Red Light Holland Corp. (TRIP.CN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
July 30, 2025
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Todd Shapiro
executiveAll right. Good morning, shareholders, supporters curious minds, stock forum posters. Thank you for joining today's live Q&A. As you know, I'm Todd Shapiro, the CEO of Red Light Holland. And I'm proud to present an honest data-driven and passionate overview of our year-end 2025 audited results, which closed on March 31, 2025. Let's begin with the facts. Despite a year marked by global headwinds from Dutch tourism downturns to being debanked in Canada, we continue to grow revenues, reduced our adjusted EBITDA loss by over 24% and preserved a healthy cash balance of $12.8 million. Importantly, this year's performance is a result of a deliberate and strategic moves. We phased out unprofitable revenue streams and doubled down on efficient operations. As a result, nearly every one of our operating subsidiaries was cash positive for the year. This is an achievement that distinguishes us in an industry that's faced consistently with financial turbulence. Now while others in the sector have been and seeing high burn rates and solvency risks, Red Light Holland has stayed lean, smart and scrappy, delivering just shy of $5 million in revenue and over $16 million in cumulative sales since going public in 2020. Some standout wins include Costco, and Costco Canada reordered Happy Caps with our kits that were in over 60-plus stores, and we're very happy with that. We broken the U.S. retail strategy with Albertsons and Safeway. We launched our Health Canada approved functional mushroom gummies, not an easy feat, by the way, available and they have an NPN number. I won't get into the entire number, but it's there, meaning it's Health Canada approved for antioxidants and immune boosting. And on the innovation side, we successfully shipped homegrown psilocybin truffles to a DEA-compliant lab in California, which is a huge leap for our R&D ambitions. We've also taken bold steps in digital resilience. After facing institutional debanking, we turned to Bitcoin, and that's a long-term hedge, allocating up to $2 million under the guidance of trusted crypto analyst, Scott Melker. This isn't just about finance. It's about freedom, innovation and the ethos of the sovereignty that aligns us with psychedelics based on deregulation and decentralization. In parallel, our scientific credibility has grown tremendously this year. Our partnership with Arizona State University through Psychedelic Genome product will help advance personalized psychedelic medicine. And we welcomed Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris. I mean I call him the Tom Brady of psychedelics, who's a pioneer as a psychedelic neuroscientist, and he's now our scientific adviser, which is a testament to our data collection and our vision to legitimize and responsibly scale psilocybin-based products worldwide. Now before we head into questions, I'd like to pass it over to our CFO, who's done an incredible job for our company. He's come on now as our permanent CFO as well with the help of our controller, [ Elliot Terlero ], Keith Li. And he's going to walk you through some of the high-level financial results that we just published a couple of days ago. Keith, over to you. Thank you.
Keith Li
executiveSo thank you, Todd, and welcome, everyone, to the Q&A. So to begin with, I'll walk through some financial numbers for our fiscal year ending March 31, 2025 and 2024. Before we start, the full details will be available in our audited financial statements and management discussions and analysis, which is posted on SEDAR. We will also be posting these reports on our website shortly. So starting with operations, our revenue in 2025 grew to $4.9 million. That was an increase of about 4% compared to 2024. While the numbers might look modest at 4%, it was, however, strategic as it reflect our exit from some lower-margin businesses while laying down the foundations for future profitability. Gross profit was steady at $1.9 million, a little bit down from $2 million last year. This is in line with our disciplined cost-cutting approach and product mix changes. And most notably, as Todd mentioned, we improved our adjusted EBITDA loss by almost 24%. We came down at a loss numbers of $2.5 million versus a loss of $3.3 million from the year before. This is a significant reduction as we reflect our commitment to keeping our operations lean. In terms of financial positions, we continue to maintain a strong and healthy balance sheet. Our total cash position at the end of the year was $12.8 million, down from $14.4 million from a year ago. This decrease in cash was being driven primarily by new investments made into product development along with strategic initiatives. Our total assets, that number closed at $21.2 million at the end of the year, down from $24.1 million. This is largely due to some nonrecurring adjustments and also calculated write-downs in certain noncore areas. Additionally, our cost approach -- cost-cutting approach is paying off. Nearly all of our operating subsidiaries are cash positive in 2025. And also with excess funds that we have on hand, we have deployed them into some high-yield investments as well as making some new investments through our newly announced Bitcoin strategy. So overall, fiscal 2025 was a year of stabilization. It gave us operational clarity. So we are not just trying to report some numbers, but at the same time, we also are trying to tell a story of transformation, controlled growth and careful capital management. Back to you, Todd.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. Thank you very much, Keith. Really appreciate that. And that's the type of fiscal responsibility and leadership we pride ourselves in at Red Light Holland. And today's session is about accountability, transparency and dialogue. I invite all of your questions. We're so grateful that you've joined us here today. And of course, we are open to listening to all your concerns and your curiosity. As you know, we're playing the long game. It's strategic, it's deliberate. It's deeply committed to mental wellness, regulatory integrity and shareholder value. So thanks for believing us. Let's get to your questions.
Unknown Executive
executive[Operator Instructions]
Todd Shapiro
executiveAny questions yet? Yes, we got Adam, it looks like.
Unknown Analyst
analystI know you were -- Red Light Holland was debanked. Have you now secured another bank? Or what's the update on that?
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. We updated it in the MD&A. And yes, we're really strong with banking now in terms of day-to-day operations. So there's some great modern online platforms that help with things like payroll and wire payments and essentially what a bank does, except that there's no physical bank. It's all online. So we've set up a really good system. We also work with the credit union. So we put in an allotted amount into a credit union that will be insured and backed by the Canadian government. So a certain amount per transfer if we need immediate funds. And in terms of AEM, not on the Peterborough side, but the AEM New Brunswick side, we did reestablish a smaller relationship for day-to-day with TD. But when it came to lending and potential construction loans, there wasn't one of the top-tier banks that would approve, as you know, we'll get into it, I'm sure, the farm build in Peterborough, and that was just purely not based on budgets or the forward-looking economic outlook. It purely had to do with reputational risk because we touched psilocybin in a legal market in the Netherlands. But the day-to-day banking is getting. And I might add actually, which is kind of ironic, banking in the Netherlands is quite stable. So we've done a good job in the Netherlands to work with some top-tier banks over there. Any other questions, Adam? Yes, Maggie, just unmute, if you wouldn't mind.
Unknown Analyst
analystYes. I was just curious how the crypto would integrate with your existing banking. And I understand there's a company we've hired to look into that and manage it. Is that right?
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes, that's correct. First off, I think one of the things we've always done really well at Red Light Holland is dealt with experts in their fields. This isn't just sort of like a management down decision. This is, hey, let's work with people who know a heck of a lot more than we know. We always like to be coached. So when it comes to Bitcoin, it can be a bit risky as we know and a bit volatile. So we hired, as you know, Scott Melker. He goes by the Wolf of All Streets on Twitter, really popular individual in the crypto space. And he's also like he's not just your typical crypto pro column. He gets into all sorts of finance. He gets like big leagues on a show from Yahoo! Finance to -- he's been on MSNBC and all that kind of stuff. So he's helped guide us towards a company called Arch Public. And Arch Public has a very interesting strategy that still I'm discovering about, and I sat with the team, had multiple meetings with them. And basically, what they do is they accumulate and they set buy-sell models. So you can actually play off the bits and hopefully gain when you're buying low and almost selling high. So it's kind of a constant. But the goal is as the company, which we've established and made it very clear, we want to use up to $2 million of our treasury towards Bitcoin, and we'll see where there. Obviously, we believe it's a great hedge and a great store of value. Bitcoin -- I've been involved in Bitcoin, by the way, for about 10, 15 years. So I do know a lot about it as well. And it's interesting. It feels -- even though the price is higher now than, say, it was a couple of years ago, it feels safer with the BlackRock getting involved with the big institutions now talking about it. I mean, listen, the Trump admin talking about it nonstop. So we feel like it's a really good opportunity for our company. And most importantly, we feel the ethos really connects. We were debanked. We believe in, like I said, deregulation and decentralization and that ethos of personal sovereignty where we crave mental freedom and wellness freedom. If you think about what we're trying to do here as a company, we want people to have the right to try psychedelics and the access is something that we continue to advocate for, and that's still the core business. But when it comes to the Bitcoin balance sheet strategy, that aligns in this crypto psychedelic community, it's huge. Actually, it's kind of funny. Christian Angermayer, who's the CEO of atai, he even tweeted about the same ethos that I've been talking about over the last 3 weeks. I'm sure you saw it for me first. And -- but this alignment is great. I've been invited to the Futurist Blockchain Conference in Miami, and I'm looking forward to doing more of these. And I think that's what -- that's really going to do is combine our worlds, and we're really excited. Also, though, most importantly, on the balance sheet, a safe store value.
Unknown Analyst
analystI've got more questions, if you want them.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. I mean, do we want to -- yes, I mean, you might be answering -- I'm just worried you're asking for other people. Why don't we come back to you in a minute, Adam. So but we will come back. Maggie, please keep that in mind.
Unknown Executive
executiveYes, for sure. We just have one other person, Sam.
Unknown Analyst
analystI was able to read the MD&A yesterday and something that came to a surprise to me was the shutting down of Radix Motion. And I don't know if people did see that, but I want you to kind of touch on that a bit because I think about the implications or possible implications of what that means, particularly things like the technology of like the iMicrodose privacy data, which I think is powered by that technology. I think about the IP and the -- like the work that went on to get patents as it pertains to some of those technologies. What is -- why was that decision made? And what are the implications? And Shashkes, maybe that's a question for you.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. Okay. Sorry, I was having trouble unmuting. It's a great question. We'll let Shashkes answer the back end of it. But part of the decision-making is a lot of cost savings. So we can incorporate a lot of what we've done with Radix into our existing business. And what happens is it ends up saving a lot on audits, reevaluations. We've already had the write-down on Radix, but you have to get U.S. lawyers when it comes to the audit time. So part of streamlining and part of looking at as our chase to profitability exists and as you've seen on reducing our burn, we're looking at every way we can save costs. When it comes to the technical stuff in terms of the IP and everything we do in terms of the technical side and Sarah being our Chief Technology Officer, I'd love for her to answer.
Sarit Hashkes
executiveOkay. Yes. So I think there won't be really any actual changes. We've transferred the IP officially to the parent company using the same IP firm with Graham Pechenik that we've been using this whole time. The sites will all keep running. The data will keep running. It's all just under the parent company. And like Todd said, mostly we're trying to save on accounting fees, lawyer fees, Delaware tax. So there's just a lot of overhead, and we're going to make sure that the small revenues that Radix does get, for instance, from the VR experience goes directly into the parent company.
Todd Shapiro
executiveIt's a great question.
Unknown Executive
executiveI'm not sure where Sam went. Just see if Sam...
Unknown Analyst
analystStill here, gave a thumbs up. I'm glad to see that we haven't let go of the patent. I was really excited to see that. And with the evolution of the psychedelic sector and those that are following closely, especially what's going on south of the border, I think it could be a valuable asset to the company. And I hope that you guys continue to pursue that down the road.
Unknown Executive
executiveIf no one has any other questions, Adam, we can go back to you if that's great. I think you're still there.
Unknown Analyst
analystJust on the maybe follow-up questions to the new crypto strategy. Just looking at debanking, but is there a concern that the holder -- anyone's holding the crypto for you that they are a risk? And is that -- has that been addressed or researched?
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes, great question in terms of having a custodian and a proper exchange. So we will divulge that plan in the coming weeks actually through Arch Public. I would say that the risks are completely mitigated these days. I mean I think the days of hacking, stealing are really few and far between. It is a valid point, and it comes with some risks in Bitcoin. With that being said, the partnerships that we have with Arch Public and with Scott Melker, we're absolutely doing it as safe as anyone in the planet can do it, put it that way. There's no -- there will be no other safer measures. And we'll divulge and I think people will understand that safety concern in terms of protecting the capital that you do put into Bitcoin when that announcement comes out soon.
Unknown Analyst
analystOkay. And the -- is there any other debanking risks been resolved? Like backups put in place or any other risks like that?
Todd Shapiro
executiveNumerous different banks now. So we think we have a really good system that's working for us. Yes, we're always doing outreach. People are actually reaching out to us a lot, too. It's amazing how far the press release [indiscernible]. But -- and Keith, I can send that over to Keith, too. But as far as I know, we're right now in a good position where we're not in a good position is for lending for capital in terms of doing a construction loan. That's been proven to be very difficult. But Keith, why don't you maybe help answer Adam, in terms of the actual banking situation?
Keith Li
executiveYes. So Adam, in terms of debanking situation, we have gone back and we established banking relationships. Like Todd mentioned, AEM Farms, we move on from RBC, move to TD. We also set up new accounts with the credit union that we mentioned. We also have like online platforms, which facilitate making payments for payroll, paying bill for suppliers. So as far as I'm concerned, yes, there are no issues in terms of the banking situation.
Todd Shapiro
executiveThanks for your participation, Adam. We really appreciate it. It looks like Dan is raising his hand.
Unknown Analyst
analystCan you hear me?
Todd Shapiro
executiveGot you, Dan. Thank you.
Unknown Analyst
analystAll right. I just -- I have a question about the Health Canada. Well, it's a federal ruling against the Health Canada refusal to allow exemptions for health care workers to use psilocybin. That came through on June 20, I think. I'm just wondering if that has opened any pathways of conversation for you with health care providers looking to experiment with psilocybin in Canada?
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. So there's going to be -- they're hopefully going to have a reruling on that and allowing facilitators. Is that what you're suggesting, Dan? I think it's muted now.
Unknown Analyst
analystYes. Yes. It looks like they reversed the federal decision to say that it was biased and that they're considering opening it up now -- Health Canada is considering opening it up. I'm just wondering if that has immediately led to any new conversations for you? Do you have an idea of how soon you might be able to supply psychedelics in Canada for research?
Todd Shapiro
executiveSo the short answer is no. There's still no time lines on it, and it would be irresponsible of me to say that there are. In terms of advocacy, understanding the players and obviously wanting this to happen so we can have provided access one day is ultimately the end goal and the intention. As you know, we did a partnership not this year, but last year with TheraPsil, so we know them quite well. Actually, there's someone really close to us. I just -- I'm going to hold back his name because he's not on the call, but there's someone that we know quite well with the organization and who's going to be a facilitator themselves. So yes, absolutely, we have weekly conversations about where that may lead. And one of the things for us that is ultimately the most important is that access and the right to try and whether it's post-traumatic stress disorder or veterans, whatever, we all have our own trauma. So we continually want to get that message across. And after 5 years of being public for Red Light Holland, which is quite significant, I was sort of perusing, preparing for the Q&A a little bit. And I laugh because it's not like I need to prepare. This is my day-to-day, this is all I do. This is what I consumed with, this is what the teams consume with. But I was kind of looking at like all the other companies that went public when we went public, and it's really amazing how many just don't exist anymore or how many like have like $20 in the bank. So part of the long game, as I said in the opening is we [indiscernible]. We are a mission-focused business. And it's difficult. While we had pivot [indiscernible] and mushroom growth [indiscernible] et cetera. The core business we [indiscernible] so the slow deliberate build to get to that all [indiscernible] shareholders believe in that mission. And what we -- I think we -- I shouldn't say I think I know we've done very well is we built the brand in wanting to have. Now when will government authorities allow us to help? We still don't know. It pisses me off, quite frankly, that we -- a country that allows people to medically assisted suicide for trauma now, they've opened that up, but they haven't opened up legally or at least more access like other than the special access or the Exemption 56, which are very few and far between. But they haven't opened up on scale, the ability to try magic mushrooms as a last resort because science has proven it, and Sarah can talk to the science how it's proven helping turn around people's lives. So this is what we continually fight for. I can't put a time line on it, Dan, but I can tell you, we're always in the conversation and in the know. There's never not an e-mail or a tweet or a message I get from someone that we're not already all over. And if my mom is listening, that includes you, mom. You don't need to send me all the stuff, we get it. We're on top of everything.
Unknown Analyst
analystThat's great information.
Todd Shapiro
executiveAnd maybe, Sarah -- Dan, I'll interrupt, sorry, but maybe Sarah can just jump in and talk about those slow baby steps that we've done with CCrest. And maybe it's a good segue for her to explain what we're starting to do with Irvine Labs in California, the FDA-compliant and DEA-approved lab. Because I mean, honestly, I always got to be careful language and everything, but that's groundbreaking. We've done all the research. We don't think anyone in the world shift naturally occurring psilocybin from the Netherlands over into the U.S.A. with a DEA quota filled with -- they're a pretty strict country when it comes to the stuff, and they're allowing us to get it through their borders. And what the ultimate plan is for there and especially with a great -- love or hate this administration. I always say, you got to love them when it comes to psychedelics because they're absolutely putting it in people's faces. So maybe, Sarah, you can add to that a little bit too.
Sarit Hashkes
executiveYes. That's a big part of providing access is having a product that will fit in with whatever regulations. And that's where CCrest, we're still very close to them. They did an amazing job, but their license did not really allow them to export or to sell directly to patients or provide to patients. And that's why we took the data that they created, and we found a lab in the U.S. that has that ability legally. So yes, I think that was a really, really big milestone, like Todd said, so much bureaucracy. I really hope the next segment will be easier, but it was the first time. So we had the lab talking to the DA agents to make sure that everything, everything, every single line, every lock on the door, everything is compliant. And then we were talking to the custom agents, which had never seen anything like this before because from the Netherlands, it's an agricultural product, but in the U.S., it's a Schedule 1 drug. So we were very, very excited that it all went extremely smoothly at the end when we press the trigger. And now we have the ability to work with a lab that can manufacture and export, which is the important part for us and provide products to both clinical trials maybe in the future in Canada. And there's a lot of other markets, I think, that are opening. And I hope that will maybe give Canada a bit of a kick and behind to help them move forward because it is a little bit sad to see that it's so easy to get access on the street in a nonregulated way to substances that are not tested. You don't know the quantity, the dose, what's actually fully in them when we have the possibility to make something that is dosed that is exact, that we know the shelf life, and we really want to get that into the hands of people.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. Let me just add to that. That's such a great point you make. And I kind of say this year after year during these Q&As, and we're so grateful you all join. I wish -- I hope everyone has a question, to be honest, because, A, as you know, I'm candid, I'm talkative and we're transparent. And when it comes to consumer demand, it's proven to be there. If you just even look at things like alcohol decline in sales, non-alc sales are going up. And when it comes back to the magic mushrooms, consumer demand, while there's not pure data out there other than probably what we have in the Netherlands. It's everywhere.
Sarit Hashkes
executiveOregon, right? We did see...
Todd Shapiro
executiveOregon. Yes...
Sarit Hashkes
executiveWe did some research in Oregon also, yes. So there's definitely demand.
Todd Shapiro
executiveAnd in Canada, it drives us nuts that you see these stores, they're popping up everywhere. And I know you probably heard this out of my mouth, but if you're a new shareholder or someone hasn't tuned in before, it's devastating. I mean people are going, walking in, getting product. There's very few hurdles or objectives or anything that's getting in their way. And then you can buy it online, Canada Post, our public Canadian Postal Service ships it right to your door, but the company who pays its audits who pays its lawyers for lawyers' opinions, who has to pay listing fees, all the capital costs that are associated with our business that are quite steep, to be honest. And that's one of the things you can see on the financial statements where the businesses are doing pretty good. It's the public cost because we want to be the one that changes the regulatory bodies and influence that. And we're self-regulatory. We have great corporate governance, and we've proven legally. And it just -- it really disgusts me that there's a path that's done illegally. And we call ourselves the outliers, but they're the outlaws. And I'd rather be the outliers, but it takes time to get ahead of that curve. And that's, again, what we're talking about when we're streamlining and focused on sustainability because our horse in the race is so strong for those hopeful changes that we believe we've grown one of the greatest companies in the naturally occurring retail space of access to psychedelics. And we really don't think anybody has done it quite as well as we have in the entire world. So this is the stuff we're so proud of as a team. And behind the scenes, I hope all shareholders understand our fight for it all, the hurdles and the headaches that we go through. Sarah just mentioned a few of them in terms of just getting product over the border. Just because you see a press release, trust me, we're sitting there on pins and needles before it gets there to make sure it gets there. And Sarah is like getting all hours in the morning and making sure everything is on par and working out. So this is the end goal still. And the more advocacy we have from even shareholders, right, your government officials, like if you're using magic mushrooms and you want to know what's in it, if you want to know dosages, if you want to know contraindications, if you want to know, obviously, that it's legal, we implore everybody to fight the fight with us because that's how you make change, and we want to make change together because we're all on one big team here. [ Sam and Dan ].
Unknown Analyst
analystI think a major elephant in the room that I'm hoping we could segue to is the Peterborough Farm and the decision not to kind of pursue the construction. I know debanking was a major catalyst for that decision, but it gets me thinking around the path of profitability and the numbers that were shared and forecast. I think keyword is forecast, and you were very clear that it was a forecast projection. That being said, though, it was deemed to be a major revenue generator. So why the decision now to sell the land? And what's the next steps when it comes to the functional mushrooms path? Because I saw that as a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to Red Light Holland, and I'm sure a lot of investors on this call want to have more context on that decision.
Todd Shapiro
executiveGreat. Remind me about the functional mushroom part because I'll talk in 5 minutes. When it comes to the farm, listen, we were all in, right, as everybody knows. And I wish there was a reality show on our company sometimes, so shareholders could see what we're going through. We -- first, you go through all the forecasts and the budgets and then we disclose it, obviously. And yes, it's forward-looking, and we make that very clear. But these are the same forecasts we're sending to banks for a construction loan. So it's not like we're exaggerating those numbers on one level for you to see it. Those projections were also partly and mostly really to get an X amount of a construction loan, so we're not using and bringing through all our capital to get it there. And obviously, we're forecasting even the interest payments to make whole on those revenue by payments and then obviously showing revenue down the road. So profitability. The -- we were like right there. We were right there. We -- I don't know what I can say or not say, but it doesn't matter. It's all truthful. That's what my lawyers always remind me of. We got approved to get the loan. We were like [ best ] pumping, back, back, seeing like -- we were ready to go. We -- as you remember, we had started announcing that we had signed a Polish company to help start doing the bill. And then when it went through compliance -- when we got approval on the loan and then it went through compliance, and it's some guy sitting in it's like 30th store downtown building, not caring about farming necessarily, not caring about psychedelics, but just putting a big red flag like, wow, they're involved in psychedelics. We can't give them that loan. We were again devastated because that was the full intention. So then we go to other Tier 1 banks, we go to other lenders. And next thing you know, it's just not moving. So here we are sitting on a great piece of property. We started road work on it. We have like these tremendous state-of-the-art plans. And we're sitting on it frustrated as hell, to be honest. So when you start to figure out what to do, how to pivot as opposed to just going "aghh", we don't -- we can't fund it with our own capital because then the company will run out of money. And that can't be the core business, just a mushroom farm. What are we going to do here? So you start talking to groups. Are you interested? Are you not interested? Those are very loosely based conversations. But in the last few weeks, there's been a group that's come to us and said -- and we put it in the MD&A as well, like we put a number there about 12.5 -- sorry, $2.5 million, $2.6 million. That's kind of this loosely based conversational number we're having of someone taking over everything. And to us, what does that do? That basically covers all our costs up at this point, putting it into the farm, farmland plans, et cetera. So you kind of make whole on that investment in a way, it's like parking capital for a few years and where can we best put that capital moving forward where we won't have lending partners that won't work with us. And stuff that we can do on our own, like back to functional mushrooms, maybe dedicating a higher advertising budget for DTC or things like this for growth. So I'm actually kind of combining the answers in one, good for me for remembering both. But it was frustrating. We thought we were over the line. Yes, we ultimately believe that this could be a good business despite mushroom sales, by the way, being pretty difficult. It's sort of another thing that's playing into it, and you saw we talked about it at AEM in New Brunswick. I mean, their sales have been down consistently, a little bit of an upswing over the last few months. But the tariff situation has caused a lot of confusion for farming in Canada, and that's impacting mushroom sales too. And so is -- I think the states is actually really booming. I think Canada is really hurting in terms of disposable income and just families' finances. And things like mushrooms are a bit of a luxury item, not your white or your browns, but your shiitake, your lion's mane, your oyster, these are luxury items. So we're also carefully monitoring like where is farming going at this point in time, not as to where we started to talk about it 2 years prior. And it's also a tough business. So I'm not saying it's a blessing disguise because I still believe in the mushroom farming business. But I can tell you, if we can somehow get a deal done because nothing is concrete or material at this point, the Board of Directors and management believes that's a great opportunity for us to get capital back in the business to grow to get -- to aim to use for a profitable path. I hope that answers your question.
Unknown Analyst
analystI do have a follow-up then. Are you selling the land at a loss? And if so, why the rush to kind of get that back to the treasury? Why not wait until you see the land go back to value or maybe make a profit out of it?
Todd Shapiro
executiveSam, the problem is it's a bit material at this point. Like it's immaterial because there's no deal in place. But I can't tell you the exact numbers because that's the materiality of it. With that being said, our end goal is not to lose money. And you saw the numbers that, that $2.5 million, $2.6 million, like that's in our MD&A of what we're converting on selling it. So we bought the farmland, if I'm correct, it's $1.85 million. So that leaves us that buffer of call it, $600,000 to $700,000 that we've invested in some of the other stuff. So I believe we're like right on hard, but nothing is material there. But we don't want to take a loss. I'm a businessman at the end of the day. So that's part of the strategy here.
Unknown Executive
executiveOkay. I see Sam gave us thumbs up. So I'm going to ask Gabriel to unmute and ask the question.
Unknown Analyst
analystYes, a quick question on the impairment. So I was hoping somebody could kind of go over in layman's terms, the CGU impairments for AEM Wellness and MiniChamp. Are you guys seeing a loss of customer, a loss of brand recognition? What's happening with those 3?
Todd Shapiro
executiveKeith?
Keith Li
executiveOkay. So sorry, I was just unmuting myself. Yes. So let's start with the AEM goodwill. Essentially, we have that $200 -- close to $300,000 goodwill balance before we start the audit. And on an annual basis, we have to do a test just to see if that goodwill might be impaired or not. So just very high level, the way that we approached it, we did a discounted cash flow model. We presented the numbers with -- to the auditors. Essentially, with the AEM farm in Peterborough, not in operations at this point, or the project the numbers that we had last year, we can't really use it. So with that big drop in the DCF numbers, this is kind of the reason we ended up writing down the goodwill for close to $300,000. And then on the AEM Farm itself, yes, we also had an impairment loss of about $0.25 million. This is kind of related to what Todd was mentioning about. Yes, we had discussions with people right now about selling the farm. So during the audit, we also have a little appraisal just for the purpose of audit to see what exactly the amount that we should be booking that into the financials. So we took kind of an average of the -- what we think the price will be selling versus the price that the appraisal came back, average it down. And then, yes, this is kind of the impairment loss or accounting numbers that we booked just to satisfy the auditors. But again, we do expect the sale to go through at $2.5 million, so once that materializes, yes, we are going to reverse that impairment loss, and that should bring us back to breakeven.
Todd Shapiro
executiveAnd just to be clear, it's not a definitive agreement at any point, like we're in high-level discussions with the group. But I think we're feeling quite confident that, that would be a sale. And I think, Keith, that's a great point you make in terms of coming back on the impairment if we get what we think we should get for it. Does that -- I mean, does anyone want to comment on that in terms of viewer management, your strategy? Like do you like that idea? Do you not like that idea? Do you think we should have stuck trying to find -- like I said about transparency, I'd love to hear some of the thoughts on it.
Unknown Analyst
analystIf we could put a pin in that, I have another follow-up related to the AEM revenue figure. So it seems like gourmet mushrooms are on the decline. Has there been any discussion about pivoting to some of the more common varieties that might be a little bit more affordable and might have, I don't know, more consistency in the sales?
Todd Shapiro
executiveNo, none. We know partners quite well on that side, too. It's -- listen, mushrooms have proven to be a tough go at it the last year. The -- it's -- you know what it is, which it wasn't before. And again, I'm new to mushroom farming and learning about the mushroom farming business. When I say new, like 3, 4 years. Historically, there was a little bit less competition and there was also less volatility. And what you're seeing now is like a lot of micro farmers pop up. By the way, they usually don't have sustainability. Like there's another mushroom company, candidly, we were looking at buying. We're on the brink of buying them smaller. They're in grocery stores, and we even met with their head buyer at one of the big grocery stores to ensure that, that would be a channel they'd still be in. And during that meeting, we found out that they actually weren't even listed in that grocery store anymore. We'd have to re-go through that entire process of pitching them to try to get into like 100-plus retail outlets. So we're very close to buying another mushroom brand. But that -- what I'm trying to say is that this adds to the volatility of it, and it's a difficult business. So here's a company that would have raised millions and millions of dollars that is basically broke right now and getting out of the fresh mushroom business. So we were going to buy it for pennies on the dollar. But without sales, what was the point of just adding to their burn? So we're learning a lot about this time period in Canada specifically. Farming is difficult in Canada right now. And unless you're like the real, real, real, big, big, big-time farmers, it's tough to disrupt. And while you think you're disrupting small pieces at a time because there's these micro farmers that kind of are doing it, we're not seeing any sustainability for these smaller farms to last. Alan again? I don't see that negatively.
Unknown Analyst
analystIt's [ Alan Keith ]. I've been with you guys for quite a while. I really enjoy the company and try to see. Hopefully, that down the road, we'll make some good progress. But I had 2 questions. One for you first. Given the recent share issuance to settle some debts, what steps are you taking to avoid any future share dilution and protect the shareholders' value with your growth initiatives?
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. Getting the note off the table because we had the capital, I think, was a good decision instead of paying a high interest on it. When it comes to protecting dilution, it's -- first off, there's always this back and forth of should a rollback be approved. It wasn't approved in the last AGM. Some people like them, some people don't like them. I mean, perceptually, like it doesn't change the market cap or the valuation of the company, and I think that's a misnomer for a lot of like just kind of retail shareholders. I will say perceptually, I would say that I think it's always good to have a potential reverse split available to management. Reason being if you ever want to do an M&A with a company and you want to use your shares as opposed to your cash. Now all of a sudden, you can obviously issue more shares to acquire a company, but you would then consolidate and bring down the share count and increase the share price, same market cap. Perceptually, I think that looks a lot better to institutional investors. So if we had a 10:1 rollback and a $0.04 stock and it's now a $0.40 stock, it just perceptually looks better. I would never want to do it just to do. But when it comes to dilution, where I think the #1 potential bigger dilutive scenario that may happen is through M&A. And we're always looking. I mean, Troy and I, who's on -- Troy, our Head of Sales, we must have looked at, God, like 30 to 40 companies this year gone through their financial statements, gone through their entire balance sheet. And at the end of the day, like honestly, every single one of them was losing money and every one of them needed working capital to continue. So we're looking to buy companies for stock at pennies on the dollar, use some stock to get them and then us provide them the working capital to get them over the hump. It's a big part of our M&A strategy. We haven't found the right company yet. But where that relates back to dilution, that would be a potential scenario of dilution using stock to buy a company. And then listen, like what did I do? I issued, for instance, when I say I, management approves everything I do. It's not just Todd, there's a big process here in corporate governance. But we brought on Scott Melker and the stock is fairly low, but we issued them RSUs instead of cash to help with the crypto strategy. So there's a bit of dilution there. I think it was a very fair compensation. You can see a press release. It's all disclosed. So sometimes when you bring on personnel, there could be dilution. But overall, yes, I think it's a pretty high share count. I would love shareholders to reconsider at the next AGM to have optionality for management in case of a potential big M&A, like I said, to be able to consolidate. But we're always trying to protect it. Listen, I hate to sound like kind of egocentric here, but I'm the largest shareholder of the company, I believe, still. And I obviously way, way out there, I would love to grow my own value. So the word dilute, that hurts my value, too. I'm in it for everybody because I want the company to win for all of us. So it's always carefully crafted decisions when it comes to dilution. But I would say that it's not that it's like, hey, let's dilute, dilute and give shares and give away. But I would say it's inevitable at some point that more do get a shape.
Unknown Analyst
analystFair enough. Appreciate that. And 1 for Troy. I haven't heard from Troy yet today. I mean I'm an ex-Bell guy, working for Bell. I always say, Bell, what the hell, don't be nice. I was a business development representative in the commercial markets division. So welcome aboard, Troy, you're doing a great job. I'm just thinking, what's your plan going forward? I mean, for me as a lead generator, I guess, I'd be calling every big box store, everyone and trying to get a product right in there immediately. So they're ready to go as soon as we get the green light. And there's so much work to do in the space. So what's your plan on that? Like how do you working with that? And how large is your sales team? Is it just you and a few reps? Or like what are you doing? Just so I can have some clarity on it, please?
Troy Dufour
executiveFor sure. Yes, the real strategy over the last 12 months has been to really focus on profitability and ensuring that every -- whether it's mushroom kit or gummies that we've got the right price point where we can reinvest back into marketing. So my goal really and the sales goal is to just continue to increase our distribution points, increasing our store counts, increasing the availability in store. With the launch of the gummies, it really gives us something with a longer shelf life that really fits more into the traditional retail channels. So over the last 4 weeks since we've launched the gummies, we put them on Shopify. We put them on Amazon.ca. With that, we want to really determine and establish who the demographic is. And then with that, work hand-in-hand with Todd to develop a marketing strategy that's going to maximize your ROI on spend. I've met with several distributors, several brokers. With regards to the sales team, yes, it's really myself, but then working with brokers and partners to gain the distribution. We did a nice job with Safeway on the West Coast of Portland, Oregon, where I went out there and met with the buyer there. So we're in constant communication with them. We're very confident that we'll see another seasonal program with the home grow kits there. We're in constant communication with Costco. And I got -- really the strategy with the kits is a seasonal item to have them in stores, and we've seen this with Real Canadian Superstore to have it in there 52 weeks of the year. It becomes stale, the turns, shelf life, you start to lose money when you get billed back and you get credited on damages and expired products. So the real strategy moving forward is 90% of what we focus on will be on our functional gummies and then continue to look at innovative products and things that we can put into stores that have longer shelf lives with higher margins. And we can continue to, at the end of the day, grow those rooftops and take products that instead of having 300 or 500 partners and customers, how do we get that to 5,000? How do we get that to 10,000 by partnering with large retailers that have an appetite for a product that we're selling. So taking our functional gummies to a Shoppers Drug Mart, where you get 1,000 customers as soon as you get the listing. The difficulty with that, though, and fully transparent is the larger retailers, the sales cycle is anywhere from 6 to 12 months. So we've started. We're confident we've had some real strong conversation with some retailers early, whether it be some like smaller independent retailers, regional partners and getting it out there to test the markets and really figure out our price point and what works and what the consumer's appetite is to spend. I look at the product and it's -- we need to find partners that have a large organic set within their store where people are accustomed to and used to buying supplements and spending $70 or $80 on a single product. So that's really the goal. That is our strategy. It's definitely -- it's something I work on every day. It's trying to...
Unknown Analyst
analystAppreciate that. What is the shelf life on the gummies currently?
Troy Dufour
executiveWe're sitting at 18 months. We've just sent it over to some labs to do some sustainability testing on it. So it could be -- minimum, it will be 18, it could be 24 months, which -- for us, that's exciting. For me, that's exciting. I'm an old consumer packaged goods guru with brands like Coca-Cola and Red Bull, where I had longer shelf lives. And so that's where -- and I'm constantly leveraging those old relationships and partnerships with some of the larger retailers and brokers that I've worked with and distributors that I've worked with in the past, where we believe that we can take this from 0 to 1,000 customers in the next 3 to 6 months. And then once you establish that, it doubles and triples very quickly.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. Sorry, Troy, for interrupting. Great job. What I will say is we probably established the #1 home grow kit brand for lion's mane, shiitake and oyster in Canada in 2 years. Like that was quite significant. When we acquired -- we first acquired 80% of Happy Caps and then we eventually took over the last 20%. And they were something like -- they were like a mom-pop shop, a couple of guys, and they're great guys, by the way. But we really elevated that brand. But it's a difficult product because of margins. It's difficult because of shelf life. It's difficult because of the odd return. People don't really know what to do, so they just return them. And it's difficult because we're not sure who is a repeat customer? That's like always been a constant back and forth with Troy and I. Like is this just a onetime customer? So that's why we started to develop the gummies because we know there's subscription models. This is a supplement that if you continually use with the NPN numbers is proven to help you and people get in more habit forming of these types of products. And basically, what I want to really establish is this is again more on an emotional level, not on a proven out level yet in terms of sales, that the opening door conversations that we have these functional Happy Caps, mushroom gummies, like it's an instant spark for everybody. Where the home grow kit was like a sale, like a real hard explain it, here's the video, here's the instructions, let me send you some, grow them with your team. It took months and months to get that. And we still grew the largest home grow kit business in Canada, we think -- I don't think anyone sold as many kits as us. And that's obviously a huge part because of Costco and our other retail strategy. But if we can manage -- and we haven't managed it yet, but if we can manage that with the -- with the functional mushroom gummies, including way better margins, way better shelf life and more of the masses, I think, really adapting to them, that's why we're very excited by it. But still, we just launched a month and a bit ago. It's a slow build, and it's going to take time. And if you think of Happy Caps, we bought that brand, and they were already existing for 3 years before us. It took time really ultimately for all of it to get there. So we're going to do it carefully. And Troy and I also butt heads a little bit in terms of what's our -- what's -- but heads is not fair to say actually. We just -- we try to whiteboard together to see what's the direct-to-consumer strategy because part of our fear on mass marketing to get these things selling is it relates back to all the companies that Troy and I have looked at buying a lot of these consumer packaged goods companies. A lot of them raised $10 million, for example, spent basically all of that on marketing only to make $8 million. So yes, they had $8 million in sales, but they lost $2 million to get there because online marketing is a very difficult strategy. We still believe that the retail strategy is one that we can hopefully try to conquer. And yet, we will slowly get it out there online for people to see, learn and love. Bananaman, I'm nervous by this name.
Unknown Analyst
analystCan you hear me?
Todd Shapiro
executiveWe got you, Matt.
Unknown Analyst
analystI'm just wondering, is Bruce Linton still involved in this operation?
Todd Shapiro
executiveAbsolutely. Bruce and I talk once a month at the least, probably more. Right now, what Bruce did early on for us was 2 amazing things. He opened up a** ton of doors for me, quite frankly, just bankers at the time. It was a capital, how could our raises like really got validity for our company in terms of the institutional relationships. He was brilliant at that. And Bruce is a deal guy. His famous line when he ran Canopy was like, do a deal, if it's a bad deal, do another deal. Like so Bruce was always trying to get deals done for us and opening doors for deals. The problem and Bruce gets this with deal flow right now is when your stock is a bit low and the volume liquidity is not there, your stock to buy businesses isn't that desirable for some, unless they really need survival and which most are needing right now. So Bruce's role isn't as active right now because there's just not a ton of deal flow. But like if psychedelics and the sector has a cycle and we see it turn around again, and I think we're all optimistic. It's ironic. Again, I relate back to Christian Angermayer today. He put out this like very bold post as the CEO of a tie, saying like -- he's basically saying, buy a tie, this is like the market is going to change. He's talking about the sector in general. And I'm like that's kind of like pretty -- you got to be really careful when you try to lead people to buy your stock. But the sector we believe in still, we believe in this in I'm in. We believe in what this company has done. We are very proud of all the outliers and whether they're synthetic versions and doing pure R&D and trying to disrupt big pharma or us who are trying to disrupt it in a naturally occurring way with standardized products. We want everybody to win because the more people who win in this sector, it means ultimately, the more people win out there. More people take care of their mental health can have solutions. And I've said this also repeatedly over the 5 years that we've gone public is that -- like my dad might be more comfortable taking a synthetic rather than naturally current products. I think the youth want more access to naturally current products. So I guess what I'm getting at is we're hoping that there's a great cycle in here. And then a guy like Bruce is going to be calling me and be like, it's deal flow time, and that's where he's best at. So -- but we love Bruce and a great friend to me as well is just -- as well as the mentor.
Unknown Analyst
analystJust a follow-up, MISTERCAP's, is that over?
Todd Shapiro
executiveIt's not over. This is where it stands. It's -- we present them still. When Troy goes out, they goes, look, we got this brand Happy Caps, right, we got this brand Mr. Cap. And essentially inside of it is the exact same thing. And a lot of retailers and customers gravitated towards Happy Caps more than MISTERCAP's. Did we get the support we wanted out of the gate? In hindsight, probably not. I don't want to throw anyone on the bus here, but it probably wasn't as strong as we imagined it to be. And the other problem with MISTERCAP's is -- and again, it's not dead in the water because who knows, there might be a huge retailer one day that goes, "Oh my God, I love these little characters. Kids are going to love how to grow mushrooms. Let's get it out there. Maybe that's a thing." But we also candidly have some inventory that's sitting there that we would like to be able to use inventory in terms of boxes and spray bottles. So it's not dead, but the Happy Caps is even better margins, too, because then there's a royalty that you would have to pay that team. So you lose a bit of margin in that spread as well. So the genuine authentic Happy Caps growing better than it isn't necessarily terrible for the company and the shareholders. With that being said, it's not dead, but we haven't had that excitement that -- I'm accountable here, by the way. I thought MISTERCAP's can be huge. I love the branding. It's the same product that's been proven. So part of it is I hope there is someone that looks at -- if Troy presents it to them, we're like, yes, you know what, this is the one we want to order 15,000 kids of and then here we go.
Unknown Executive
executiveTodd, I believe he gave us a thumbs up and then lowered his head. Does anyone have any questions?
Todd Shapiro
executiveWhat a turnout though? And I know it's midday and summer, but we try to do these as close as we can to filing, obviously. And sometimes we hadn't, but I thought it was a great opportunity to speak to all our shareholders really close to financials this time. Anyone else? I would love a couple of more questions. We've dedicated this amount of time. Let's go for a little bit more. Okay. Adam again.
Unknown Analyst
analystI got 1 more. Cannabis has 420 rallies and that kind of grassroots advocacy. What does magic mushrooms have? Or what can Red Light Holland do to be the fuel -- be the flame of consumer demand for legalization?
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes, it's a good question. So I know they have like Bicycle Day. They have World Psychedelics Day, which ironically is on my birthday on like June 20, 6/20 not 4/20. Sarah early on was really, really instrumental in us getting to know a lot of these different advocacy groups and call it like these rally groups of people who believe in the sector and the ones who go to Burning Man and the ones who go to Costa Rica for the retreats and things like this and really interesting people. And the constant difficulty for me is, at what point do we just use capital for advocacy and promotion, but then burn the capital because you can't commercialize it in the end. And Sarah, what was that one group fireside that app where it was all about responsible use? What were they called again?
Sarit Hashkes
executiveYes, Fireside was -- it still is a support group in California. And I'm still doing that. I'm here in California. Again, I'm meeting with the psychedelic church in Oakland on Saturday, which they have successfully decriminalized. So I think what we're trying to do is learn from these grassroots, see if there's ways like maybe they're interested in our wisdom VR or lamps for like educational and responsible use policies that mix up. We have a lot of interesting technologies that I think would be great if got out in decriminalized legal places where we can't still -- we can't sell because they're just decriminalized, but we can bring technology and education and information. And yes, constantly talking to where things are moving. And I think what's happening in Canada and maybe some other places, they're not -- it's not legal, but nobody is being arrested for having magic mushrooms or taking magic mushrooms. And that's why people aren't going to the streets and demonstrating and saying, "Hey, we want you to legalize this because there isn't that level of cost to the consumer who is using this illegally." But we are seeing big movements, whether it's in New Zealand, where there was a first prescriber allowed, whether it's Czech Republic that from the beginning of next year is going to allow a prescription model. But it seems that, that's how things are moving within a supervised framework, somewhere between really medicalized prescription to what we're seeing in the states, which is more maybe of a wellness model, but still supervised. And I think that's important for us not to come as a company and invent the wheel, but really work with these advocates to see where we can assist them, learn from them and try to like bring knowledge from one place to the other. So that's what we're really trying to do because we were, frankly, a pretty big part in helping Oregon figure out microdosing regulations because they weren't even thinking in that direction. They were just thinking about these very large therapeutic doses that are very expensive. The financial model there isn't working very well for most companies. But there's a big opportunity in microdosing for both helping people at a lower risk at a lower price. So we're trying to bring the knowledge that we know about microdosing, about these regulations to, for instance, the Czech Republic, to New Zealand, to Australia, I was writing to the government there. So we are constantly doing this type of advocacy and connecting. And of course, if anybody has any other connections, send them my way. It's a big part of what I do. But as Todd said, when it comes to financing them, like we were working with PMAW, we were financing the lobbyists in Washington, right? And it was such almost a great result. Both Republicans and Democrats were voting for it. And then the governor just came, literally just ripped out the bill and wrote whatever he wanted instead of it, and this is how politics turns out just works. And we got a nice pilot bill, but not really what we wanted or pilot program that they set off to do. So yes, we're being very careful with the cash, but very generous with our knowledge and data and technology. And I think that's bringing interesting collaborations our way. Should we do some giant big event that maybe gets a little bit of press for one day. Personally, I don't think so. I've been an advocate and an activist in many areas, and this is not how real change works. This is how people vent. They feel that they're doing something, but the governments don't really care. Changes in government are very network-based, knowledge-based advocacy with these specific information that we're giving them. That's why we did also this collaboration with Drug Science. So we're working with really established researchers. That's why we brought in Robin Carhart-Harris, who's connecting me to lots of other scientists and advocates in the field. So we can actually bring the knowledge, educate the lawmakers and create something there because it seems that really that's how it's working. Like you need an advocate within the government to say, "Hey, I'm going to do this and keep pushing this forward to get things done." And that's a lot, a lot more effective than yes, having a big party that maybe you get one snapshot in the news.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. And Sarah, it's really good that you bring up all these channels on the back of kind of like how do we promote psychedelics across the world and the stigmas. And it's interesting how you put it. We really are like an open source psychedelic company where we've collected great data that we're sharing with drug science, Professor David Nutt that Robin Carhart-Harris is now looking at. These are really big, big people in the space, the Timothy Learys of our days. And we're learning and we're using our capital wisely. And Sarah is constantly asking for money. I mean she's a scientist. Scientists raise money. They're not necessarily always focused on making it. And we're just delicately balancing how we approach it. So the only other thing I'll say, Adam, which is sort of an interesting thought from a peripheral on promotion and get more people understanding about Red Light Holland and our mission, the peculiar thing is I really believe that this kind of Bitcoin alignment is going to help this like revolution. I think I just got -- like I said earlier, I got invited to the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Miami. And so I'm going to do what I'm good at. I was 20 years in media. I'm hosting a fireside chat or I'm going to be a part of a fireside chat where there's going to be host interviewing me. I'm going to be hosting a panel of experts. But don't get me wrong, like in those conferences of tens of thousands of people, some of them -- and others are calling, by the way. I haven't signed any others, but others are calling me to be a big part of. And I think I can really demonstrate a message very clearly and concretely and fun. Let's be honest, it's fun to combine these spaces. And if we can get the crypto community supporting the psychedelic community and then getting that message out because they're so deeply ingrained, it's a great opportunity for the company. It's what I'm saying for exposure and for messaging. And it's earned. It's free. I'm not paying to be there. They're having me there as a host. So I think this is a really great opportunity. And I'm going to relate it back to the shareholders of the company for 1 second. It's sort of opened up as my long-winded mind takes over and just blurs out whatever it thinks as I speak and think at the same time. I think it's one of the things that really does frustrate me with those chat forms within our company. And I'm not a guy who's going and fishing through chat forms daily or even monthly, like maybe once every -- maybe once a month is fair. I'm going to be honest, I look through. But there's such negativity from the shareholder base by a specific few people in those chat forms. And they don't come to these Q&As. I know I've mentioned it before. They feel like they don't have a platform. They feel like they're going to -- I'm going to make -- they'll say, I'll make every excuse in the book for acknowledge failures and maybe like recent modest growth and all this kind of stuff. But if you think of how community growth works, and really what it can do to impact passionate investing, it can be -- it's more powerful than any fundamental at the end of the day. And trust me, our head is down on fundamentals. It has to be. You've got to grow a business that gets to profitability. We know our job. But if you think of what Tesla investors did early on or what Bitcoin investors did early on, create these communities of great optimism and great alignment and financial freedom and in our case, mental freedom as I said before, I think that's why those -- these chat forms, there's such an opportunity there with the tens of thousands of comments in them for others to get involved on an optimistic level, yes, call us out on financials, call us out when I make a mistake. That's different. Like that's the fundamental side of the business. But in terms of the optimism, what we see with the Bitcoin community, we can have that in the psychedelic community. And if anything, we need -- you're right, Adam, it's a great question, the promotion ending the stigma of it. How do we get that together? So again, I implore everyone, call us out on stuff you don't like, on pivots, on the farmland not being built out because of the banking and the no lending, get upset that MISTERCAP's didn't work. We understand that. That's part of being a shareholder. But we're in it for psychedelics, I think, as well. And we can do that together. And it starts with those chat forms. I really believe that. Like we can just get positive messages out there about the sector instead of always digging deep into this negativity. They remind me of sports fans. It's like I'm a Leaf's fan. And obviously, it's painful to be a leaf fan over the years and years and knock on the cup, in fact, not even in my lifetime. But I'm not going to sit there on a sports call-in show and just talk s*** about the leaps. I'm going to talk optimistically how much I love this team. And yes, I'll call them out for things, but I'm still going to bleed blue at the end of the day because I love the team. And that's what I think people should be doing for the -- not just our company, but for the psychedelic company. Because if you want to make a difference for your child's future to be able to have access and deal with mental health in a different way, it starts with all of us. And that's just kind of like one of my passionate statements that I thought of based on the back of your question, Adam.
Unknown Analyst
analystI'm heavily involved in the crypto community. I'm a Polkadot ambassador. I'm actually at a Polkadot community event right now. And there's an alignment with a mushroom theme in the Polkadot community. So I would love to send you some information, but I'm glad you're involved in crypto now because the grassroots community element of crypto is very strong, and I'm sure they'll be happy to adopt mushrooms into that as well. So...
Todd Shapiro
executiveI was joking with Scott Melker on a podcast. I'm like the next thing I want to do is I really want to find out who's microdosing and using mushrooms and trading crypto at the same time because of the focus that it would give you. And I know it's a large number of traders love magic mushrooms. So great to hear, Adam, that you're aligned. We thank you for your positivity. And you basically led this from a Q&A perspective, and you've -- you're not asking us easy questions. You're delving in deep and making sure we're accountable. And yet you see the alignment of what we're trying to do and this community we're trying to build. And it's only 5 years. I mean, big brands take decades to build. So we're just getting started, and we're trying to use to preserve the capital wisely to get to where we want to be. And most importantly, we're always thinking about that path to profitability. And I hope people are really pleased with that decrease in burn over the last year because it was very significant. And that's a testament to Keith coming on to Troy working his a** off to what Sarah is doing and us really rolling up our sleeves and working tirelessly and affordably to try to make that difference with a small team. I think Dan's got another question.
Unknown Analyst
analystYes, I do. I just have a question. I thought I heard you saying that you're the first psilocybin to get approved for import into the United States via the DEA. Is that correct?
Todd Shapiro
executiveI said that I believe we were the first naturally occurring product out of the Netherlands ever to get to the DEA.
Unknown Analyst
analystOkay. Specifically out of the Netherlands. Okay. And then I just have 1 other question. I know you talked about focusing on 90% on the dry.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes, Dan. Just by the way, was there another company? I have no problem if there was.
Unknown Analyst
analystI have no idea.
Todd Shapiro
executiveOkay. And it could be across Europe, like we've looked. We haven't seen any. So...
Unknown Analyst
analystI've been looking, too. So I was curious.
Todd Shapiro
executiveYes. Like I don't think any others. Like Sarah and I have looked -- we do deep dives, Sarah and I together. And obviously, the things like ChatGPT help too. We haven't seen much.
Unknown Analyst
analystCool. That's promising. I just have another question about your distribution of functional mushrooms. You're switching to the dried mushrooms for 90% of your focus, I believe, was what you said?
Todd Shapiro
executiveWell, they're not dried. They're supplements, like they're gummy form.
Unknown Analyst
analystOkay. Sorry, moisture reduced, more shelf stable, right? I'm just wondering if you are looking at a more local growth and distribution method for fresh mushrooms at all. You said you're struggling with shelf life of the fresh mushrooms in grocery stores. I know you were talking about M&A with a company that was in grocery stores. I think I might be familiar about them without naming any names, but I did just see them disappear. I was really interested in them. They're no longer in grocery stores. So they obviously have a problem. And I've seen it as a consumer, the mushrooms, they aren't selling. They're delicious, but for whatever reason, you walk in to go buy lion's mane and it's on the shelf and it's decomposing. You're like, "Oh, I don't want this. I want something premium. I've grown it at home with blocks similar to your Happy Caps blocks and like the results at home are phenomenal." So I guess the question, if I can say it accurately is, are you looking at a more localized distribution with fresh mushrooms where you could get it into the hands of consumers or restaurants in a more rapid fashion?
Todd Shapiro
executiveGreat question. It's interesting because we produce the most shelf life out there. So the problem is it's all 3 months. So it's not that we're struggling with necessarily struggling with the idea that it can't ever be this kind of 18-month, 24-month thing that stop. But in terms of the company, I think the Happy Caps are proven to be better than any of the other markets or products in terms of having them and waiting for them to grow. So yes, I mean, you're probably talking about a company -- I mean, I'm going to be careful, but we get that localized model and the localized farming model. And it was disruptive on a very small level, and I mentioned that earlier in the call, where like little companies have popped up. And if you think if they're taking away 1% of an overall bigger farming partners market share, but there's 10 of them, now they're kind of taking away 10% of that market share, but they're not lasting. I go back to Troy and I looking at so many different companies in CPG and in farming, and they're all like running out of money, and there's not a lot of access to capital in Canada, and it's tough for them to prove out their model. So it's been difficult. In fact, like I even worked with a company who we sold mushrooms for and like I probably shouldn't say this, but they didn't even pay us their bill. We're still chasing them. I think we'll get it. That's not right. I know they earn money. So yes, maybe I say too much, but they are. It's true. So the localized approach is cheap, right? It is cheap. But is it sustainable? I don't think so. And to credit where credit is due, our partners over at Holburn and [ F&R ], I mean, they have a really big facility. And while the mushroom industry is struggling, they're the ones who can wait out those market cycles and changes in extra produce sales because they can just scale better than anybody. So the small ones are cute. If you can grow the brand, I think it's tremendous. But I -- we believe and Troy and I really believe now in the sort of co-packaging model, we really like it. So you're not necessarily just so focused. I used to love the vertically integrated, to be honest. But you see struggles each way. And if you can just have a great partner and a loyal partner and one that can produce for you and you have the margins there, it's a lot less headaches. And there's a lot of headaches in product shipment and logistics. And the costs and logistics are just insane these days. So localized is, I think, a little too cute, but it's not to say that if you don't find the right one that's profitable, we wouldn't explore it just as a brand build, then we could take national. Any other questions? I quite like these. Dan, jump in.
Unknown Analyst
analystI appreciate the answer. I understand that completely. And it makes sense with the pivot to the gummies for the shelf life in the interim. I just want to say...
Todd Shapiro
executiveI'm interrupting. They're so good. Like we did a lot of thorough investigation in these, and Sarah included as quality control. Like the NPN number is huge, but like my favorite part is they're just -- they taste amazing. We tried -- we almost bought another gummy company, too, by the way. I don't know how they're doing. I always judge companies not doing well because I don't see them advertised on Instagram anymore. But it's like kind of my -- it means they ran out of money to market it. That's sort of my thought on it. But if they were blasting, blasting, blasting before it, but they were like sticky and they taste kind of funky, like they've done good, but these, I'm really confident we can grow these. They don't stick. They're sugar-free, vegan and proven again. So we're excited.
Unknown Analyst
analystI just want to say I'm super excited to hear you talking about the -- trying to merge the idea space with crypto. I remember you talking about crypto on the radio in the early 2000s, to be honest. And it's kind of full circle for me to find this company, find you as a CEO and see you still talking about it and looking to try and merge these ideas, I think it's a really positive direction. So thank you for the insight.
Todd Shapiro
executiveNo, of course, Dan. Thank you, man. By the way, the other thing I want to remind everyone still on the call and the stuff you don't see in an MD&A, through all this team's hard work, and it's a really, really nice team, we're innovative, like we're creative. And that helps, I think, in the long run to grow a business because what that creativity is doing, and I want to sort of really highlight this is we're looking to backdoor ways to get to governments, right? So when you get an NPN number on a product in a mushroom gummy, like there's now a connection with Health Canada there. So like we can backdoor that in one day if psilocybin is ever legal to get like that approved with our branding and our name or the home grow kits, like getting them into all these channels and learning about distribution. Well, when they legalize cannabis, the Canadian government also legalized home grow for every idle up to like, I think, 3 or 4 plants in your home. So if they ever legalize psilocybin, will they allow home grow kits. So now instead of a liquid mycelium being lion's mane, oyster, shiitake, like just another injection of a Mexicana or Tempanensis or a Galindoi, things we know well. So it's all about -- even Farm Care Health, which hasn't been mentioned here. And that's just a small project that Tony Clement, former Minister of Health for Canada and Minister of Industry actually. We're talking to communities of food and security. And a lot of these -- very sadly, but very accurately in a lot of these communities with food and security, there's a lot of mental health trauma too. So while we want to help and figure out ways, affordable solutions to get food to people, specifically mushrooms. And that's a long road, by the way, making dense with government officials is difficult. But it also opens up conversations to backdooring into, hey, there's also psilocybin options, like not only food and security, but mental health difficulties. Maybe we can be a part of that solution. So this is where our team is really creative and has forethought for long-term vision. And there's a method to our madness, and we get that it's difficult. And I know shareholders want us to get to the profitable path, but everything we're doing is aimed at that and then beyond. And I think we're seeing a lot of like nice, narrowed focus now and streamlined opportunities here where we're not just looking at unprofitable channels, but really zeroing in on the things that can make us money while being creative and creating a great community around psychedelics and crypto. It sounds like an Oscar speech, but no worries, though. Anyway, we're -- I don't know if we have any other questions, but I'll give it about 30 seconds here. And if not, we'll just do some closing thoughts. I really truly appreciate the amount of people that showed up. We do have thousands and thousands of shareholders still in the company. And I think overall, collectively, we're aligned here and focused. And anytime anyone wants to reach out, I always say this, I probably make myself too accessible, but I'm more than happy to answer an e-mail, set up a call through Maggie. Sarah is a great resource too. She even said it earlier, if you know of anyone in the advocacy side or maybe someone -- maybe I have an aunt who lives in Czech and Slovakia and that knows a government official, like all these things happen. And by the way, like maybe Sarah could have delved deeper into all the different areas that are still looking to open up these modern medicinal industries in Australia, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Oregon, like we're involved in all of them on some level or another. We have people on the ground, but the more, the merrier, anything to help the mission and help us get into those markets. Emerging markets are key. Regulatory changes are key. And in the meantime, we will continue to put our head down and grow our business to the best of our abilities. And I implore all of you keep helping the community as a passionate investor. I'm not saying you have to always talk about Red Light, just the community in general of psychedelics, keep ending the stigma around it. And any advice or communication you want to -- or people you want to introduce us to, we're always open to talking to them. And we're very excited for what the next few years have in store. We're seeing great regulatory progress. And we believe as a company, we've really aligned ourselves with a great mission here. And we're really excited to continue to grow and do our very best to increase all of your shareholder value. So we thank you so much for your time. I thank you to Keith for coming on. I want to give a really big extra thank you, honestly, to Keith and Leah, who head up our financial team. Audits are a very difficult process for small-cap companies. We're not like a Google that has hundreds of staff and can hand off every file. We get audited thoroughly in the Netherlands, too. So we have an individual there named Jeffrey, who helps with us. So thank you to all. It's always an interesting time for small cap companies, but it obviously proves out our great corporate governance. I want to thank Troy for busting down doors every day and understanding sales cycles take time. But with this new launch, we're excited by it. And Sarah is doing an incredible job on the R&D side and these relationships with Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris now and earlier with this year with Professor David Nutt. And of course, Arizona State University, and we're looking towards other great opportunities and affordable R&D, always thinking about long-term commercialization, not just funding projects, but thinking that we can make money from those projects. So the goal is more revenues and keep growing the company as best we can while getting great outreach on many different angles. So thank you very much, and we really look forward to the next one, and I hope you all have a great rest of the summer.
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