Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Jamieson Wellness second quarter 2023 financial results conference call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star, then one to enter the queue. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 3rd, 2023. I would now like to turn the call over to Mike Pilato, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead. Thank you, Daryl. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to join us to discuss our latest results. I'll begin with some high-level comments about the quarter and provide an overview of our key strategic initiatives. Chris will follow with a more detailed view of the financials and provide updates on our guidance. We'll open it up for questions. In the second quarter, we continued to execute on our growth strategy and leverage our global platform to deliver another solid quarter. Total revenue increased nearly 50% to CAD 168 million, reflecting 52% growth in our Jamieson Brands segment and 43% growth in our Strategic Partners segment. Continued strong consumption trends remain a key driver of success as consumers continue to prioritize their health and wellness. In Canada, Q2 revenues increased 2%, with consumption significantly outpacing shipments in both units and dollars. In the U.S., our Youtheory brand drove revenue of $42 million, driven by our strong innovation plans. Additional factors that helped to propel Youtheory growth in Q2 included further strength in e-commerce and some distribution expansion. Our China business unit continued to evolve this quarter. In mid-May, we completed two key strategic growth initiatives: the transition to an own distribution model in the country, enabling us full control of our value chain and future in the world's second-largest vitamin mineral supplement market, as well as the closing of our partnership agreement with DCP Capital. Our Q2 revenue in China increased 63%, driven by cross-border e-commerce and new distribution, coupled with the step-up in pricing tied to the transition to our own distribution model. On a pro forma basis, our China revenue was up 21% versus prior year and continues to reflect very strong consumer demand. Our revenue in international markets was CAD 8 million, lower than previous year's revenue of CAD 10 million. Factors contributing to the decline include timing of customer inventory replenishment, as well as regulatory approvals at the government level, taking longer than normal in some markets due to post-pandemic related backlogs. We continue to work in these countries to get approvals through the pipeline and get our products to market as soon as we can. There remains a continued positive consumption trend across many of our international regions that we're happy with, including stabilization and growth of +5% in Eastern Europe. Strategic Partners revenue was up 43%, driven by pricing, production capacity, and timing of orders scheduled in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA of $31 million was up 27% versus prior year. As expected, revenue grew at a faster rate than Adjusted EBITDA, reflecting and showing early positive signs of success in market. We continue to expect performance at Youtheory to show steady progress over the near term, as reflected in our strong guidance for Q3, and remain committed to our long-term revenue growth and margin expansion. In China, we continue to see strong momentum in the market, and we are well positioned to capitalize on the significant long-term potential with our new operating structure, which puts us in full control of our brand and the value chain. We have ample manufacturing capacity to support anticipated growth for the next several years and are leveraging DCP's deep expertise in the Chinese market to strengthen and accelerate our opportunities. In the immediate term, we continue to focus on strengthening our brand awareness and building out our on-the-ground team and infrastructure. In summary, the step change we realized in scaling our business globally over the past several quarters continues to show significant progress. All our core strategic growth initiatives are on track, and our results have enabled us to once again increase our quarterly dividend. As the world continues to recalibrate post COVID-19, we continue to monitor and adapt to this macroeconomic environment. Although we delivered another strong quarter in quarter two, and consumption continues to show strength and resilience in Canada, meeting our expectations, we are starting to see some inventory adjustments at the retail level due to higher cost of capital. This, combined with the post-COVID product registration backlog in a few international markets, have caused us to trim the high end of our full year guidance from +28% to +26% on revenue, and +18% to +16% on Adjusted EBITDA, while still delivering a strong year of growth in a year of global transformation. We are also pleased to announce today an increase in our quarterly dividend based on continued strong results. Chris will walk us through more details shortly. In closing, our ability to navigate and deliver results in a changing post-COVID-19 environment on a global scale is a testament to the strength and resilience of our strategy and our team. I want to thank the Jamieson team for their commitment and passion for helping advance our mission of becoming the world's most trusted health and wellness company and delivering another good quarter. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to Chris to discuss our second quarter results and guidance in more details. Chris, over to you. Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone. In the second quarter, revenue increased by 49.6% to CAD 167.6 million, driven by our Youtheory acquisition and growth in both our Jamieson Brands and Strategic Partner segments. Jamieson Brands revenue increased by 51.5% to CAD 132.9 million. Domestic Canadian revenue grew by 2%, reflecting strong consumer consumption, which significantly outpaced shipments in the quarter in both units and dollars, as the consumer continues to be highly engaged in the category. Our Youtheory segment contributed CAD 42.1 million of branded revenue, driven by the initial shipments of our new and improved turmeric SKU, continued strength in e-commerce, and distribution gains in the quarter. In China, our transition to an own distribution model helped drive revenue growth of 63%. On a pro forma basis, China revenue increased 21%, reflecting the timing of the transition to our own distribution model, continued strength in cross-border e-commerce, club channel sales, and new distributions in Chinese retail. In our international business unit, revenue declined by $2.2 million due to timing of customer orders for unique international SKUs, offsetting the full impact of the decline in Eastern Europe in the prior year's second quarter. Shipments in the second quarter of 2023 were impacted by the government regulatory slowdowns in a few key markets, impacting innovation in existing markets and our entry into new markets. Consumption remains strong across many geographic regions, including 5% growth in Eastern Europe. Our Strategic Partners business increased by 42.8% to CAD 34.7 million, reflecting quarter-over-quarter impact of higher pricing, timing of orders scheduled in the prior year. Gross profit margin decreased by 370 basis points on a reported basis and was down 230 points on a normalized basis, reflecting the inclusion of Youtheory's lower gross profit margin profile on our consolidated operations. Reported gross margin included CAD 2.3 million adjustment to increase the fair value of inventory related to our Chinese distributor acquisition and transition to our own distribution model. Within the Jamieson Brands, gross profit margin declined by 580 basis points to 37.4%, or by 410 basis points on a normalized basis to 39.1%, reflecting the inherently lower gross margin profile and seasonally high volume of Youtheory in the quarter. Gross profit margin in Strategic Partners segment increased by 310 basis points to 14.8%, reflecting customer and program mix, as well as volume-driven operating efficiencies with pricing offsetting higher input costs. Selling general and administrative expenses increased by $9.8 million compared to the prior year. Excluding the impact of specified costs and the addition of Youtheory, SG&A increased by $4.9 million or 24.5%, largely for reflecting global expansion initiatives by adding resources, marketing, and infrastructure to support our growth in the U.S. and China. Specified costs of $3.6 million in the quarter comprised of transaction-related costs and IT system implementation expenses. Second quarter operating income increased by 27.6% to $18.6 million as a result of higher revenue and gross profit, neutralizing higher investments in SG&A. On a normalized basis, second quarter operating income increased by 25.5%, and EBITDA increased by 18.6% to $23, sorry, $22.3 million, reflecting higher revenue gross profit, partially offset by investments in SG&A. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 27.1% to CAD 31.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 330 basis points to 18.5%, reflecting lower margin in the Jamieson Brands segment, driven by the inclusion of Youtheory. Excuse me. Net earnings decreased by 28.6% to CAD 7.2 million, and adjusted net earnings, which excludes specified costs and foreign exchange, increased by CAD 13.6 million. Our earnings per diluted common share was CAD 0.17, and adjusted earnings per common, per diluted common share was CAD 0.32, flat compared to the prior year, as increased net earnings has been impacted by the additional borrowings in support of our Youtheory and distributor acquisitions, plus higher prevailing interest rates and the timing of cash flows associated with our DCP P artnership in the quarter. A reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net earnings is provided in today's press release, announcing our second quarter results. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow, we generated CAD 11.7 million in cash from operations in the quarter, compared to CAD 13.3 million in the prior year. Cash from operations before working capital considerations was CAD 4.2 million lower due to a decrease in earnings, including the realized acquisition and system improvement costs previously mentioned. Cash invested in working capital decreased by CAD 2.5 million in the quarter, driven by the timing of accounts receivable collection and changes in payables in the quarter. In the quarter, we invested CAD 25.8 million to acquire the certain assets of our former distribution partner in China and invested CAD 2.8 million in other capital and intangible expenditures. We distributed approximately $7.1 million in dividends, and we ended the quarter with approximately $246.2 million in cash and available operating lines. Based on our strong cash flow position and earnings today, we have announced a dividend of $0.19 per common share, or approximately $8 million in aggregate. This represents a $0.02 or 11.8% increase compared to the second quarter dividend. The dividend will be paid on September 15, 2023, to common shareholders of record at the close of business on September 1, 2023. Now turning to guidance. Consumer consumption continues to be strong across the organization, and we are maintaining our previous go-growth expectations within our most strategic, strategic growth pillars in the United States and China. In Canada, consumer consumption of more than 8% year-to-date continues to outpace shipments, while retailers have begun to reduce their investments in working capital. With lower shipments in Canada and regulatory timing impacting our international business, we have decided to trim the top end of our revenue and Adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges. For fiscal 2023, we now anticipate the following: Net revenue in the range of CAD 670 million-CAD 690 million, reflecting annual revenue growth of 22%-26% compared to our previous range of CAD 670 million-CAD 700 million. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of CAD 140 million-CAD 144 million, an increase of 13%-16% from a previous guided range of CAD 140 million-CAD 146 million. Adjusted earnings per fully diluted common share of $1.56-$1.63, compared to a previous range of $1.62-$1.72, reflecting the anticipated change in Adjusted EBITDA and our revised interest expectations due to higher prevailing interest rates and the timing of funds received from our partnership in China. Additionally, I would like to note the following guidance assumptions. Jamieson Brand segment revenue growth of 24%-28%, compared to our previous range of 24%-30%, driven by the following updates. An increase in Jamieson Canada revenues of 2%-4%, compared to our previous stated range of 3%-6% growth, reflecting continued consumer demand, marketing plans, innovation, and the impact of prior year pricing. These growth drivers are offset by reduced inventory levels within our customers and distributor partners as they lower working capital investment in response to higher costs of capital. International revenue expected to be flat or up to 10% growth from our previous stated range of 5%-20% growth, reflecting a post-COVID-19 government slowdown of processing product registrations in new and existing markets. Our revised outlook continues to be driven by marketing, innovation, and the timing of distribution into new markets. As such, our guidance remains unchanged at 25%-30% pro forma growth in China and 11.5%-19% growth on a pro forma basis in the United States. Normalized SG&A, including marketing expenses, are expected to increase 31%-35%, updated from our previous guidance range of 35%-40%, reflecting the prioritization of brand and resource investments. Full year growth is based on the acquisition of Youtheory and an accelerated investment in marketing resources and infrastructure spending to support long-term growth opportunities in the United States and in China. A complete discussion of our third quarter and full year fiscal 2023 outlook, as well as factors impacting our expected performance, are included in the outlook section of our MD&A filed this afternoon. In closing, I would like to thank the entire Jamieson Wellness team for their continued commitment and hard work as we continue to deliver high-quality brands that consumers trust while executing on our strategic plans. With that, let me turn the call back to our operator, Daryl, for Q&A. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star zero or star two. Please ensure you lift the handset if you are using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. Once again, if you have a question, it's star, then one. I'm standing by for questions. Our first question comes from Endri Leno. Go ahead, Endri. Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I, I just wanted to start a little bit with the Q3 guidance, especially when we're talking about the domestic Jamieson. I was wondering if you can give a little bit of color in terms of kinda how you see the volume movements in Q3 versus pricing, consumption, and shipments in that regard? Yeah, thanks, Endri. Yeah, so we did put out some guidance by the quarter, and you are seeing a decline in Q3 in the Canadian guidance. I think it's important to ground everyone on what was happening a year ago, where we reported a +12%. In that quarter, we had pretty strong shipments behind a few things. One, the last real push or the last real wave of COVID, in Canada, we were, we were still shipping in against that latest wave. We had some early shipments going on, earlier than expected shipments going on around cold and flu season. Also a timing of higher promotional spend going on in the year. Really, we were up against a really tough but big comp in Q3 with +12%, we're gonna see a little bit of decline against that as we comp against it. From a consumption perspective, though, the business continues to drive strong in Canada. The consumer continues to be strongly and highly engaged in the category. They continue to grow the category. You heard in Chris's comments there that we're seeing dollar growth of +8% in the latest quarter. We're seeing unit growth of plus 4% at the consumption level, and really just seeing that offset from some inventory burn going on in the marketplace. The consumer is there, the business is strong on the ground. We're comping up against some moving pieces from a year ago, as well as some, a bit of inventory burn going on that you've seen in our guidance around Canada. Okay. No, thanks, thanks for that, Mike. Just as a follow-up on that question, I mean, if you're seeing that in Q3, and I think the, the immunity shipments and the flu continued in the fourth quarter of last year as well, I mean, what gives you confidence that you can accelerate, growth in, in Q4 to, to hit the annual, target? Last year we saw, we saw the cold and flu order ship a little more in Q3 than historically, and a little less weighted to Q4. We're expecting that to go back to historical norms now. Some of that was driven by the, the COVID wave that I mentioned going on at the same time as the cold and flu season was starting to kick off. The anticipation is we're gonna get back to more normalized timing in that cold and flu shipments. There will be some in Q3, just not as strong as last year, and some of that shifted into Q4, where we expect strong growth. Okay. Thank you for that. The other question I had, I mean, it's still on the Q3 guidance, but more for Youtheory. If I'm doing some quick calculations, and I just opened it up, so correct me if I'm seeing this incorrectly, but around CAD 25 million in revenues for Youtheory in Q3. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about that in terms of, is that driven by seasonality? What kind of seasonality do you expect in Q3 versus Q2 for Youtheory? Or was it that you just saw a big sort of rush of orders in Q2 and then you're shipping now instead of the Q3? Yeah. If we go back to what we've been talking about the last few quarters, we were dealing with some delayed innovation through Q4 of last year and Q1 of this year. We also were talking about that SKU that we were launching, a new and improved turmeric SKU that took some time to get to market. We anticipated to start shipping in Q2, which it did, which was fantastic. It's in market, and we were well within our guidance on the US business. That product, that, that hero SKU, that was new and improved, it shipped late in the quarter as anticipated. We did show some growth in Q2 in the U.S. As we flip over to Q3 now, we're gonna see stronger growth as that SKU is now in market. Early signs are that it's performing quite well. We're also comping last year in the quarter where we just bought the business. We were in the middle of transformation. There was a lot of moving pieces. We feel pretty good about our guide in 2023 and a strong guide, in the quarter of +40% to +50%, or +27% to +36% on a pro forma basis. Okay, thank you. The last one for me, I'll, I'll jump in the queue, but you mentioned you have, you had gained or, or you expanded your distribution for Youtheory. Can you talk a little bit about the nature, I mean, of this new channels or new distribution that you have in there? Is it where you want it? I mean, what... how does it compare with what you already had for this line? Yeah, you know, we continue to push renovation, or sorry, distribution growth in the year. We talked last quarter and the quarter before about how most of the growth this year would be driven by innovation and e-commerce growth, and we're seeing great strength there. We did talk about picking up some early possible new distribution, and we're picking up some distribution in some of the current customers that, that the, the brand was in before. We picked up a couple of new customers that we're starting to roll out some products, and we've expanded distribution in some of the natural channel accounts as well. We are starting to see some of that distribution growth happen. It is early days, as we said, in 2023, and we did see some of that contribute some growth in Q2, and we have it guided for the rest of the year as well. Okay, thank you. I'll jump in the queue again. Thanks. Thanks, Endri. Thanks, Endri. Our next question comes from Justin Keywood from Stifel. Go ahead, Justin. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my call. On the working capital use, appears to be some investments in the current quarter, and that has been the case, if we look back in the past couple of years throughout the pandemic. Is there a timeframe when we could see the working capital normalized to around break even, where we see the cash flow from EBITDA convert at a higher rate? Yeah. As we talked in previous quarters, there's two things driving working capital investment in 2023. One is the normalization of working capital in our acquired business in Youtheory in the United States, as we manage that business for more efficiency, both from a procurement and a manufacturing perspective. The second piece is the extension of the order-to-cash cycle through our acquisition of a distributor in China. Previously, that was a sell into China model at a lower sales price. Now you've got the step up and the sell out, that order to cash includes freight as well as terms in China. Those are the two biggest drivers. In the base business, we aren't seeing a significant increase from a full year perspective in working capital, there has been a little bit of timing that hit the quarter. In the first half of the year, you'll see that normalize. back down by the second half of fiscal 2023. As we end the year, likely less than 2x debt to EBITDA. Chris, in the, in the current quarter, do you have that, that exit multiple on, on the net debt to EBITDA? Yeah. It's about 2.4 times. Just give me two seconds here. Yep, that's the number. Okay. That's down from around 3x the quarter before? Yep. Okay, and, and just one more question. Just on the Youtheory, if I understand correctly, it contributed around, 8% organic growth in the quarter? Yeah, it was high single digits, Justin, for sure. That's in the range of where we saw growth in the quarter. Then, of course, we talked about guiding stronger growth for the rest of the year now that we've got that product in market and passing some softer periods. That's reflecting the new turmeric, SKU? That is, that is correct. Yep. The one thing, though, to remember about that new SKU, as we talked about in the last few quarters, is it shipped late in the quarter. We got our shipments out in the third month. The first two months still had some of that drag on slow, slow selling as we were winding the old SKU down, and then we shipped in the new product in the third month of the quarter, and it's on shelf now, and we're quite pleased with the early days of sales we're seeing off shelf. Great. Good to see the rebound. Thank you very much. Thanks, Justin. Appreciate it. Thanks, Justin. Our next question comes from Derek Lessard, from TD Cowen. Go ahead, Derek. Yeah, thanks, and good afternoon, everyone. Good to hear you. I, I want to hit on Youtheory as, as well. Feels like you've gotten a pretty good handle on that business, or at least, better visibility now that you've got a year under your belt. I guess my first question is, one, is that a fair statement? Number two, could you maybe just add some color around some of the, the innovation that you're, you're putting in, into market since that's one of the bigger growth drivers this year? Yeah, sure, Derek. Thanks for the question. Yeah, I mean, I think with one year under our belt, we do feel like we have a better handle on the business. We have more visibility, we understand the business, and I think it's a fair comment. I mean, you know, when you buy a business, it takes some time to work through some of the integration bumps. It takes time to really learn the business through and through. You can only learn so much through diligence. The more time we get under our belt with that business, the more comfortable we'll be with it and the more understanding we'll have in it. I think it's fair to say after a year, we have a lot more visibility and understanding of how that business moves, how it sells, the flow of all the products, and really just how to best manage it moving forward. We're quite pleased with the progress we've made from an integration perspective. We now have every single function integrated. We have just finalized the marketing function for the last function, and we're quite pleased with and optimistic with what we have planned for the back half of the year. When it comes to innovation, we've talked a bit about a few things. We've talked about the new and improved turmeric SKU. We will be focused on marketing that SKU in the back half of the year, with some investment behind that. We have launched a few of our low-sugar gummies into the marketplace. We are starting to see some distribution on those through e-commerce channels, some of the natural channels, and we'll continue to push for incremental distribution on those products as we continue to sell them into the marketplace. You will see a few more low-sugar gummies come out in the second half of the year. We also have a couple other products planned. Really don't want to get into the details of them for competitive reasons right now, but there are a few more products launching that hopefully we'll be able to talk to you about over the next couple of quarters. Okay. That's, that's helpful, Mike. I guess the another question I had was on the... Can you add some color around to the around which markets or if there's any market in particular that you're seeing more delays in the approval process than others, or who's the biggest driver of that? Well, there's three markets that are really driving the impact of those delayed registrations. Really, we've been doing business in a, in a, in a couple of these countries for a while. One of them is a, is a new country we had planned to enter. You know, they're way off the regular timelines in terms of getting things through the system. All our submissions in, we know how to get stuff registered. They're just sitting in the queue, and they're not coming out in that queue as fast as we've historically seen. We are in very close contact with those governments, working closely with them to get things through the pipe. I really don't want to call out any countries, just, just for the sake of we have good relationships there. We're working through it, and they're working with us to try to get it through as quickly as possible. It really is a timing blip, and when those, those approvals happen and we can get them through, we've got the products ready, we've got them ready to go, and we'll be getting them to market as soon as we can. Okay. That's fair. And one, one more for me before I, I r ecue. You know, there's, there has been some chatter around sort of some general economic weakness in China. Just curious if you've seen any, and it doesn't sound like it, but just what you're seeing on the ground in terms of consumption trends there. Yeah, I mean, I think we, we've all seen the, the, you know, the headlines about maybe their GDP not coming in as strong as some, some of the analysts expected, or some of the economists expected. What we do see, and what we can see, is that, that the impact of that is much more, I would say overt on certain categories or certain segments of the economy. When it comes to consumer goods and when it comes to health, the health side of consumer goods, we continue to see growth in China. We continue, continue to see strength in China, continue to see, you know, pretty much stronger growth at a category level than any other major country around the world. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen MacLeod from BMO. Go ahead, Stephen. Great. Thank you. Good evening, guys, and lots of great color so far, so thank you. Just wanted to follow up on a couple of things. Just with respect to Canada and the inventory replenishments, I guess the, the lack of inventory replenishment you're seeing at your customer levels. You know, are you seeing that across, across all channels, or, are there any that are more notable? Then, and then do you have any visibility into how long that may persist? Yeah. Thanks, Stephen. Welcome to your first call. It's a pleasure to have you here. You know, it's hard to call out channels because various channels, even within the channels, various accounts just manage inventory at different levels. We're seeing it across multiple accounts, multiple customers. When we talked about it last quarter, someone asked a question about it, we indicated that, you know, we're seeing some customers at lower level of inventory than normal, some at higher level inventory than normal, and we're working through it all to figure out where it all goes. At that point, we thought we felt pretty good that the lower levels of inventory customers that were lower than normal, we could get back up. Really that's not happening. They're holding pretty hard and saying, "We're, we're managing our capital right now. You have a growing category where product is turning. We know we can get inventory, and we're gonna, we're gonna manage down inventory here, where we have some other inventory issues elsewhere." It's really, you know, account by account, across, across the country. There's not really one specific channel or account that I, I would be comfortable calling out. I think, What was the second question? Sorry, Steve. Second question was just how long do you think, or what kind of visibility- Oh, yeah. To this? Yeah. Yeah, we, you know, you see in our guidance, we plan to see consumption outpace shipments in Q3. In Q4, it's gonna be an interesting quarter because we'll see cold and flu season really start to kick in, and we'll see those shipments happen. We typically see an inventory build in Q4. Coming out of Q4, we'll see where the cold and flu season sits from a strength perspective. At that time, we'll be in a better position to guide in terms of, is there gonna be any more inventory builds in Q1 and Q2? Right now, we've put our guidance out for the rest of this year. It includes the burn that we expect, and, you know, we'll guide for next year as we get closer to it and have a better handle on it. Right. Okay, great. That's, that's great color. Thank you. Then just on the new, new turmeric SKU that you launched, just sort of late in the quarter. When we think about distribution, is it- is that into a specific channel and then there are other opportunities, or do you feel like distribution for that product particularly is already quite widespread? No, that product, the, the, the initial launch of that product was through the club channel. We do have a strategic plan to continue to roll that out across more customers and more channels over the coming months, and continuing to improve our turmeric SKU across the board. Initially, one channel, but there are plans and conversations going on about rolling that out more broadly with customers. Okay, that's great. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate the warm welcome. Thank you. If anyone has a question, it's star then one on your touchtone phone. Once again, if you have a question, it's star then one. Our next question comes from George Doumet from Scotiabank. Go ahead, George. Yeah, hi. Hi, Mike. I, I just wanted to ask a little bit about the guidance, maybe to Chris, on the lower guidance, on the EPS side. It seems a little bit more pronounced than the other categories. Can you maybe give us a little bit more color on that and on, I guess, versus expectations when it relates to the interest rate piece and, and the cash flow with the partner in China? Yeah. It really is a significant increase in our interest rate expectation. You saw the change or, you know, we talked-- we issued a change in interest dollar expense. That was essentially about a CAD 4 million increase at the bottom and the top end of the range for interest expense. That's split between rate and volume, as we're seeing both higher rates exiting Q1, as well as continued rate increases into the second half of 2023. Then you've got some timing of working capital, as we talked about, with incremental investments both in China and in the U.S., to drive efficiency in those businesses. Okay, in that context, Chris, maybe you'll help us walk down the EBITDA line to get to the free cash. What, what, what would the target be, or range be for the year that you're contemplating? Yeah. I would expect to, to generate between CAD 80 million and CAD 90 million in normalized cash flow in fiscal 2023. That includes, that includes the. That'd be kind of the difference between the normalized and unnormalized numbers from a, from a cash from operations perspective. From that, you're going to invest anywhere between CAD 25 million and CAD 30 million in working capital. Okay. About CAD 10 million-CAD 15 million in capital. Okay. About CAD 30 million in dividends, and of course, we have the CAD 25 million acquisition of our distributor in China. Which close to nets to about zero from a cash from operations perspective, which then means your proceeds from the DCP transaction become the predominant reduction of debt in fiscal 2023. That's helpful. If I heard correctly, you expect to exit next year at about two turns? I expect to exit fiscal 2023 at two turns. Okay. Okay, great. just, Sorry, just, just to be clear, that doesn't include the preferred share obligation, as I'm including that as equity. Oh, okay. Okay, that's appreciate that. It's more, it's more clear. Just one last one, if I may. Just wondering in general, like, given the input baskets and your costs there, are, are you... How, how is that trending as a group, and do you feel like you maybe need to take a little bit more price, in the second half or into next year, given your inputs, or is that has that remained pretty stable? Well, we, we have visibility to the rest of 2023. I think from a, an EBITDA margin perspective, we're on track, as, as we've kind of maintained our EBITDA margin targets, even with the trimming of our top and bottom line, expectations from a volume perspective. As you know, we, we negotiate our final contracting in Q4, fiscal 2023 for fiscal 2024, and at that point in time, we'll be able to take stock of the ups and downs and determine at that point in time if pricing will be necessary for 2024. Okay. Just a clarification on the 8% consumption number that you called out. Is that, is that a year-to-date number or is that a quarterly number? That's a quarter number. For quarter two. Thanks a lot. It's about 4% dollar on dollar from a POS perspective, and about, sorry, 8% CAD dollars and 4% units. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Our next question comes from Sabahat Khan, from RBC. Go ahead, Sabahat. Great. Thanks. Good afternoon. just kind of, you know, I might have missed this in the earlier commentary, but just guidance for Q3 of CAD 25 million. I understand you mentioned there's some timing going into Q4. I guess on a run rate basis, when we look at this business into 2024 and onward, can you maybe just help us think about what seasonality by quarter typically would look like in a normal year? Yeah, I think we've talked previously about the, the promotional cycle in the U.S. You have a significant, mid-year and end-of-year promotional cycle, which means quarter two and quarter four significantly outpace volume in the first and the third quarter. You know, that, that will be continued. I think Q4, sorry, Q2 in 2024 may not be as pronounced as Q2 in 2023, just given by the timing of shipments and to fill that innovation. We feel very strongly on a pro forma growth perspective exiting fiscal 2024, sorry, fiscal 2023, as you saw, a very strong guide for Q3. We expect, obviously, to continue to hit our established guidance for full year. I just... The one thing to add to that, Sabahat, is when you see the two quarters of Q2 and Q4 being much heavier than Q1 and Q3, because of the promotional windows, Q4 is the larger promotional window. I just want to add that color. It, it historically, as it always has been, and it will continue to be that way, for the foreseeable future. Okay, great. I guess just, just some additional color on the commentary you just shared on the cash flow and some of the uses of cash, I guess. You know, I guess updated CAD 90 million of normalized operating cash flow. CAD 25 million-CAD 30 million of working capital that you called out. Is that just, I guess, during the integration process, some of the inflation-related impacts, or? You know, I'm just trying to think how we should think about kind of run rate working capital, kind of over the next one to three years. I just want to understand if CAD 25 million-CAD 30 million is more kind of a temporary? Yeah, that. Yeah. That 25-30 is, is gonna be specific to 2023. Certainly, my expectation would be a much smaller double-digit working capital investment in fiscal 2024. I'm not at liberty to guide right now, you will not see anything close to CAD 30 million in 2024. Okay, great. My, my expectation would be, would be high teens at this point in time. Great. Then just one last quick one. You provided a lot of color on how things are going in Canada, I guess. You know, maybe just a bit more, if you can just share on kind of the consumer trends, particularly in the Canadian market. You know, I understand retailers might be keeping inventory tighter, but what do you think on the consumer front, just in the channel and things like that? Just a little bit, maybe if you can shed some color by, you know, food, drug versus some of the other channels as well. Just trying to understand what's happening on the POS level, and, you know, if that's something that the retailers might be reacting to. Yeah, I mean, we do continue to see. I mean, we talked about the numbers. Dollar growth has been strong, unit growth is strong. There's not a lot of CPG categories right now that has dollar and unit growth going on. We're quite pleased to see unit growth at a category level and at a consumer level. We continue to see, some, I would say, declines in immunity as we're coming off of a cold and flu season, we're coming out of COVID. You are seeing some declines in those key immunity categories. What's amazing to see, we talked about it last quarter, it's happening again, is those declines are more than being offset by many other categories that are growing, which says that all of those consumers or a good chunk of those new consumers that came in through COVID, have stuck with the category and have spread their usage out to, to more than just immunity. We're seeing continued strength in energy, in stress, in minerals, in fish oils, in sleep aids, and in beauty from within. Continued strength in those categories we've been calling out for some time. From a channel perspective, you definitely do see a continued shift in growth, to some channels like the digital channel, the e-commerce channel, as well as into, club channel, as consumers right now are looking for, some value, right? They're looking for, some better value on their dollar. You are seeing some shift and some out, over index growth in those channels, I would say. Very much in line with a lot of the earnings reports you've heard from the grocers. Within the grocery side of things or the food side of things, we are seeing a shift from what would be the conventional banners into the discount banners, which is great, and has also given us opportunity to increase distribution in those banners that, don't traditionally have the largest vitamin sets. Great. Thanks very much for the color. Thanks, Sab. Our next question comes from Tania Armstrong from Canaccord. Go ahead, Tania. Hi, guys. I think most of my questions have been asked already, but going back to inventory, and apologize if you mentioned this already, I might have missed it. Where does this current or the new inventory levels for Canadian retailers stack up to against, I guess, pre-pandemic levels? Are they just going back to, I guess, kind of where they used to be for the most part? Is this something you expect inventory levels to build back up through next year if money supply gets better, I guess? Yeah, I think what we're seeing, Tania, is we are seeing some major accounts being lower than pre-pandemic. We're seeing them hold less inventory at this time than they traditionally or historically have held. You know, we believe we'll see that trend for some time as the cost of capital is quite high. I do think if we see a return to normalcy in terms of cost of capital and these interest rates are coming down, there is a possibility to see that come back up to more normal levels. Right now, you know, there are a few major accounts that are below historical levels, unfortunately. Another thing, Tania, is we don't represent our share of shelf from a market share perspective. There's certainly more to be had from a retailer inventory perspective if we were to get an appropriate share of shelf. Perfect. I'm sure you've mentioned this before, but remind me, how do you track the consumption levels in Canada? What data points are you using to get to those unit growth rates, specifically? We have very specific data from an account level, for all the major accounts, and we have that data at our fingertips, so we, we aggregate it. We also have IQVIA data, which captures a certain portion of the market, that we can validate some of our, our numbers against. Excellent. Thank you. Then just lastly, on these registration backlogs that we're seeing in those three key international markets, why is this happening now? It seems like a lot of time has passed since the end of the pandemic. Are we seeing more competitors enter the market and backlog the system, or is this actually some other fundamental reason why there's backlog? Well, I think, you know, I mean, if you think about government speed and registrations as a whole, even in Canada, I'm not talking about, about Health Canada, we seem to have that sorted out from a registration perspective in our category. You've seen a general slowdown, even in Canada, in terms of the government, running into backlogs in certain areas. Some of the countries that we're talking about, are more, more developing countries than, let's say, Canada or the United States. During COVID, some of them just completely stopped registering anything, and the backlog built up to the point that we're at today, and they're trying to play catch up. It really depends on the resources that each country has applied to the registration system or their regulatory body, and how they, you know, what did they do during COVID-19? Did they continue to process just at a slower rate? Did they stop? And what resources do they have today to get through this backlog? Understood. That's all for me. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from John Zamparo from CIBC. Go ahead, John. Thanks. Good evening. I also wanted to follow up on, on the international business ex China and the approvals, and, and just want to clarify, had this been an issue, the, the backlog, had this been an issue at all in prior quarters, or is this just entirely new in Q2? No, I mean, it, it really is against our expectation, right? When we build a plan for the year, we had plans to launch products in the quarter, based on historical timing when products are registered. It's a timing issue in that this is what we had planned for Q2, and the delay is now taking us past Q3. We wouldn't have had anything material in the first quarter that this would have happened to. I think, you know, the other thing, just on your question, John, also what Tania asked a minute ago. The other thing is, through COVID, there wasn't as much innovation in the marketplace, right? I mean, people were really focused on selling the products they had. You saw a general slowdown on innovation across the category, globally. As we've come out of the pandemic, there's many more country companies, including ours, getting back to bigger innovation, innovation plans and really putting a lot more registrations into systems that are already strained. I, I, I hope that answers your question, but that's, that's why it hit Q2, is because that's when we planned to have those launches in market. Okay, understood. Is it related at all to the ingredient ban in Europe and new products related to that? No, not, not, not even, not at all, and not in those countries are we seeing any of the delays. John, I would just add to that, that the original large range for the international guide was with respect to this risk. Like, the original guide from 5-20% reflected inherently this risk. Unfortunately, we missed that call a little bit. Okay. Okay, that's helpful. I want to move to the U.S. and, and you, Thierry, you gave some good color on, drivers of sales growth there. I wonder if you could, if you could rank what the one or two largest were on a dollar basis for sales growth when, when you're referring to new products, e-commerce, new retailers, and new distribution points within existing retailers. Yeah, I don't have the specific ranking, but I'm going to say, John, it would have been our new innovations that got to market as number one, followed by e-commerce, of which we continue to see strong growth, and third, by some of the new distribution that we've started to pick up in the early days here. Okay, great. Then just one more follow-up. Yeah, and that's, and that, that's on, that's on some, that's on some big building blocks. We also continue to see strong growth in, our ashwagandha product, which has shown strong, consumption growth period after period for the last few periods and last couple of years, as that's a really hot trending, ingredient. That's also been a driver of growth, which was a continued, continued growth vector of a, of a key ingredient. Okay, understood. Then one final one, just a housekeeping question. There was a comment in the EPS outlook for the year about the timing of cash flows associated with the partnership in China. Can you add some color about what changed there? We expected to close that transaction earlier in the year when we first established our, our guidance. Got it. That's it. Okay. That's all from me. Understood. All right. Thank you very much. Cheers. We have a follow-up question from Endri Leno. Go ahead, Endri. Oh, thanks for the follow-up. Appreciated. The question is, when you're talking about China, you, you mentioned as, as the new distribution, as a growth in there. I just wanted to clarify whether this is the one that was already discussed in the prior quarter, or, or is this a new one? As a follow-up, can you, like, give some? Are you able to give some color on how many stores or how many provinces or cities are you with this new distribution? Yeah. The, the main, the main increase would be, some of the stuff we talked about in the past, Endri. The interesting thing about China as we move forward, it's going to be really hard to talk about specifics because it is a fragmented country with lots of customers. We have continued to, to show some increased distribution. Again, it's early days. We've had this under our control, in the quarter, about, about eight weeks that we've been managing it. We'll continue to see distribution growth over the, the next, you know, foreseeable future into, into multiple years. Where we can give a little more color on it, we will. Great. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Endri. We have no more questions in the queue. I'll turn it back to Mr. Pilato for closing comments. Thank you so much, Daryl. In closing, we just want to thank everyone for your participation on today's call. We're very pleased to see our strategic growth strategy working, most notably in China and in the U.S., and we're very pleased to see the continued strong consumption here in Canada. Really, all of these factors continuing to drive growth for our company. We're now laser-focused on executing the second quarter of the year. We're doing everything we can to deliver and we, we expect to have a very successful year. We wish you all a great evening, and we'll speak to you all again soon. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.