEL, about the brands in Canada, in the U.S. and in China. And how does that apply to the markets that we're in going forward? And that is really taking a portfolio approach, and we'll talk a little bit about that later on. But we've got aspirations and international as a business unit still has a role to play in the future of Jamieson Wellness, looking growth anywhere between 5% to 15% overall, but that will be different by the individual markets to make up the international portfolio. And so to be the most trusted and recommended VMS brand in the world, that is what me and the international team are here to do. And we do that across 50 countries and regions with almost 500 individual products across those markets. But then we also are able to find some scale and efficiency as we build internationally with about 2/3 of our sales coming from our top 6 countries. We'll talk a little bit about how we assess that, how we go to market across that portfolio of countries and regions in the international business. And so, this is how we want to and will grow and we continue to grow our international presence. We want to be the top 3 brand international brand and our highest potential growth markets. And we'll talk a little bit about how we do that, how we assess it and how that changes over time. You'll have heard of an e-commerce theme. And so we definitely want to grow international e-commerce. It is a growing trend in many of the markets that we're in. And so that's an area of focus for us as we look to gain share in those markets. And then last but definitely not the least is about leveraging our partnerships both global retail and distribution partnerships, but then also local as well. We recognize that we are experts in the places where we are, and we have, and we do partner with local experts to really bring that local relevance to bear that Mike touched on in the very beginning of the presentation today. And so let's start with high potential markets. We talked about consumer segmentation throughout, I think, each of our presentations. But in international, we also look at market segmentation. So looking at factors like size of market, size of the VMS business in those markets, how quickly it's growing, regulatory hurdles that need to be passed to be in that market, competitive intensity, how easily or difficult it is to access and speak to the consumer directly about these products, all play a role in how we segment our market. And so we take all of those 50-plus countries and split them up into these 4 kind of general buckets that we're sharing here. One is around investing to win. And that's where we put most of our effort and our resources around growing in those biggest markets, and we see the historical growth there proves that we're investing in the right place. Follow that with our spend to lead markets, again, just to step down from invest to in, the places where our investment pays off and how we ensure that we can win there. And then we have selectively build and export markets. And all of this is built and execute it in a way to ensure that we can more effectively and efficiently allocate our resources to maximize our growth internationally. Now let's look at what some of those examples could be like. This is always the fun part, show intel. So look at Saudi Arabia here, where we're talking about, this is a maximized growth market. And we bring together some -- what I think is a really cool example of globally consistent and locally relevant with this campaign. And I think you'll see it in the bottom right on in that box here. That's our Ramadan campaign. And that initially came to us from a partner, and we decided, hey, that's a really cool idea. We can make that bigger. We can make that more Jamieson, and we can spread that throughout the region and really take and own the shelf mentality as we look to develop that in the market and in the region. So another great example of invest to lead, and this is with our partner in Slovenia, a key anchor of ours in Central and Eastern Europe. And they are example of OMG campaign. And this, the MG stands for magnesium for those that are not science buffs, that's what we're talking about here. It's really about combining our quality story with this locally relevant product benefit. Magnesium was a category that was growing and growing quickly based on opportunity, and then we work together to develop this campaign. And then selectively build, we do that in Asia Pacific outside of Mainland China. And it's really about driving optimal product assortment and then ensuring that we're building awareness across relevant channels, whether those be digital or whether those be offline in more traditional channels. And so again, local partnership is what's the key to our success. I'll talk a little bit about that in a few slides, so I won't spend too much time on it here. And so we think about e-commerce, it's all about -- and I talked about this earlier in the China presentation, I think Paul mentioned it also in the U.S., it's relevant for Eric as well. It's this idea of meeting the consumer where she wants to be met when it comes to making a purchase. And our e-commerce strategy internationally is the same. And we want to be able to meet our consumers in the channel of their choice with a clearly relevant portfolio and message because we know how to win in this space. We're taking e-commerce learnings from all of our markets and sharing those because that's an area of strength that we have and one that we're bringing to bear in these international markets. And then lastly, thinking about our partners. We want to be and continue to be the go-to partner, both globally for some of our global partners, global distribution partners, global retail partners, both online and in traditional retail, but then also for our local partners. And that's about bringing the right product at the right time, ensuring that we are leveraging all of these partnerships in accordance with our segmentation strategy that I mentioned earlier. And taking that know-how of how we win combined with our partners' execution abilities and understanding of those markets to really win disproportionately with consumers in that space. And so when we think about our partners, we look at them, right? We assess them on a yearly basis to understand are we with the right folks? Are there potential capabilities they have that we're not taking advantage of. So we look at them across their relationship with key retailers, their marketing expertise and access to data, again, helping us drive that local relevance account management skills, ability to understand and maneuver the regulatory landscape in partnership with our team, their financial stability and their willingness to engage with us in a sophisticated discussion about how to build the business. But then at the same time, we ask them about us and how we're performing. And this is the part that I'm incredibly proud. We did this for the first time last year in 2024. And our partners were overwhelmingly positive about their experience with Jamieson over the years. And the 3 key words that stood out for us were trusted, I think Juan touched on it earlier, the fact that we've been around for 103 years really matters to them. And that comes through in the care and the effort that we put in to building our business internationally. Collaborative and that we're always listening. We are good teammates and willing to work with them on all of those issues and opportunities that they have and then committed. We talked about -- we talked about our strong partners, and they bleed green, right? They really feel that Jamieson presence and really are owners of that brand, and they see that commitment reciprocated from the team we have here working with them to build the business. And so to just wrap it up, reiterating what I talked about a little bit earlier. Our future is incredibly bright internationally because we've got the right partners, we've got the right team. And we have the right frameworks in place to ensure that we can deliver this promise of Jamieson and take the best from here, the best from Canada and have that win abroad because we really do understand and win with that local consumer.

Great. Thank you, Joel. I would just -- I would add a little bit of context to the international business as well here. When I came to Jamieson in 2018, I would say we were in the final stages of what a company does when they want to go global, a CPG company. I call it the flag planting stage. You run around the world, you look for a bunch of opportunities where maybe your brand will stick and you plant a bunch of flags. And we planted 40 plus -- 45-plus flags around the world. And the next phase in that growth is saying, okay, now where are we seeing growth opportunities? Where are we seeing a consumer resonating with the brand? Where are we seeing a partner that is living up or exceeding the expectation we have -- and you start to focus. And Joel and his team in the last 3 years has really grabbed on to that concept and said, we're going to segment our markets. We're going to focus and put our time and our resources where we see the biggest growth opportunities. We're going to continue to see some that we think of high potential. And some we're going to service, and we're going to serve those as an export model and what they order, we send them, and we're happy to continuing business with them, then we'll make some great margin along the way. Joel's team has grabbed under that second phase and it's really a levered on what we've been talking about here today and some of the great growth rates you've seen out of that international division over the last 2 years. So I think they've done a phenomenal job. There's still a lot of more work to do, and there's still a lot of great opportunities in some of these countries that his team continues to focus on. Any questions on international?

How much standing between you and lunch?

I Did you were going to say some, Chris? I heard you there. No. Okay. So we're going to break for now 20 minutes. It's 12:20. We'll come back, bring your food in here. We have a fireside chat with Dr. Lou who's on our Board and the GLP specialists. Some of our marketers are here, Matt Taylor, our insight leader is here. and we're going to do a fireside chat around innovation and what it takes to be successful. So grab your lunch, 20 minutes to bring it back in here, and we'll continue the day. Thanks so much. [Break]

All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. I hope you are enjoying your lunch. I'm excited to be here today hosting this panel, talking a little bit about more -- a little bit more about innovation at Jamieson Wellness. You hear us talk about it often. We are a powerhouse when it comes to innovation with new products driving about half of our branded revenue growth in Canada every year. We often talk about the pipeline that we have in place of new products spanning upwards of 5 years and that's really largely due to our cross-functional team of experts that we have here at Jamieson that are really guiding product development from conception all the way to how they're marketed at shelf. So I'm excited to bring his team to you today and have a bit more of an in-depth discussion on how innovation works at JWEL. So today, we have Stacy Sammon, and she is our VP of Marketing in the U.S. We have Matt Taylor, and he is our Senior Director of Insights, innovation and marketing capabilities, and we have Megan Thomas. She's our VP of Innovation and Regulatory Affairs. I'm also really excited that we have Dr. Lou Aronne with us today. He is a Director on our Board, a member of our Scientific Advisory Board and a leading expert in weight loss management and GLP-1 research. So there's lots of interesting things to talk about today. So we're going to hop right in. We've got about half an hour and then some time set aside after that for questions. So Megan, let's just kind of hop right in. Innovation and new product ideas could really just come from anywhere. Could you give us a bit of an overview of how innovation works at Jamieson? What does that look like and who the key players are?

Yes, for sure. Thanks, Ruth. So we have a very robust innovation process at Jamieson and it's technically co-owned by marketing and our scientific and technical affairs team with heavy input from sales. And the way the division works is that marketing owns the product life cycle management, pipeline planning, the strategic work there, and the science group owns coming up with product and formula solutions to meet the needs of that pipeline. And when I think about innovation at Jamieson, I see when we're talking about new products, really as a great big funnel. And the funnel is a stage gate process really all that means is that throughout the process, there's 3 checkpoints that a product test or an idea has to pass through before it becomes a product. And you're right, Ruth, ideas can come from anywhere anytime. They typically come from 1 of 3 ways. They come from sales who are working with our retailers and our customers. They come from marketing, who are doing all the consumer insight work and the social listening and they come from the science group who are evaluating new raw materials and meeting new vendors. All of these ideas go into the funnel and work through these 3 checkpoints. As they work through the ideas get refined and they get assessed against a set GO/Novo criteria. If the ideas don't meet that criteria, they get kicked out. And most commonly, this happens because, one, the idea and maybe the opportunity isn't as big as we originally thought it was or the cost of goods is too high and it wouldn't translate to a reasonable price for consumers or sometimes we just can't find the right ingredient with the right science to really launch a product with integrity there. So this stage gate process of these checkpoints really ensures that when an idea passes through the last one approved to launch, we are launching products that are competitive and compliant my favorite saying in this industry and are going to meet all of our financial success criteria.

Okay. Great. So with all these people working on this and all these ideas flowing through, what major consumer trends are we focused on right now? Stacy?

I can start with that one because I have a lot on my mind. I'll start with metabolic health and sugar balance. That is definitely one that is top of mind. We talked about GLP-1 users, the numbers are increasing. So there is a heightened interest in ingredients that have to do with glucose metabolism and then, of course, supporting lines for GLP-1 users. So that's top of mind. I'm still very, very interested and attuned to stress and sleep management as a trend. The post pandemic mental health focus is not going away and that growth continues. So you'll see that in ingredients like magnesium and GABA where that's the natural calming factors of those and then adaptogens like Ashwagandha, where that also has some cortisol balancing health care. But the one that I'm really, really excited about, that I know they've heard me talk about so many times the longevity movement. So this is something that has come up up through the biohacking community. And I'm intrigued by it because it really speaks to the enthusiasm that consumers have around preventative health, right? Because it goes deeper than what we would know is healthy aging as a trend, and it talks about cell health. So you hear things like senolytics, which I know Megan loves to hear me talk about. But senolytics is about targeting and eliminating like aged cells in your body. And the idea is that those cells are aged, but they're not dead, but they're not quite working the way that they're supposed to and they're kind of accumulating. So by clearing those the thinking is that you can slow aging, you can improve tissue formation and then promote longevity. So I find that area really intriguing. So that's on the top of my mind right now.

And I'll add one. I've been in vitamins and supplements for 20 years. And the trend that you probably have heard recently is women's health. And women's health has lived in the margins in the natural health world for 15, 20 years now. And it's really -- it's a complex topic on what women need, how it's different from male's health and what supplements can do. But in the last couple of years, there's been a real cultural movement in demystifying women's health, making it a more comfortable conversation. And as culture changes, it's bringing vitamins along with it. And we're seeing a lot of growth in conversations happening in fertility and hormone balance, where women's health used to just be multi-vitamins for women, maybe a probiotic where there's all these other products coming out now because it's a topic that's happening in culture.

Interesting. Okay. So with all of these trends that are emerging, how do you determine which ones are really going to be long-term consumer times that are going to stick? And how do you know what's going to be a fad or a flash in the pan?

Yes. So if you're scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, wherever, you're constantly bombarded with different ideas. Is this one going to stick or not? And it's really important for us to understand what's the trend, what's a fad? And if it's a trend that's going to stick, what's the timing that would be right for the consumer because we can't do everything all at once. So we ask ourselves a variety of questions when we have ideas come to us. One is who or what is behind this idea? Stacey mentioned biohacking. So there's communities out there who are really passionate about health they do their research to talk about things they genuinely care about. They have a vested interest in the conversation. First is, you might see something from an influencer who's just trying to get clicks. There's ingredients that come out of cultures like ayurvedic medicine, which is traditional Indian medicine. Ashwagandha for stress, turmeric for inflammation. So there's a lot of sources that are more trustworthy than other. So we look for where are these ideas coming from? Two, is it true? In that, is there a scientific validation? Is the ingredient going to do what they say is going to do? A number of years ago, I was walking a trade show floor. In my youth, I got tripped and I bought Deer Antler Velvet to boost my growth hormone. So things just come up. People say things, people believe them, but ultimately, it comes down to is a really science. And so we want to be competitive and compliant and honest. Then its about, is the topic growing over time? Last year, we saw yet another spike in insect protein on social listening, people were talking about it and then it dropped back down again. So we can see these volatile topics that come up and then go away. We want to see that in social listing or search trends, making sure it's growing over time. If those ingredients make their way into stores, and we track those ingredients to see if they are gaining traction. We also want to know who else is participating. Are there brands that are more trusted by consumers doing it? Or is it just D2C brands that are here and they're gone. And we look to trusted retailers if they are backing the idea and starting to sell those products. And then finally, is it market-ready or consumer is interested? So we test all kinds of ideas with consumers, product concepts or just simply ideas that are emerging. And we want to know are they aware of it? Or do they have intent to buy it or just simply open to it? Is it too complex, is understandable. And then in the example of cricket or insect protein, if we find that there's a really negative emotional reaction. So how high is the resistance to the idea? If its really high, often in North America, people think cricket protein is gross. And brands have tried over and over again to launch insect protein products, bars and powders. It hasn't really gone anywhere because this is in our culture doesn't fit. So we really want to understand is the consumer ready for, are they open to it and how much resistance is to the idea. Those are just examples of the questions we ask ourselves to find out is the trend at what's the timing for it?

So something that we know is not a fad is the switch that we have seen for a long time now, which is a shift towards proactive health, people taking care of themselves now before they get sick. How does that -- or sorry, how does that impact supplement consumption patterns?

I think of proactivity on a spectrum. On the far left side is fix. These are consumers who have a problem that they want to fix. They have store joints, they have sleep problems. They have something that comes up, they're trying to resolve. There's some level of proactivity because they're trying to solve it. In the middle is prevent, and Mike talked about this earlier, and that consumers are more and more getting educated. They learn about as they get older, they need to protect their heart and their brain. There could be a health crisis in their friends or family group, and then they want to know how can I stop that from happening to me. That's been the bedrock of vitamins and supplements for many years. And as education happens more and more, moving -- the consumers are moving to prevention. The farther side of productivity that I'm really excited about is optimization. And consumers are getting more educated to the point that they're not just trying to prevent something or fix something. They want to just fix their bad sleep. They want to optimize their deep sleep, so they're at their best. It's not just about clearing the fog from their head, they want to be the sharpest person in the room. So proactivity is happening in each of those places, all driven by consumer education, desire to be in control of their own health and their own destiny. And Mike showed some examples of just how many products those quality seekers and efficiency explorers are taking, and it's all rooted in proactivity and trying to take control of their health. So they're taking 6, 7, 8 products, all driven by this idea.

So shifting from more of maybe an established trend to more of an emerging trend, Dr. Aronne GLP-1s. Could you please tell us a bit about yourself and your role in the GLP-1 space?

Sure. Thanks, Ruth. I've been involved in obesity research and treatment for 35 years. I've done more than 60 trials as a principal investigator over that period of time. And for about the first 30 years, it didn't go so well. The last 5 years though, it's been really worth it. I've been the President of the Obesity Society, which is the Obesity Research Society for the U.S., Canada and Mexico. And I established the American Board of Obesity Medicine about 13 years ago, which is now exploding as a medical specialty. Last year, 1,800 physicians passed the board exam making it the fastest-growing area of internal medicine. So it's become very clear, very rapidly that the treatment of obesity with this category of medicines called GLP-1s, but actually it's better to call them incretin hormones or nutrient stimulated hormones, that all the hormones in this area can have profound impacts on health through weight and maybe through direct effects of the medicine themselves. It's been very interesting to see. So if you look at the growth of the field, I mean you have to realize that 9% of the U.S. population has a BMI of 40 and above. 40 and above, that qualifies for bariatric surgery, but only a tiny fraction of people are willing to go for bariatric surgery. What we've seen now with the advent of these medicines, which you know as Ozempic and Wegovy, that's the exact same medicine. And then Mounjaro and Zepbound, that's the exact same medicine. But one for diabetes, the other is for obesity. What we've seen is actually a decline in bariatric surgery and a massive uptake of the medications, such a big uptake that there were shortages which allowed compounding of the medicines temporarily, but the shortages now have been addressed, and we have an adequate supply of these medicines. But if you look at how many people are taking it, in Los Angeles, everybody is taking them. Some people admit it and others don't. But every single person in Los Angeles, I've heard, is taking it. But if you look at it, only about 5% of the people who could take them are taking them. And right now, the market is in the -- somewhere depending upon who you talk to, $10 billion to $20 billion range, it's been estimated that it's going to go as high as $150 billion by both Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. So you're talking about something that is having a massive impact right now, not only on health, but on health care as a whole. There are major changes in what's going on in the trends of health care that's being delivered. And it's only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger over the next couple of years.

Okay. So then in your practice day-to-day, you're seeing more and more patients that are coming in and people that are meeting these medications. How is that changing, like when you're speaking about the nutrition needs? And what are you seeing change there in those conversations that you're having with them?

Sure. So one of the things that I've recognized having been involved in this field for so long and having been involved with Jamieson for 10 years now on board, I recognized a number of years ago that people were eating very little when they were taking these medications and they would develop nutritional deficiencies, just as we see with bariatric surgery, and that has been borne out. We're seeing specific and generalize nutritional deficiencies in people taking GLP-1 class medicines. Things like vitamin D, the B vitamins. We're also seeing people lose hair and that may be related to zinc, Biotin and other nutrients. But just calorie "malnutrition" is something we're now monitoring patients for. Like to me, that's crazy, right, before we have to do whatever we could to get people to eat less. Now we're cutting back on their medicine to get them to eat more. It's really a remarkable change. But I recognize that we would need certain products that weren't pharmaceutical products, but fit well with what Jamieson produces. And those were protein supplements, which might include other compounds to help maintain muscle mass. It's very clear that if you prevent the loss of muscle, you can do it through resistance exercise and protein supplementation. Vitamin supplements that would prevent any issues and decline in the levels of the not just protein but vitamin mineral levels. And then finally, products that could address some of the side effects, primarily the gastrointestinal side effects. So things like probiotics and other prebiotics and a number of others that we've been talking about developing. So I think that using my knowledge of this field and the rapid developments seeing that there are complementary products that many, many people are going to need. So you think about the millions of people who are going to be taking them, I work on guidelines committees from major health organizations. We're actually going to be recommending vitamin supplementation, protein supplementation and other things that fit right in with what we do at Jamieson. And this is now, like we've never had this type of a recommendation from a major organization that people should be taking vitamins. You mentioned one other thing. You may have heard last year that the Harvard School of Public Health did a study showing that by using a multivitamin, a simple multivitamin, you could reduce cognitive decline. You could postpone cognitive decline by 3 years relative to people who weren't taking the multivitamin. That's a good reason to take a multivitamin, right? So now what we're doing is taking people with obesity who may be at risk for cognitive decline anyway. We're fixing that, but we're making their vitamin levels lower by the fact that they're not eating very much. So in my opinion, it increases the need or the medical indication for multivitamin supplementation. And I would bet as time goes on, the science will support this.

Okay. So you and your team led the formulation of Jamieson's line of GLP-1 companion products. Maybe between you and Stacey, could you talk a little bit about the product line themselves and how they're positioned from a marketing position.

For sure, I can take that. So under the youtheory brand, we have the GLP-1 line, which is really exciting. It's really first in the market. And you guys all heard the experience and knowledge that we have from Dr. Aronne and he led that team of experts of creating 3 really best-in-class products that really stand on their own now. So in terms of the marketing perspective of that, we need to make sure that we're getting the message across to our consumers on both the emotional benefits as well as the physical benefits. So when we think about the emotional benefits, we are leaning into the theme of your weight loss journey uninterrupted, and I'm pausing for effects there. But the idea with that is we are partnering with the consumers that are on this weight-loss journey. We are encouraging them to keep going towards their goals while we take care of all the barriers and interruptions that might come along. And those interruptions are all the things that Dr. Aronne just mentioned. So we have the 3 products that gets us into the physical benefits, right? So the high potency multi has -- it's formulated with the right potency levels to make sure that we can bridge those nutrient gaps that Dr. Aronne talked about. And then we have our dual action probiotic. So it attacks the issue by easing nausea as well as promoting regularity, and that covers the entire overall gut health situation that comes along with GLP-1 users. And then last but not least, the protein product that we have, which is the youtheory Muscle Guard Protein. And this one is formulated with HMB, and that's the muscle preservation that Dr. Aronne spoke about. So that's a key factor in that. We know that everybody wants to lose the fat, not the muscle. So that's the message that we bring forward where that SKU is concerned. So really, really great line of products, and it positions us really well in this market for growth. And we have the insights that tell us that GLP-1 users are very open to these types of supplements. So now it's on me to make sure that they all know about these products, and we get the message out there that we're partnering with them. So I'm really excited about this line.

Yes, we're seeing that, in general, people who are losing the kind of weight that we're seeing. So just to give you a perspective, in the past, we used to urge people to lose 5% or more of their body weight. Now the medicines we have, one produces an average weight loss of about 15%, the other 22%. We have a program with one of the states in the United States. I don't know if you know where that is. It's somewhere south of here. But anyhow, what we've seen is 18.6% weight loss over 10,000 people. That really is amazing. It's not quite bariatric surgical weight loss, but we are approaching that. And again, I'm talking about a large scale program that's delivered mainly by telehealth. So we're going to be able to reverse a lot of the trend of obesity. Now I know it's pharmacologically and people are going to say, oh, is that okay? I mean we have evidence already studies with Wegovy that you can reduce the risk of someone dying. You can reduce the risk of them having a heart attack, a stroke. You can reduce the risk with the other medicine Zepbound or Mounjaro, you can reduce the risk of having sleep apnea, having liver fibrosis, which is the leading -- can progress to cirrhosis and the leading cause of the need for liver transplantation. Osteoarthritis. I mean the list is going on and on. So we're seeing that all of the diseases that are a direct result of obesity. If they're not caused by it, they're worsened by are getting better. And the -- right now, in the United States, many people don't have coverage for these. But the insurance companies and the employers are beginning to get the idea that if you can treat 20 different diseases, we'll say, with one medicine, that's a real deal. And we're seeing that because of the competition that's going on now, prices have come down quite a bit. So I think that we're going to see massive uptake of these medicines, even greater than we've seen so far. And this is going to change. I mean look at our institution, how many people are going to need dialysis from having diabetes in the future. Okay, let's look at this for a second. We published a study about 3 months ago, showing that in people with prediabetes if we gave them Mounjaro or Zepbound, if they had pre diabetes and obesity, we were able to reduce the risk over a 3-year period of progressing to diabetes by 94%, 94%. So only 6% potentially of people who are at risk for developing diabetes will develop it. Well, does that mean you're going to have a 94% reduction in people who are ultimately going to develop kidney problems. We're going to develop heart disease, have a stroke because of their diabetes. And the list goes on and on. That is a massive change in the need for health care resources. And we're seeing that institutions like ours, I'm at NewYork-Presbyterian, which is one of the largest hospital systems in the United States. The administrators are trying to figure out how adapt to this. Now I'm not a very popular person. I'll tell you in a number of areas because they see that this is going to reduce the need. I mean, in the U.S. they're trying to have more surgery. They're trying to have more procedures and more of everything. But now we're seeing that you don't need as many when you treat obesity. So I think that this is going to be a big shakeup in the health care system for a number of reasons, and we need it in the United States.

So when we look at the adoption of these medicines, and we're seeing more and more people just becoming more healthy, Matt, maybe you could talk a little bit about what that could mean for the VMS category.

Sure. Yes. I think there's 2 opportunities here. One is behaviorally when people start to feel healthier, they take more healthy behaviors. So as they lose the weight or taking VMS, they're exercising or eating better, just have it start to stack because they see themselves healthier or they're experiencing results and then get more engaged. I think the other major benefit to a brand participating in this space is threefold. Just think of it as 3 circles. The middle circle is -- are the products we have now, complementing the GLP-1 journey, making sure you're nourished, you're protecting your muscles and you're digestive tract. Then the next circle are the secondary challenges that don't stop you from the journey, but Dr. Louis talked about losing hair or their skin challenges, cognitive issues. So that's the second circle. The next wave of products that we can design. And outside circle are the everyday moments. So in our research, 70% of GLP-1 users are already taking VMS. And so as we build equity with this group through starting with those complementary products, we can eventually expand into those everyday products like the vitamin Ds and [indiscernible]. So GLP-1 is really entry point into these people's lives. So we're already doing a lot of healthy things.

Okay. Great conversation on GLP-1s, just keeping an eye on time. Let's shift gears just a little bit to the market as a whole. So when it comes to innovation, how do you ensure that you have the right data? And what consumer insights do you prioritize?

Yes. So when I talk about insights, I'd like to start with a really simple definition of an insight. It's an often hidden truth that unlocks an opportunity. And in the case of GLP-1, it was all about consumers need to protect their health while they lose the weight. If they don't protect their health, they could have long-term consequences or they may, in Stacey's point, just stop using the drug altogether because they just aren't happy with the side effects. And so we look to all kinds of data to help us tell the story. We talk to consumers to ask them what their experiences are. We talk to them about how important is it to you that is professionally designed that is easy on your digestive tract, all these kinds of things. So we take data from consumer research from experts like Dr. Aronne, from experts in our science team and combine it into an insight that tells a story to our consumer. We have in company, in-market experts who are passionate about health and wellness, our sales team, our marketers. We have distribution partners around the world. We have a lot of consumer data. We have market data. We can see what ingredients we're selling and all these are different sources to get ideas and data that we then test with consumers. So every case is different. There are so many places that we look and piece together a story that's compelling to the consumer. But ultimately, it's about combining all of these sources into something consumers want.

And obviously, regulatory comes into play every day in innovation. Megan, it came up this morning about different perhaps challenges or what happens when there are regulatory changes in different markets. Can you speak to a little bit about how that might impact innovation strategy?

Sure can. Not nearly as exciting as insights or GLP-1, but it is my passion, so I'd be happy to. So we see regulatory landscapes changing all the time. And really, the key to navigating these, whether it's for innovation or just ongoing business continuity is not getting taken by surprise. So our regulatory team does spend time monitoring regulatory landscapes all over the world so that we can be ahead of this. And in many markets now, it's actually made much, much easier because a lot of draft regulatory changes are put out for public consultation before they become law. So this really gives us a chance to understand what's changing. It's not always obvious assess the impact of Jamieson and then come up with either most often a plan to mitigate risk. But sometimes actually, it lets us create an opportunity and look for a way to take advantage of this new change. An example that came up earlier that John talked about, but I'll mention again was when the Chinese FDA announced a new pathway to register our type of products in China, which until then had been almost impossible for foreign brands to do. So we were able to look at what they were proposing, look at our portfolio, understand where we could really excel in this so that when the registrations were open, we quickly secured registrations. Again, quickly is relative for China, but we were able to quickly secure registrations. And in parallel, it allowed us to support the launch of one of our major club retailers who are opening their first store in China. We were able to get product in for that store opening when almost no other foreign brands could. We do still have situations, of course, where regulatory changes quickly or the interpretation of a regulatory element changes quickly, and we have to be ready to pivot. But Jamieson is really well set up for this for a few reasons. One, we have really good relations with government authorities around the world. This helps when we're trying to work with them through transitions. We have a flexible supply chain in terms of raw materials and finished product, which is also really helpful when we see a lot of regulations changing. And we have a robust pipeline. And this means that a worst-case scenario, we have to pull an item from our pipeline. We can usually shuffle projects around so that there's really minimal impact to our kind of annual operating plan or our budget.

Okay. We are coming up on time, but I would love to just hear in closing from each of our panelists, what excites you the most about the future of innovation? What do you think the possibilities are for Jamieson? Is it new products, new delivery mechanisms, new ingredients? Just what excites you for the future?

I'll go first. I'm going to go back to something I said at the top of our conversation. And I really am excited about this idea of longevity and what that really means because there's so many different ways to talk about your cellular health. I'm going to obviously work very closely with my research and science team to help me find those right supplements that speak to that cellular health. But what I'm excited about when it comes to that is the idea of consumers moving towards preventative or optimization of their health. I think not only is that good for us as an organization, but that's just good for people in general and long-term health. So that's exciting and figuring out how we can bring those solutions for that.

I'll go. I'm going back to something Matt said earlier. I'm really excited about women's health. So of course, this has been a category in our space for years. But like Matt mentioned, traditionally, the supplements have been a multivitamin and some beauty SKUs and maybe a menopause SKU. And I love that women now are feeling empowered to talk about what happens when we age when we're looking at products for fertility, hormone health, perimenopause. I love that there's this movement towards getting that out there. And I love that Jamieson is working in that space, and I'm really excited to see what -- how that shapes up.

So I think when I first started 10 years ago with Jamieson, it was nice for people to be taking vitamins. It was kind of like a cute thing and maybe it will help you. But I can tell you that now the evidence is building that nutrition is playing a critical role. You've heard some of the examples here today, like longevity. I think there are major breakthroughs coming in longevity, and these aren't necessarily prescription medications. I think that trend is going to continue, that we're going to see more of an interest. We've heard Gen Z is going to be focusing more and more on this. And on the preventative phase of health, I think that is going to continue. So it's a very exciting time. There's a lot of science showing that the things that we're doing here at Jamieson are the right things, and I think it's only going to grow.

For me, I'm really excited about optimization. And I get excited like in longevity or just all the research that's constantly coming out and whether it's the biohacking community or others, who are always trying to push the boundaries of what we can do with our health. And it's more than just fixing problems. If you think of those who are trying to optimize their sleep, those people spending $8,000 on a mattress and mattress cover that lowers their temperature while they're sleeping so they get to a deeper sleep and then raises their temperature as they wake up so they wake up refreshed. So they're investing in their health in all these different facets. And as these emerging spaces keep coming, vitamins continually play a role in optimizing their health, whether it's sleep or brain function and focus in all these areas. So I get excited about optimization and all the consumers moving to that and how it trickles down to prevention and fixing over time.

Amazing. Thank you all so much for being on the panel today. Mike, did you want to come up and lead Q&A?

Yes, sure. I mean what a fantastic panel, some great insights there, some great ideas around innovation and all the work that the team does. You get a good feel for some of the talent we have in the organization, which is incredible, but also some of the processes and how we think of thing. And John is going to come up very shortly and just get into the process a little more. Does anyone have any questions for anyone on the panel? Anything GLP related, you have Dr. Louis here. He's the world's expert. Steve?

Just as you think about the GLP product line, is it safe to say that it's branded youtheory? Or are there any risks in branding at youtheory alongside some of the other products that have maybe different consumer needs or different desires from the consumer?

Yes. We -- I mean, we went with the path to branded youtheory doctor formulated and separate it. It just comes down to efficiency of marketing. We think it fits well with the consumer and the positioning of the brand and decided to keep going down one consistent brand build in the U.S. instead of try to build the second one. We'll look at opportunities in our other brands as it grows and progresses here, but that's the original choice, and we think it was the right one. I think you did a little research on it, did you not, Matt?

Yes, we did. And it was all about in the specialized space, consumers are looking for brands that are doctor-formulated and advanced. And they really felt or really fit well with the youtheory positioning on premium ingredients and investing more in your health.

Yes, Mike, just curious on how the genesis of the partnership and the relationship with Dr. Louis came about?

Well, Dr. Louis has been on our Board since CCMP bought the company back in 2014. So maybe Dr. Louis wants to talk a bit about his entry into the company 10 -- 11 years ago now.

Yes. So I came to the company when CCMP bought it from the original owner, and it was because of my regulatory experience. I have some experience with the FDA and Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. in enforcement. And they wanted somebody who could tell the difference between something that was legitimate and not. And because they were expanding the line of products, they were concerned that they might not know the -- and so that was my original role. Obviously, I've been doing research on obesity for all this time, and I would talk about this as the years went on. But until recently, no one really believed that what I was saying was true. And I outlined in a Scientific Advisory Board meeting, the outline for these products a number of years ago. And again, for a year, nothing was done. It wasn't until the sales team went out and they went to -- I forgot where they went, maybe Shoppers Drug Mart and they said, "What are you going to sell to these people who are not buying things?" I don't know, it was a Costco, I think, where they said, people -- there were a number of reports at the time that organizations like Costco and Sam's Club reported that there was a 10% decline in food purchases in people who fill prescriptions for the GLP-1s. So the question that we were asked is, do you have anything to sell to those people? But we already had in the hopper this group of products. So -- and it's fat from there. So that's kind of how it happened and the iteration of this.

So essentially, what Dr. Louis is saying is a bunch of finance guys bought a vitamin company and said, we better bring a doctor in. And that's how we came to the company.

They needed somebody knew what they were doing.

But I will say, though, like Google, Dr. Louis, you'll see tons of media clips, tons of articles. He's a brilliant mind and leader in obesity. I've learned a ton from him. Our whole company benefits from having Dr. Louis and our Board and our scientific advisory now as part of our innovation team as well. So Google his name, and you will see lots of great stuff about him and the stuff that he's brought to market and some of the thinking he has around these things much greater than we have time to share today. Anything else? Perfect. Thank you, guys. That was excellent. Appreciate it. All right. We're getting into the final stage here. We've got about an hour left, and then we're going to wrap it up for the day. I know it's been a lot of time. Hopefully, you're getting a lot out of this, a lot of insights, some new data. I did appreciate at lunch, someone in the crowd approach and said, I really like this data point. You've never shared that before with us, and we tried to sprinkle some new data points in throughout the day. And hopefully, it's helping you guys understand Jamieson more.

Next up, I have the honor of bringing up Regan Stewart. Regan is our Chief Operations and People Officer. She runs everything from manufacturing to supply chain and HR. None of us can do what we do as a company without Regan. She is the conscious of the organization and really, really drives a majority of what we do because everything we do goes through manufacturing and everything that Regan runs is that. So Regan, over to you, and on we go.

Thank you for that introduction. So just a few more presentations to go through. I know it's been a long day. I hope you've really been enjoying the morning presentations. And thank you for your attention. I am very excited to talk to you about operations. So let's jump right into it Okay. So in today's environment of geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainties and supply chain disruptions, it's really important that we build resilience into our operations strategy. And at Jamieson, we've done that. We have a 3-pronged approach. It's an integrated strategy, where we have our best-in-class supply chain, our optimized manufacturing network and our global distribution. I'm going to talk about each of those in a little bit more detail. So I'll start with supply chain. So we source over 9,600 metric tons of raw materials on an annual basis. 2,600 ingredients and packaging components in 35 countries across 5 continents. This gives us a lot of buying power, so we're able to drive our costs down as well as develop a lot of strong supplier relationships. We are dual sourced in the majority of our raw materials. So if we have an issue with one supplier, we can easily move to another supplier. And we've embedded sustainable practices through our sustainable partner program. So this is where we hold our suppliers accountable to the same standards that we operate with respect to business ethics, human rights and environmental responsibility. We have 4 state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and each of these facilities has its own specialty. We produced over 17 billion doses of product every year. And currently, we're about 65% utilized in that capacity. So our Windsor facility, this is our expertise, our center of excellences in tableting, and this is where we have large scale that the facility has been designed to run large throughput products through there. Also in Windsor, we have a softgel facility. And then in Scarborough, we have our powder facility. And here, we've designed that facility to be more agile and flexible so that we can run some of those more niche products. And then in Irvine, we have our 2-piece capsule facility. Our manufacturing network strategy is based on 3 core principles. One, it's to manufacture in market. So we manufacture for Canada in Canada, we manufacture in the U.S. for the U.S. And then when volume justifies, we will manufacture internationally. We talked earlier about China, and that's likely going to be the area that we're going to look at investing next. Secondly, it's around driving efficiencies our dedicated center of excellences that I just talked about, having this deep expertise in each of these different formats, that drives a lot of efficiencies in our facilities, as well as having this one facility designed for large-scale manufacturing, that drives a lot of efficiencies with a lot of our larger volume, higher demand SKUs. And then in Scarborough, we run our niche products there. And because that facility was designed to be more agile and flexible, we can drive a lot of efficiencies. So our global distribution network, we have 14 distribution -- 3PL distribution centers located strategically across the globe. And this is so that we can service our customers better as well as drive down our costs as well, as our carbon emissions. And because this network is very flexible, we can easily add another 3PL to it when the market demand requires that. So next, I'd like to talk about how we operate our facilities on a daily basis. So this framework guys are thinking, and it's how we prioritize how we run the business. First, it's all about people. At Jamieson, we really do believe that people are the key to success. And then, of course, quality is our #2 priority. We've talked about that as our brand promise. And then customers. We want to make sure that we're delivering on our promise to our customers. And then we have a relentless focus on continuous improvement. So I'm going to talk about each of these in a little bit more detail. Health and safety, it is our #1 priority. We have built a health and safety culture in all of our different facilities. We want people leaving work better than when they arrived at work. And we believe that having a truly safe work environment builds trust with our employees, and that foundation of trust builds engagement. And when you have engaged employees, they work safer, they care more about quality and they make better decisions. So just as we've created a health and safety culture, we've also created a quality culture. Every team member is a champion for quality, and they ensure that every dose is made with care. And we don't just execute our quality program. We've engineered quality into our processes. Our right first-time methodology focuses on preventing defects rather than just detecting them. However, if we do detect a defect then we get to root cause, and we build that corrective action into our SOP. So that doesn't happen again. We have a philosophy of being always audit-ready, so we don't have to spend time preparing products because we are always audit ready. And then our supplier quality management process ensures that raw materials arrive to our door, exactly how we expect them. So the way we deliver to our customers and our promises to our customers, is through our integrated business planning process. So this combines consumer demand, customer demand with our supply plan and our financial plan. So it ensures that we are delivering the right product at the right time. It also allows us to respond very quickly to market opportunities such as the KOL that Joel was talking about earlier. It is a forward-looking process so that we -- it will trigger us for investment when we're -- if we're running out of capacity. And also, we're able to focus on inventory. So it allows us to optimize our inventory so that we can reduce our working capital. And then I also talked about, that's the fourth priority, is around our operational excellence and our process excellence. So this is also, as I talked about, that health -- we have a health and safety culture, and we have a quality culture, we also have a continuous improvement culture. So every operator is focused on daily on improving the work that they do. We combine experience and systems and tools and analysis to gain process insights so that we can drive improvement into our processes. We have a visual factory. So what that means is that every operator, all of our core KPIs are visible to every operator. So when you walk into our factories, you know if we are hitting those daily outputs in the daily goals. This drives a lot of pride amongst our operators. And it also can drive a little bit of healthy competition amongst our operators and amongst our different facilities. Okay. So I've talked a lot about how disciplined we are. I talked a lot about our process orientation, but I didn't want to leave here today without -- with the thinking that we weren't agile and can't respond very quickly. So I thought I'd tell you a little story about the pandemic. So we were very fortunate in the pandemic. Our demand surged. However, we had to throttle down our production output in order to keep our employees safe. So we found ourselves into a very constrained environment well before we had planned. So we got a team together and figured out how we were going to accelerate all of our capacity plans. We did this by taking our finished goods distribution, and we moved that to 3PL, which availed a lot of space in our warehouses, and then we repatriated that for manufacturing. It was still very difficult to build out manufacturing during the pandemic supplies were in short supply. Very difficult to get contractors and it was all we were competing for equipment. But we figured out how to do that, and we doubled our capacity within our existing footprint. So that's a really good example of how we reacted very quickly. We pivoted. And it also shows the commitment of our people because people had to put a lot of long hours and a lot of time in that. Okay. So what's next? Capacity. So we talked about that we're about 65% utilized. We expect in the next couple of years, we're going to have to make that decision on where that next big investment is going to be. So that's going to be a big focus. We're also focused on other formats and because we have a bias to manufacture in-house, so we are looking at gummy manufacturing. And then we just implemented an ERP system, and so we want to make sure we're leveraging and optimizing that new system. And that's it for me.

Thank you, Regan Any questions for Regan on our operations, manufacturing, supply chain, distribution network. It is quite a complex network. I've worked in a lot of CPG categories in my career. The one thing about VMS is it's very complex because it's a lot of ingredients. It's a lot of components. It's a lot of SKUs, right? I mean we're running like over 1,000 SKUs around the world. So it is a very complex supply chain and Regan's team keeps it all humming with the process and the manufacturing distribution network that you saw here today on a simplified version of what they do. Any questions for any of that, Derek?

How are you preparing for potential tariffs? Or maybe just at a high level, if we could get a recap where the potential risks within the business are as it relates to tariffs?

Yes, I'll take that one, Justin. So you've heard me say it, I think, in our earnings release, I said it in a few interviews post. So we look at tariffs under 3 pillars right now. And I'll comment on tariffs as they've been announced to date. Obviously, there's a moving target. Things are moving constantly. But we have a what we call a tariff response team ready we know where everything comes from around the world, we know where we ship everything. And no matter what gets announced by either government, we're able to plug and play into that model and determine what is the risk, or is there any risk to us. In the current situation we're in, from a branded perspective, we do not have risk. A vast, vast majority of what we sell in Canada, we make in Canada and everything we sell in the United States, pretty much we make in the United States. So from a finished goods branded perspective, we're pretty insulated from tariffs at this time. The second bucket we look at is raw materials, right, because there's raw materials that come in and out of our country. We do have a portion of raw materials that come in or components that come in from the United States. Right now and how tariffs have been announced and retaliatory tariffs have been announced, we have virtually zero impact. It's very, very immaterial, like it's virtually nothing. We also have a tremendous amount of flexibility and that we can move stuff around. So we can move things out of the U.S. to other countries. Most of our key ingredients are dual sourced. Anything that we do make in the U.S. or for the vast majority of anything we move into the U.S. that we ship here, we can move to our manufacturing facilities here. So right now, we don't have any material risk in raw materials. If those announcements were to change and we have an impact, that's where we understand the flexibility of every moving piece. We can move stuff. We can move manufacturing, we can move our sourcing, and we understand all of that. If that becomes in the next round of retaliatory tariffs, if we get some impact on that, all of that is movable. It's just going to take a little time. It's not going to be in a day. Like if they announce retaliatory [Audio Gap] so a couple of months probably to get a lot of that move. Our team is proactively working on bringing in what they can bring in early just in case, a minimal impact from that perspective. If that does become some type of impact to our business, that will then work into our vitality process, which we didn't talk about here today. That's our pricing process. That's all incremental costs get put into an ongoing process, we call business vitality. We don't look at pricing as like a once in a period. Okay, we're going to look at this every March. We have a team that collects moving input costs at all times, puts it in our model and it helps us determine when are we going to pass pricing on to the consumer. We have a very strong track record of doing that. And if tariffs become an issue, we will like to do that, but we do not anticipate that at this time. The third bucket is our strategic partners business, which Don is going to come up and talk about in a little bit. Our strategic partners business, we do sell a portion of that business to U.S. customers, their brand owners. We don't own the tariff risk there. The importer owns the tariff risk, and that's the brand owners. Right now, we would -- if tariffs come in on that business, we do have a risk to that impacting the business is less than 10% of our overall revenue as a company. It is our lowest profit margin business, and it is not the division that is -- that we're strategically growing. If that were to be the case, we would take some time, we would probably have to cycle out of some of those contracts and then cycle into new opportunities that would come to Canadian manufacturers. So as some contracts are cycling out of the U.S. Some will be cycling into Canada, and we'll be trying to pick up some of that business to fill those gaps. Our anticipation is if that were to come true within 12 to 24 months, we could replace what we have from either Canadian contracts or global contracts and fill that void. It's just going to take a little bit of time. So if I was sitting in any business in Canada today and tariffs were staring us down, this is the business I'd want to be in, and this is the category I'd want to be in because we have supply chain flexibility, we have manufacturing flexibility, and we have contract flexibility to move things around. It could take 12 to 24 months to get it all sorted out, but it will get sorted out in this company, and we have no doubt about that. Derek?

At the 65% utilization capacity, is that across the board? Or is there differences between youtheory and Windsor?

Yes, there are some nuances between each of the different facilities. So that is 65% across the board. But as I mentioned, we do -- we have complementary formats and a processes across each of the different facilities, so we can move production around. So that's why we look at it as a broad together.

What's the magnitude of the CapEx that you would expect to expand your manufacturing capacity?

On a brand-new built?

Chris, do you want to take that. Chris has answered this many times. [indiscernible] over this.

It really depends on us where and what we build. One of the points in one of my slides is when Regan talked about doubling within our existing footprint. The equipment for that expansion was under $100 million. So if you are looking at a leased facility and a scaled build that would be the absolute upper limit of what we would do. Likely, if we're building in China for China, it might not be at that scale. So you trend that out over a period of time.

I think the one thing that is interesting right now, you talked about tariffs last question which was tariffs, right? We're obviously going into a new era of global trade and where this all lands will be interesting. The good news is we don't need to make a decision on where we're going to invest or how we're going to invest for a couple of years, and we won't need that capacity for 3 to 4 years. It gives us time to say where is this new global trading world or atmosphere going to land? Or is this all going to land? And then we can make our decisions based on where do we most need demand, where is it most efficient for us to manufacture? And where does it have the least amount of impact in whatever this new trade world looks like in the next couple of years? So we're actually in an interesting position that we -- we're not a company that just announced, hey, we're going to build a new facility and all of a sudden, that facility becomes an issue because where it's situated. So it's a good timing for us to go through this transition. Any other questions?

[indiscernible] Utilization. Does that include what's utilized by strategic partners today? And I guess, expect would you eliminate that business and [indiscernible] utilized by Strategic Partners today? And I guess [indiscernible] would you eliminate that business and the 100% JWEL Youtheory utilization spend rate?

Yes. So yes, it does. And if we eliminated all of our -- so that one is a little bit nuanced by plant. So packaging capacity, that would reduce -- we'd get a gain of another 20%.

In packaging but...

In packaging but just...

Strategic partners varies by facility. So it's a lot more strategic partners in our softgel facility. You'll see it later when Don talks than in our powder or in our tablets. So Don will touch on that a little bit in his presentation. But that is an opportunity for us, right? I mean that is a low-margin business. If business -- if branded business were to grow at an accelerated rate and we needed capacity, we could back down on some of that contract manufacturing fill that capacity with higher profit margin branded business. . No, no, you're coming, you're coming. Don's up. We got to wrap it up time for 1 more question, if there is one. Excellent. Thank you, Regan. Thank you, Chris. Excellent work. Next up, we have John Doherty. So I have been, as I've said in CPG a long time, I've worked with a lot of science people. John might be the hippest science guy you'll ever meet and he can tell a story like no other science guy. So I'm going to turn it over to John, and he'll talk to you about our innovation, our regulatory and the R&D work we do around the world. Just grab one, it will turn it on.

All right. Good afternoon. You guys can all hear me okay? Okay. It's fantastic. My name is John Doherty. I'm the Chief Science and Innovation Officer. I started the company in 1999. So I've been in the industry a while, really passionate about the industry, really passionate about products, ingredients, but more than anything, I'm really passionate about Jamieson and I love it. It's fantastic. So let me just talk a little bit about what I do at the company, there is my picture. If you divide my job into maybe 3 buckets, okay? One of them is quality. We've heard a lot about our quality story and it's an essential part of our DNA, and that's a deliberate segue to another commentary. But it really is a big part of who we are, and it's our quality story to our consumers and my team takes care of that across all 4 of our different manufacturing facilities. So it's a bit of a challenge because our obligation is to maintain the quality consistency from site to site to site, which is a complicated process, but we're happy to do it. The second part of my job is regulatory affairs. So that's ensuring our products are compliant in every country we do business in. So it's about 50 countries around the world. We'll get into the details on how sticky and complicated that actually can be on some subsequent slides. And then the third area that I look after is innovation. So coming out with cool new ideas that are consumer relevant, guardrailed by insights and science backed. It's a really important part of what we do. a high integrity company with high integrity claims. So science is a big part of the story. Okay. Looking back to the quality story. We've got certifications for all of our different facilities. Two that we're particularly proud of are in our Windsor facilities. So our tablet plan on roads Drive in Windsor, and then about a 5-minute drive down the road is our softgel facility called INTL, both of whom have pharmaceutical manufacturing licenses from Health Canada or a Drug Establishment Licences [indiscernible]. And that really is a distinctive feature of -- for our manufacturing ecosystem versus all of our competitors, I would say within North America. I'm not aware of any facilities in the U.S. that have that kind of certification and maybe only a handful here in Canada. So it really speaks to the quality philosophy that we've got and it's not just lip service. We actually live it through our certifications. Of course, we've got FDA compliance. We're also certified to produce for a very strict market in the world, which is Australia. It's got high global recognition for high-quality standards, a very stringent regulatory body there as well as Saudi FDA. We were the first facility in North America to be licensed by the Saudi FDA to manufacture natural health products. Quite proud of our quality certifications. And again, it's a continuous effort on our part because our manufacturing network continues to grow, we want all the quality systems to grow and stay consistent and continuous across each site. Okay. You're familiar with the 360 Pure logo. But maybe I'll tell you a little bit about the specifics that go behind that what it means. So 360 Pure is loosely in this context, you should look at it as a checklist. So one day we went through and went through every step that we go through in the manufacturing of our product. So GMPs or good manufacturing practices start at the, call it, the receiving dock at the manufacturing facility. So you got a truckload of raw materials they arrive and boom. That's when the quality obligation according to Health Canada regulations, that's when it starts. So we receive the raw material. We test it. We do multiple tests. So if you take a single ingredient like, I'll say, glucosamine sulfate , maybe 25 different tests we do on that single raw material before we then release it to manufacturing to use them in the manufacturing process. Multiply that diligence for every ingredient or product. So if you've got something like a multivitamin, there might be 35, 40 active ingredients in there, plus all of the excipients. So those are the nonactive ingredients that are necessary to hold the tablet together. So you've got maybe 40, 50 raw materials in a single product. They go through multiple tests. That's Phase 1. Once it goes into manufacturing, we're doing continuous testing throughout the manufacturing process and to ensure that all of our tablets, capsules, softgels, whatever they are, are meeting all of the physical parameters that are necessary to ensure the product quality. And then once they're done manufacturing, we continue to do the testing for label claim as well as consistency throughout the batch. It doesn't end there, okay? So we then put it in a bottle. And then we make sure that we do further test to make sure that the right number of tablets are in a bottle because there are consumers out there that will call us and say, you're 100 count of vitamin C, only had 99 tablets. So we check that, too, to make sure that we've got our full label count in there. It doesn't stop there either. Once we ship -- once we test the product, release it, we're meeting label claim, we're filling all our tablet counts, sits on the shelf. We have a continuing obligation to consumers to make sure that what it says on the label remains in the bottle. So certain ingredients like vitamin C, vitamin D, other ingredients that rely on their molecular architecture to function properly, that will break down over time. So the way we measure that and test it and assess it and make sure that a bottle of vitamin C 500 still has 500 milligrams of vitamin c after it's been out there for 3 years, that's call our stability program. And so we test product at various time points, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24 months to make sure that there is 500 milligrams or more in each tablet right up until they have very last date of expiry. So if you add up all those checks and steps and balances, it's approximately 360 steps, okay? And this is how we arrived at our 360 Pure promise, and that's the kind of technical background behind what that program means. Okay. Regulatory affairs, we do product -- or we sell products in approximately 50 countries around the world. And it would be very nice and very simple for the regulatory team if it was one set of regulations around the world, but that is most definitely not the case. And unfortunately, it proves to be very complicated project to manage, but we've got a very skilled talented team that looks after that. We've got a fantastic example here that will tell you exactly what I'm talking about. Any kind of regulatory body in the world is predominantly concerned with 2 things, okay? Is the product safe? So is this -- in this example, were you talking about a mega product -- is it going to harm our citizens? So there's a public health body they're looking after the safety decision. So is it safe? And the second part of that is efficacy. So it says it's going to do something, does it have the proper criteria scientifically to make those claims, okay? Is it efficacious? So those are the 2 kind of high-level principles that any regulatory body is concerned with when it comes to regulating our products. So it sounds relatively simple. But the way you go about establishing that improving that to various regulatory bodies is different from country to country to country. So we use the omega-3 product here as an example. So in Canada, our regulatory regime is kind of at that nexus you see in the mastercard symbol, the Venn Diagram. Some countries regulate products as foods, some products regulate -- sorry, some countries regulated products as drugs. And right in the middle is this overlapping category, which here in Canada is for natural health products. And so that -- the natural health products record here in Canada came into play in 2004, and we've been operating under there since then. So under the drug ideology, which is a theme across some of these other markets, there's a premarket review and approval system. So what that means is -- you have to take that dossier, build a dossier, put a bunch of signs in and put a bunch of quality in it and submit it and then the government will then review it and assess the science, assess the quality, assess your methodology and say, okay, well, you figure a criteria, here's our product license, it's safe, it's compliant and here's what you can say it does. Here's what you can tell consumers this product does. So we have that system here in Canada. So like I say, we're a subset of the drug system. By contrast, the same product in the U.S. is regulated as a food. And so there is no premarket review and approval process. There is a very narrow style of claims you can make for those products in the U.S. So the very same product in Canada requires premarket review and approval and mandatory health claim, whereas in the U.S., there is no premarket review and approval. And if you said the claim that you're allowed to say in Canada on the U.S. product, it will get you in hot water, you get an enforcement letter from FDA. So it's a remarkable disparity just here between Canada and the U.S. You take that one step further and start going to all these other markets. So China, for example, is another market that has a very strict premarket review and approval process. They follow more drug model, which I'd like to think they adopted a Canadian approach to the regulation in China. So that's how we approach registrations in that country. We've got another example here for Saudi. The product registration there is a very pharma inspired registration model. It could take about 2 years to get a registration there. Whereas in the U.S. example I talked about were subset of food category, zero time to market. So I come up with an idea tomorrow, I can go start selling it the next day, providing that raw materials and manufacturing capacity. And it's -- the onus is on the FDA to come after me as the brand owner to prove the product is unsafe. So it's a totally different regulatory environment. And then the EU, it would be great if the EU was one set of regulations, but the EU is really just a collection of a bunch of different regulations. So you might have a multivitamin that's compliant in 6 countries in the EU. I got 5 minutes stuff. Is that what you're doing? Okay. No problem. I'll keep talking faster, like question for Ruth, Okay. So summary is regulations are complicated, and we're good at it, okay? Stability. I love this example for stability. When the Orange Hat regulations came out several years ago, there was a very high requirement for stability. And we have a fantastic stability program. And because of that, the time we invested in this pharma inspired stability model, we were able to hit the ground running in China and get more Orange Hat registrations than any other brand in the world, okay? And I attribute that entirely to our stability program. So props to them. And that record is still true today. So based on today's numbers, I think Orange Hats have been available for about 4 years now. We still have more licenses than anybody and more than double the #2 competitor. So it's a great testament to our stability program. Okay. We already talked about 360 Pure. Our quality philosophy, really quick example. We're not satisfied with the minimum regulatory requirement. We like to go above and beyond. Great example of that is DNA testing that we first started doing on our botanical ingredients, but then we segue that into our probiotic ingredients because probiotics also have DNA. We're the first brand in the world to adopt DNA testing on an entire probiotic range, fantastic testament to our quality philosophy. This is our innovation process. We've got multiple steps here. This is our stage gate process, and I know we're running low on time, but we can drill deeper into any one of these different buckets, but it's a very planful diligent assessment process as we take ideas and cycle them through various escalating levels of diligence and resource to come up with a consumer-relevant innovation. Okay. What's next? I think did I do it? Okay, I did all right. So number one, for product quality. One of the things we're looking at adopting right now is rapid DNA testing for pathogens. So it's like right out of CSI, we take our sample, we put it in the machine, and it tells us if it can see E.coli DNA or a Salmonella DNA in like 20 minutes. Very cool cutting-edge technology we're doing on the quality side. Regulatory, we just keep hammering on the China pipeline. So we've got a lot of Orange Hat registrations in process. And then on the production side or the product development side, One thing we're looking to expand our softgel capabilities is through vegan softgels or vegetarian softgels. They're complicated, a little bit fussier to make, but that's one of the things that we're trying to repatriate into our manufacturing ecosystem, [indiscernible] I think that's it.

Thank you, John. We do have time for some questions. Just one clarification. We have the most Orange Hat registrations of any foreign brand. Okay. Any questions for John? Any science questions for John? All right. That was great. All right. Up next, we have -- let me just put this. We have Don Bird coming up. Don is our EVP, Managing Director of Strategic Partners and Global Business Development. Don is a 30-plus year veteran of the vitamin mineral supplement industry. He has run our international business. He has -- he led our integration for the first year in the U.S. He's run our marketing division. He has worked in vitamins across A couple of companies for many, many years. He's an expert, and he really leads the charge on some of our global customer relationships that we've built over time, but our strategic partners business, which is something that helps us with capacity. So over to you, Don.

Thanks, Mike. Did the science guy go long? Pretty amazing. So yes, I'm Don Bird. I am the old silver back here 30 years, and counting. So Mike hasn't moved me out just yet. So one division that I've always had amongst many is strategic partners. And I'm excited to talk about it today. Mike's touched on a little bit about some of the key topics. But yes, we're going to share a little bit of information. So I'm going to be quick because I feel that there's some people that are ready for a gin and tonic or a negroni at [ BioMark. ] But where are we? Well, we're in 18 countries and in 5 continents. So we're not quite at the 50 like the brand is at, but we're growing rapidly, and we're very much excited about opportunities around the world where we can take on new contracts, work with some of our key retail partners in terms of private label and help become on a more efficient manufacturer for the facilities. So we're growing. But Mike, we're a bit of a lumpy business, right? Yes, a few gray hairs that Mike's got probably a lot of them are from strategic partners. So you can see, right, through the left-hand side, it's a positive story. But for you investors, sometimes it can be lumpy, right? And Mike has to stand up in front of all of you every quarter and talk a little bit about strategic partners. But think about this, it's contract manufacturing, you work under a contract, right, with different partners. So some partners we gain and we grow rapidly. Some partners will lose through time. The contract will end. Some partners will bring on new capabilities themselves and then I don't need a third-party contract manufacturer to work with them. But overall, if you look from 2017 to now into 2025, we're growing rapidly. We've more than doubled the business, and there's lots of opportunities in us for to grow. I know there's tariff concerns out there. But if I can give you some comfort level, we've won and lost contracts and gone through these things for many years, and we will find new business. That's my job. They might hustle for new business. So in our plan, we grow at a controlled manner. So we're growing about 5% a year. This year, we're going to grow 10% to 15%, right Chris? That's the promise that we made. And so we're excited about 2025. So we drive margin. We know EBITDA growth. But really, what do we do? What makes strategic partners unique and great and fantastic, gets you all excited at the end of the day to talk about. And it's really about that we fill idle capacity, right? And we drive overall efficiency. We absorb trying to think of the easiest way to describe it, pardon me? There we go. Mike says, we absorbed them the cost structure. We support the overall organization. We help maximize purchasing powder. So we're a large buyer of certain ingredients and components, and that gives support to the brand in terms of brine power for raw ingredients. We help expand and grow in new marketplaces. So with some of our contract manufacturing partners, they're in areas of the world that our brands currently not in. We gained expertise within that area, and then the brand can decide whether they want to grow into that area or not. And then we work with key retailers, a few strategic partners in and around the world on private label. And we do that to help support the branded business, right? To work synergistically together with a controlled plan of growth. So we're strategic partners. We have a few strategic partners. We're not an overall contract manufacturer where we take any and all businesses that would come our way. So who are these customers? Blue chip global brands, many of you have these at home, you'd recognize many of the partners that we work with, international, large global private label brands and government and NGOs. So John does an amazing job and I tease them our science guy, but we do have some really unique things, and one of them is that we're a pharmaceutical grade manufacturer. And it's a true point of differentiation between ourselves and any other vitamin company that's out there. And it gives us -- we're able to do some really great work for the world. but we're also able to give comfort level to any of these partners, the blue chip global brands, the private label brands that they can rest easily that the quality standards that we do for our branded business extends on to their own brand or private label, okay? We have world-class quality, custom formulations, unique formulations for these partners. We don't use -- I want to be really clear. anything of the Jamieson branded formulations, right? We offer different delivery systems, flavor profiles that can meet the unique customer needs. And of course, we're really excited about JWELs leading global export and product registration expertise. So one of the things that happens on these global retail partners we offer something that's unique because we understand what it takes to move. If a retailer wants to move into new areas of the world, we're able to support them on that because most likely we've done that with our brand already, right? And you've heard from that regulatory teams about how really unique we are. So what can we offer? Tablets, capsules, softgels, John just talked about the vegetarian softgel that are just about to come online. We're super excited about. I'm running the time too. I'm running long. Okay. And 2-piece capsules, powders, liquids. So we offer a large selection and format available for contract manufacturing. Okay. So this is the one that I'm most proud of. It's really our last line. So because we are a pharmaceutical grade manufacturer, and we can offer something that, as John mentioned, other companies can't offer and that's that we can produce a vitamin A product, right, that will help benefit over 150 million children in over 50 countries, right? 2 billion-plus doses a year right, that government contracts and NGOs purchase from us. So from people like UNICEF or NI or Vitamin Angels as an example. So we're really proud of that. We donate a lot. We're a modest Canadian company, to be honest, and we donate millions and millions of vitamin A capsules to help kids around the world with their vision, with immunity and childhood development. So with that, what are we doing next? We're going to manage and develop and grow our existing base, and we're going to grow domestically as well as globally. We'll see what happens with these tariffs about where we've move and bend towards. But overall, we've got a [ nice ] growing plan. And if we do decide to move into new facilities or bring on more capacity, then strategic partners can continue to grow at the company.

Great. Thank you, Don. I mean I would just add, it's a very managed business, right? Like to Don said earlier, we're not out there trying to get every contract that we can possibly get. We manage how much we run through here. We manage how much of our capacity we're willing to put towards contract manufacturing to take up some of that latent capacity. But to the question earlier, we don't want to fill up our plants with this business, and we're not able to support the business. So it's a balancing act that we have by facility. And Don is a small, lean, but mean and very efficient team is out around the world, making sure that we have the right partners. Any questions for Don on this business?

First time in a while I've been called small.

Any questions for Don?

Come on, give me one. I didn't -- come on Strategic Partners that didn't get you excited? Contract manufacturing? Private label? You don't have a question for me?

No, we're good. He's good. All right. Don, they can catch in the hallway if they have any questions. All right. Next up, last presenter. It's one that you all know very well. You've spoken to him many times over the years as we've gone on the road. The one thing that hit me today when I got up here is we've traveled around to meet all of you in your places of business, other countries, there's people hear from Europe in the United States, across Canada, West Coast, Quebec and even here all across Toronto and Ontario. It's nice to see everyone come here, and we want to thank you for coming to us. Chris and Eric and Ruth are usually on the road coming to you, and it's nice to see everyone here. So we thank you for that. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Chris, who's going to run you through the numbers. And then we have a quick conclusion, and we'll call it a day. Chris, over to you.

Thanks. You stole my opening, thanking everybody for traveling, some very near, some very far. You saw Ruth made me update my picture after 11 years 2024 was a bit of a change for us from an organizational perspective. We had a very clear mission of growing top line and bottom line from an investor perspective, and we took a pause on that to really double down on an opportunity that we thought was important to the organization and invested in China. And with that investment, you saw some really remarkable growth of 80% and that almost 80% in that business. And that really helped the organization grow by over 14% in the year. I was really inspired watching Juan talk about his view and his vision of what the Jamieson brand could be in China. And you'll see a little bit more about that as we move forward. We also focused in fiscal 2024 around cash generation. One of the things that folks have been not concerned about, but point out as an area for opportunity was driving cash flow and really returning cash to the business. We increased our cash flow from operations by almost 100% in fiscal 2024. And that was really as a result of really focusing on working capital efficiency and focusing on doing what's right from an organizational perspective, managing cash, driving it to the bottom line. Fiscal 2025, we turned the corner in terms of looking at that significant investment in demand generation and continuing to accelerate in our growth markets. You saw a very strong fiscal '24 in China. That continues with 25% to 35% growth in 2025. As we create efficiency with that demand and generation spend as we learn about how to drive eyeballs to the Jamieson brand and really get people engaged with the Jamieson brand and drive up those repeat rates. Of course, Jamieson Canada is going to continue to perform, as Eric talked about, driving our share of shelf, driving innovation and really doing what a leader should be doing by showing the consumer how they can engage deeper with the brand. I'm really excited about our partnership in the U.S. with our e-com expertise, really focusing on driving the Jamieson brand on its fair share of shelf in the digital commerce area and as well as continuing to innovate to strengthen our 3 core categories and expand those categories to new opportunities for consumers as well as driving into brick-and-mortar in a much more meaningful way. Last but not least internationally, a really strong story internationally, 20% to 30% growth as JWEL really focuses on the areas of the business or the areas of our international partnerships where we can make a difference and really double down on meeting those consumers' needs and bringing that locally relevant ideology to each of those consumer sets. Don talked about the lumpiness of our Strategic Partner business. 10% to 15% planned growth in fiscal 2025 getting back to that high watermark of about $125 million. And as Regan said, lots of capacity to continue to expand. One of the things that Don didn't talk about was formats and capacity. For those people that are familiar with the story, a big part of our strategic partner business is softgel. We have opportunities in terms of available capacity within our powder operations in Scarborough. And what we would always do is we'd always make sure that that's driving efficiency for the branded business. All that leads to growth of almost 9% to 15% projected in fiscal 2025, as well as strong EBITDA margin driving efficiency through the business while continuing to accelerate investment in demand generation. We talked about our long-term growth rates, really leading us to beyond $1 billion, 3 to 5 years. Most of these numbers are very consistent with the past. One thing new here on the slide might be the fact that in fiscal 3 to 5 years out, we're targeting 20% to 21% EBITDA margins. That's really talking about our fiscal discipline, driving efficiency from an operational perspective, driving gross profit margin expansion, while continuing to reinvest some of that in our demand generation as well as managing our fixed investments. One of the exciting things is when I started Jamieson in 2014, the international business was only 5% of the business from a brand perspective. And when you look a couple of years out, it's going to be almost double the size of the Canadian business at 65%. So lots to look forward to. All right. Margins and growth in China, I think our competition, Joel mentioned and Juan mentioned a lot about our competition in China. And they ask how we grow as fast as we do by really driving discipline from a margin perspective at the same time. And that's one of the areas that we think is a great opportunity for us. We took this large investment to really rightsize our voice in that market. You saw the payoff. When you look at now 3 to 5 years down the road, it's really about now driving efficiency with that spend, improving the return on that efficiency as well as improving our operational and supply chain infrastructure to drive 300 to 400 basis points of expanded gross margin in that geography. Managing that fixed cost investment, we invested and drove a fixed cost base. that would support a much larger organization with the office and the 50 people that we have in Shanghai, leveraging that, well investing in demand generation at the pace of top line is going to deliver another 300 to 400 basis points of margin expansion in market into mid- to high teens EBITDA margin as we look through that purview period. Youtheory margins were already best-in-class when we acquired the organization in the high teens. As we look to drug margin in that business, we've done a really good job from a supply chain procurement perspective. We have opportunity to continue to drive margin from an operating efficiency perspective. With the opportunity from consumer and top line growth perspective, we're going to continue to drive demand generation, probably at or even ahead of the top line growth while leveraging that fixed cost investment that we have to date. So here, you see EBITDA margin expansion really being driven by our gross profit margin expansion, delivering into 20 high -- sorry, into the low 20s in that 3- to 5-year period. Candid International. This is the base business that everybody was familiar with prior to our acquisitions in 2022 and 2023. This is where you saw margins in the first half of the year would be in the 20s. Total branded margins in Q4 to be in the high 20s. This is the base. So you see what happens when you add volume to our existing infrastructure, you see margins expand. And I think that's where the opportunity continues to be leveraging our existing assets, putting more volume continuing to debottleneck and drive efficiency through our existing infrastructure. And that's where you're going to continue to see margins grow in that best-in-class business that's already delivering in the mid-20s from an EBITDA margin perspective. When you put all of those top line revenue growth, gross profit margin, fixed cost investments into the model and you say, where is the total business going to be in 3 to 5 years? It's 10% to 15% average growth over that period of time, and it's 100 to 200 basis points of margin -- gross profit margin and EBITDA margin expansion. That obviously is highly dependent on how successful Don is growing the Strategic Partner business because if we do have a larger share of pie there, overall margins may be impacted. So when you bifurcate that, it will be incremental overall from a profitability perspective. but margins might be slightly impacted based on just that mix nature. All right. Cash. I think everybody here loves cash. From our IPO, we generated almost $300 million in cash from operations. That is an unadjusted number, pretty good in the last 7.5 years. With that cash, we've invested almost $100 million in capital. That includes $5 million to $10 million a year in maintenance capital, as well as the expansion capital that Regan talked about as well as capital to improve our sustainability focus and as well as capital to drive ROI. Regan talked about our investments in capacity through COVID or more than 2x our footprint. And if you take that back to 2014 when I started, I think we're about 3.5x the size of our manufacturing footprint from that point in time. We have also invested in acquisitions to the tune of about $350 million, helping grow and establish a footprint in those growth markets in the U.S. and solidifying our distribution acquisition in China. When we look at what we've done with that capital from a shareholder perspective, we've delivered or returned over $200 million to shareholders, $174 million in dividends paid subsequent to the IPO, 15% annual dividend growth rate. Based on the stock price earlier in the week, at about $29. Our current dividend yield is just under 3%. I think that's pretty amazing for a growth company with the opportunities that we have. And from an announced perspective, we had repurchased just under $30 million in shares ending fiscal 2023, beginning of 2024. And we've executed on almost $10 million in repurchases through the first quarter fiscal 2025. So the company remains steadfast to put our money where our mouth is and repurchase stock while it continues to be an appropriate use of funds. We talked about investments in M&A previously. You've heard our management team talk about all of our competencies and best practices and what makes Jamieson a fantastic company and how we are able to grow in all of the markets we serve. What that does is create an amazing platform to acquire and drive synergies in every acquisition that we see. We are a choosy buyer though. We have a quality foundation. We have a quality heritage. We have high margin and high growth aspirations. So lining all of those criteria up is something that takes time. But what we are committed to is driving value when we do acquire businesses. We have a very strong balance sheet. We have over $400 million in available funding through our current existing syndicated debt structure. That includes an accordion of about $250 million. And we've talked at length about kind of what that ideal acquisition could be, could be anywhere from $50 million to $100 million in the U.S., bolting on to our existing infrastructure with Paul and the Youtheory assets in the United States. It could be growing in Western Europe, more mature markets where it doesn't make sense to grow the Jamieson brand from a native perspective because there's already an established market and it just becomes more costly to bring the Jamieson Brand. So those are areas where we would be interested in acquiring a presence. I think Regan mentioned earlier on in the presentation. We went live on our SAP implementation on March 4. I'm looking forward to next week when I have nothing going on from a finance perspective. We just closed the year. We did an ERP. We caught our breath. We did an Investor Day. Now I'm going on vacation, Mike. My request is in an e-mail. But what I will say is from an execution perspective, we are 100% on track in terms of shipping, producing, acquiring, testing, driving the business in our new system. Now it's really about optimizing and going from walking to running to sprinting. Next up from an ERP perspective will be the U.S. in the next 12 to 24 months. Mike, talked to this slide earlier on. We talked to a couple of the numbers here. I think our progress since the IPO is nothing short of remarkable. If you align these -- if you align the growth, both from a top line and EBITDA margin perspective on a page, on a chart, it goes from the bottom left to the top right. I am very confident that as we continue to drive growth as we continue to drive profitability, that the fundamentals or that the share price will soon reflect the fundamentals of the business and our opportunity going forward. So from my perspective exciting. And any questions? It's the first time I've not had a question on -- profitability.

How should we look at the free cash flow conversion?

So if you're -- what EBITDA to free cash flow?

Yes.

Yes, so tax is a big thing, obviously, that's around 25%. Interest at our current borrowing rate is in the $20 million range. For me, you're really looking at probably about 50% right now moving into 60% to 70% as we lever the business, as we drive the business.

Is that the working capital? Is that the delta there?

Sorry, I'm talking below working capital. Yes. So sorry, working capital would be -- yes, you're right, would be the difference, which is right now, I think we guided about $30 million investment in working capital in fiscal 2025.

Just on your targets of the margin and the more than $1 billion of revenue. Can you just talk about how that dovetails with capacity? Is that in your existing footprint, firstly. And then, I guess, secondly, I just want to make sure I heard correctly, but did you say you could double the size of the business in your current footprint?

Yes. So the pathway to $1 billion and beyond in 3 to 5 years is within our existing footprint. What Regan talked about was making a decision in the next few years where that capacity comes from. And it really depends from an M&A perspective, we could acquire capacity, which might delay that decision. There's lots of options.

Yes. I think when we talk doubling, it's available capacity, and we have the strategic partners piece that we can maneuver around a bit.

Absolutely.

Dennis?

So the lift in EBITDA margins is easy to understand from operating leverage. Can you remind us of the pickup in gross margins across the different businesses? Is that on the revenue side because of mix and price increases? Or is it on the cost side...

It's both. It's the efficiency of running product through our existing infrastructure and the fixed cost impact of just putting more units through our existing facilities as well as the efficiency of innovating at target margin rates reducing supply, cost of supply, creating efficiency from a supply chain perspective, continuing to invest and drive operations more efficiently from an ROI perspective. .

And I think to the second part of that, pricing when we see cost increases hit and we need to price, we price to maintain or grow margin -- not grow, but maintain the margin and we grow from efficiency. So we have a track record of not letting those cost increase impact our gross profit margin.

Just a financial question about the 2025 and going out 3, 4, 5 years. If you look at your adjusted EBITDA, excluding FX and share-based compensation, what can we expect for like each of the next few years? Are there any buckets that you foresee that may happen? That's the first question. And the second question is a lot of your wonderful growth is revenues, EBITDA, earnings. When will the focus are shifting to earnings per share? Like when those things get added to your presentation and the focus?

So just sorry, the first question -- lumpiness?

No, the first question is, we know the history from 2024 and backwards. In 2025 and of the next 3, 4 years. Your adjusted EBITDA forecast that you have, if you exclude stock-based compensation at FX, can we expect any other incremental adjustments over the next [ 3 to ] 4 years?

So just the current adjustments guided for in fiscal 2025 include our continued investment in systems as well as -- which other one -- those are primarily what we're guiding for in fiscal 2025.

And how about '26, '27?

There will be more system improvements until we're fully implemented across Canada and the U.S. But beyond that, we'll wait and see. Like at this point, there are no -- when we add back things, there's things that are nonoperational like the strike, like our investments in systems.

And how about focus on earnings per share versus the [indiscernible]?

We've focused on earnings per share internally from a capital structure. You should just see interest come down. You don't see interest come down in fiscal 2025 because we are hedged and that created an advantage in fiscal 2024. So you don't see that reduction as we cycle off those hedges in fiscal 2025, you should see a step down from an interest perspective. And that will -- between that and taxes, it take care of operating earnings and share count will take care of itself, which has also helped, obviously, with our repurchase program.

So I think in your outlook, you're expecting China's EBITDA margin to outpace the gross margin expansion. But in the U.S., I think gross margin and EBITDA margin are expected to grow at the same rate. So can you maybe contrast the 2 different regions and what's different there?

Yes. So when we talk about the U.S., it's really continuing to invest demand spend to drive that opportunity. We had the significant investment in China in fiscal 2024. So we're committed to that pace of spend, and we're committed to growing that spend at the same rate as top line. It's that infrastructure and the office and the people that allow you to grow the lever the fixed costs over the next 3 to 5 years to drive that to.

So in the U.S., we should still expect SG&A to grow in line with revenue?

That's correct.

Anything else for Chris while we got him here? All right. One more, Chris, right here, right next. Right next to you. One more.

What's your current appetite for buybacks right now balanced against deleveraging or organic growth initiatives? Like what is your hurdle rate for a buyback? What's it comped against?

For us, it's really just about balancing cash generation with the stock price and the opportunity. So as we see the price where it is today, we find that as an attractive use of cash. We do know incremental borrowings cost more from a borrowing rate perspective. So it's about us matching cash generation with the opportunity.

Perfect. Thank you, Chris. Excellent presentation and information. We come to the end. So that is a conclusion of the day. You've heard from so many people. I sit here and reflect on everything that you just saw, a lot of it for the first time, I get to see every day. And all I can think about is I might be the luckiest leader in Canada in terms of running a business. We have this incredible 103-year-old company with amazing track record. We have these competitive advantages from insights, innovation, quality and regulatory that just sets us up for future growth and sets us up in a process that is sophisticated, that it's repeatable and that we're able to build loyalty and stickiness around the world in every country we go to. And I have the great privilege to work every day with the team that you saw today. They're gritty, they're agile, they're experts. They're amazing talent. I think you saw that today. They know what they're doing, and they're the ones fueling this all from behind. I get to stand up and be the pretty face that presents it all and talk to you all the time, but behind it is this amazing team that I get to work with every single day. And you saw their talents on display today. As I think about how we've gone through the last 5 to 6 years, how we're going to move into the future, I think it's fair to say, like there's no doubt, there's going to be bumps. There's going to be hurdles, there's going to be things that we hit as we go along the path here to growth. But what we've proven time after time at a category level and a business level is we are a resilient company and a resilient category, and we are set up like no other CPG category out there to continue to grow, and we are set up like no other BMS company out there to continue to operate in any environment that comes at us. We have a resiliency and a greediness and an agility that allows us to overcome bumps and hurdles. And as you've seen today, we've overcome many in the last 5 to 6 years, and we'll overcome anything that comes in front of us from here. I say this often, and I'll say it in conclusion. I have worked in so many categories in my almost 30 years in CPG. Now I can't believe I have to say that. There is no category I would rather be in right now than vitamins, minerals and supplements. The tailwinds from a consumer perspective are like no other. The consumer engagement is like no other and the adoption rates into consumer households is like no other. And it's not just in one country. It's in every major market that we do business in, and it's in every market around the world. With that, I thank the entire team for all the work that went into today. It's a tremendous amount of work. It looked amazing. The content was excellent. I hope you all learned a few things about our business today, and I hope you had a great day, and thank you for your continued support, and thank you for coming to see us today. We really appreciate it. We'll be around for questions on the way out, and there's a gift bag on the way out for every one of you. Grab a bag of some of our products, try them, and we're happy to take any feedback once you're feeling healthier. Have a good one.