 Hi, how's everybody doing today? I'm your host Rich here on behalf of Rich TV Live with our very special guest, Eric Anderson, the CEO of Fiori Cannabis. How are you doing today, Eric? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Very excited to have you on the show again. Great to be back and weather improving here in Alberta. I'm off to BC again next week. I assume that the flowers will be in bloom out there for you guys shortly, so hopefully spring around the corner here. I hope so. And when you come to BC, maybe we can get together. Absolutely. My last trip there was a little bit of a reminder of normalcy. I was able to get out with some people and of course distancing and staying safe and all that kind of stuff, but it was great to get out there. We love seeing the green stuff both on the ground as well as there seems to be some good money flow out that way. I was talking to a large number of investment firms and everybody very interested in this space, and I think the reason that they're interested in taking meetings with me is again, a multi-state operator generating revenue in the US, so it's a big topic right now. Yeah, and your stock is still in the 20 cent range, 25 cent range, 20 to 25 cent, and you're mentioning revenue generator. For our community, revenue is everything. Why do you think Vegas is going to be such a huge revenue generator for fewer cannabis? So it was interesting when I first took the job and even before, you know, kind of in my interview process with the board, I traveled down to Vegas and I really wanted to understand the marketplace because I hadn't been there in years. I just for personal reasons hadn't kind of swung around again to do the Vegas thing. And you know, the first thing I did is I started going around and meeting people within the ecosystem, mostly dispensaries, but other grows, other production houses, and just meeting some of the brand generators. The first thing that was real surprised to me coming from Canada or even Alberta, whether I think Alberta's got more than 500 dispensaries just in the province here, is it's a limited marketplace, right? I think that the Cannabis Compliance Board, the CCB, advertises somewhere around 60, 70 licenses for retail and 60, 70 licenses for cultivation. So having two of those cultivation licenses, we actually just announced the sale of one of them, and I'll get back to that in a minute, but a closed market. So you know, I'm thinking about Las Vegas, I'm thinking about some of the statistics that I was researching. So 42 million visitors a year. Again, when the pandemic ends, we expect to see that that place goes off the hook. It's relatively around 120,000 people a day on airplanes coming in. I think there's a big pent up demand down there for people just wanting to travel and experience that Vegas lifestyle again. But again, the fun part of my job was going around talking to the owners and general managers of the retail dispensaries. And there's probably about two dozen of them right in the Las Vegas area, some of them very close to the strip. And the first thing that popped out after, you know, this is a limited market is, wow, the sales are strong. The retail margins and pricing, you know, I kind of came back to Canada and had to do a relook. So I looked on the BC site and I looked on the AGLC site. And, you know, top shelf flower in Alberta, for instance, sort of sells at somewhere between $150 and $200 So that's the top shelf. Again, with some superior genetic strains that we have, we grow in an organic living soil platform, the retail price and all the currency convert this to Canadian is well over $500 an ounce. So you've got $152 here and you've got north of $500 at some of the big dispensaries that have that brand recognition and, hey, this is a place to come and not just with tourists, but a lot of locals there as well too. So the fun part of the job is going around and kind of doing your market research. And I'd like to say that we probably narrowed down our retail partnerships as a cultivator to, we probably got about 15 that were really close to and then when we came into the new year here in January, we started our organic living soil drop menu drops. And those, those menus weren't on the street for more than about 48 hours before they were completely sold out. So we've had some really strong adoption of our story and I kind of liken it to not sure if you've ever been to Whole Foods, but you can go buy a pack of, you know, organic spaghetti and, you know, you'd pay two or three dollars for it at a regular superstore and you're paying nine, 10, $12, $15 for it at Whole Foods. That's kind of the take we have on the market as an organic cultivator and then the dispensaries are more than happy to put us on the top shelf. So can you break down the input costs, licensing fees, wholesale flower pricing, margins, production opportunities and retail revenues and mergers and acquisitions? Sure. So, you know, the input costs we built out what I call a pharmaceutical grade facility in North Las Vegas. And one of the things that I recognized when I first came on board is that while the facility was really good, they had kind of not gone ahead with what I consider to be the highest end lights. So we, we went and replaced all the lights. We went to a Fluence Viper LED. We had kind of checked that across our networks throughout North America. And it's, it's a high yielder. It's, it's great for, you know, at lowest energy consumption kind of keeps your temperatures in line. So what we did is, is we, we, you know, the company had, had spent a lot of money on the facility. And so we just upgraded in the form of the lights. And then we implemented this organic living soil system that kind of came from our guys out of the BC interior, our legacy kind of consultants and growers. And when you look at, again, when I'm signing all the checks for all the supplies and everything, it's, it's not for the faint of heart because we had to again, put the investment into the new lights. We upgraded the HVAC, upgraded the water RO system. And then when we put the living soil together, you know, that soil was, you know, five, six thousand dollars per room. And then all of the new, new traditional amendment packs that we've continued to buy, which includes, you know, earthworms, crickets for basically dealing with, you know, just trying to keep that organic platform alive. And it's, it's a real wonder. You think that you're in some kind of a nature reserve because you've got all kinds of different things growing in the soil. The nice thing is when you, when you invest up front into that high end of a growing methodology and platform, it kind of pays for itself because we don't have to throw that soil out and it just keeps getting better and better and better. So it was, it was obviously important that we got into the state because it's a closed state for licensing. We actually had two licenses because once upon a time, there was this thought that one license would equate to X number of square feet. So you'd need to have multiple licenses and the CCB kind of did away with that. So we were able to basically be left with an additional cultivation license and we just sold that and usually release that the other day. So the good news is that, you know, we've got a superior A plus grade facility. We're kicking out extremely strong yields, extremely strong testers. Our biggest challenge right now is with the genetic strain library of more than 50 strains, we're trying to determine which ones are we going to go ahead with here on a crop over crop basis because we kind of have experimented with some of the traditional high yielders and high testers, but we've got some of those esoteric connoisseur type strains as well too that we're experimenting with because what I've really learned in the, in the period of the pandemic is that tourism is great for that city. Don't get me wrong, but you know the locals there, they enjoy the product and they enjoy the lifestyle and the culture that comes along with it. So to be regarded as a top shelf organic cultivator, it's going very well and it's really justifying all those high input costs that we essentially ourselves even stepped up to in the form of loans to make this happen because we knew that there was going to be payoff and now as we enter 2021, it's been great to see that that payoff happening. So we've sort of you know in our growing rooms, we sort of look at the number of lights and we say we want to see x pounds per light. A lot of the people that we interviewed when we went out and hired a brand new you know top notch grow team was we said, hey what typically do you see for pounds per light if we were to use that as a metric for yield? And they came back and said he went around you know one pound, one and a half pounds, maybe upwards of two. Well we've sort of formulated ourselves based upon two pounds per light yield and then our guys in Canada using the very same technology, very same growing methodologies and protocols, they can get up to 3.5, 3.8 pounds per light. So almost double what that average yield is in the Nevada market. And so that's why we're trying to take a little bit of that BC bud magic and we're just trying to implement it down south. Happy to report that our grow team down there, very experienced guys, top guys in the state, they've thrown their arms around this living soil protocol and the methodology and they're really kicking it into gear now with some high high yields. And then when those test results come back to the Las Vegas market, they really want to see the high THC so definitely north of 25, 26 percent and definitely over 30 percent and we know we can get there as well too. So some really good things to coming down. We invest a lot of money into this facility. It does have expansion capabilities and we're working on another 25,000 square foot expansion right now where we're trying to determine which platform do we go for. We sort of keep it you know sort of small batch and kind of purpose built in terms of the facility or do we go into say a hybrid greenhouse. We've got some real knowledge of using grow containers and using sort of modular systems as well too. So we're just deciding which avenue we want to go down for expansion and the cool thing about our LOI that we signed with Allied Health, ironically out of Kelowna, but they have manufactured a 9,000 square foot facility just south of Las Vegas in Henderson and it's with a company called Extreme Cubes and they're going to be moving that 9,000 square feet onto our site because we've got seven acres. We've got the land to do it there. We can sign a management contract, a rev share and essentially double our square footage here in the next. I'd be surprised if it took three to four months. It's essentially ready to go. So we've got some real growth plans relative to our seven acres footprint there and we've already got those great relationships downstream into the retail market. So with our community we love companies that are undervalued, underappreciated, underexposed, tight share structure, strong management team and it seems as though you're literally checking off all the boxes and we love getting into companies early and we're talking about a company right now that is you know between 20 and 25 cents. It's gone as high as 30 cents since we've been talking about it. So still very undervalued considering you're going to be generating some substantial revenue. Can you talk about some of the revenue expectations for the company you know maybe month to month or throughout the rest of 2021 and beyond? Yeah for sure. So we've also got a dispenser over in Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs and Coachella Valley. So when you look at the last reported fiscal year end our company did about 2.9 million dollars in top line revenue. Going forward we've actually been able to through some additional marketing delivery service and basically just you know making sure that we were the store on the Coachella Valley that people wanted to come to in light of you know tourism not being at levels and concerts and festivals not being at levels that I here too for have been expected there. We've actually been able to take that store. We're estimating about a two million dollar year top line for it in 2021. You probably get it up you know as high as 2.5 and again we sort of need the tourism industry to come back and help us with that but we made that store profitable about six months into my tenure and I just celebrated my one-year anniversary. So that's good news is that we can show that you know what I'd like to go back to investors with is say hey that you know the company and you know prior to my arrival posted about 2.9 million and then when you look at our cultivation again getting top dollar for our wholesale cannabis products into the Las Vegas market I've really looked at this and said we're going to for sure double revenues this year if we don't do six million dollars I'd be very surprised and you know really if you look at our harvest schedule you look at those yields and those those tests that are coming out and going into the Las Vegas market I could see that we could actually triple sales we could be up you know north of eight nine million dollars top line this year and the way that I'm running the business is again every time that we're putting top line revenue we are getting a corresponding sort of between 15 and 25 percent on a month over month basis right down to the bottom line as well too so every successive crop that comes out we just we're trying to maximize the amount on our wholesale dollars we're getting in in Vegas the dispensary continues to do well on a month over month basis so I don't want to go too too far out there but I think that we'll double sales this year clean up the balance sheet share structure we've really cleaned up as well too so it's tightly held hardly anything for a for a float we know we're talking 20 25 million shares on 135 million issued known standing and a fairly low profile on our debt side and you know if we can kind of close off that deal in Solista BC to essentially exit the Canadian market you know basically selling off a non-revenue generating asset we'll have really cleaned up the balance sheet and again I think the stock is is is quite undervalued I haven't really tried to promote and set you know set as much but you know in our in my perspective it was like let's get the fundamentals established here we did the name change on November 5th to Fiori and I sort of like in that data probably the day that we could say that the turnaround had happened we still got a few more things to do but we were sitting at nine cents so you know if we could finish today at you know 25 27 cents that's a triple and I don't even think that we've got started yet I think we've got a long way to go and if you look at our expansion kind of you know organic expansion that we're going to build out both in on our seven acres of land in North Las Vegas as well as on the two and a half acres of land that we've got in the Coachella Valley in Palm Springs you know we're starting to look at if we could fold in you know a retail dispensary in Las Vegas so vertically integrated California vertically integrated Nevada you know this starts to become an 80 to 100 million dollar a year proposition by the time it's fully built out so that's some of the things that I'm working on right now and happy to report that you know no shortage of people on the investment side looking to partner with us you know put some money into us and we're trying not to be dilutive right now because I really want to build a strong base for our existing shareholders I was able to undo a merger last year where I took 18 and a half million shares back into Treasury so at some point in time we'll probably reissue those but we're not going to reissue them at 20 or 25 cents we think that we're going to you know with with continued good press continued strong financial results this year price should take care of itself and start going well north where it is now you mentioned press so every company we talk about and we talk to they need catalysts they need news is there some news and is there a lot of things cooking that and that investors can anticipate coming along in the next you know 30 to 60 days yeah and I wish I could tell you some of the secrets that I have right now but couple things we all know that the US is marching towards legalization now that we've you know the Biden-Harris campaign has not only taken the White House but they've taken the Senate as well too so you probably hear that every day about US legalization, US decriminalization, open up banking, open up institutional lending and investment into our sector so that's the number one driver right now but we've got you know a lot of good news coming down the pipe if the industry is consolidating and starting to consolidate and we've certainly seen some news with the big boys I'd like to think that we're having some conversations in that limited market in Nevada where I think we could potentially vend in a couple of other smaller type players and sort of be a consolidator ourselves and then we're sort of having some similar conversations in California as well too but everything's adding up to a creative M&A as you put one and one together it equals three you've got strong brand recognition and then you've got you know sort of that not just organic growth anymore you've got sort of a rocket ship that's ready to take off and everybody's looking to do deals similar to it reminds me of the Canadian industry if you go back 2015, 2016, 17 and 18 lots of M&A lots of you know and again the companies that I was looking after it was like who's got the real story who's got the sound fundamentals not just that sort of sell the sizzle on a on a great investor deck but not revenue generating we're generating revenue here and then some of the you know some of the the opportunities that we have on the M&A side it's going to bring in further revenue generation further streamlining of the supply chain of the cost structures making it more profitable to take one and one together and make it three and then we might even have a few opportunities with some celebrity endorsement in the Las Vegas market just again as that pandemic sort of shifts away and tourism starts to come back you're already seeing tourism start to come back a little bit in Vegas I think that there's some really good days ahead for us and again everything's everything forward has been devised around us a profitability strategy everything that we're going to do is going to have an instant ROI if we need to spend some money and it's going to have a creative nature of a partnership of bringing one or two or several entities together so pretty excited Eric if there was one thing you would want investors to know and you want to leave this interview in this video with investors knowing about fewer cannabis what would it be well I think that fundamentally sound business again focused on profitable growth focused on a clean balance sheet but I really point to that Las Vegas market again it just it blew my mind when I first came on board when you look at Canada roughly 36 38 million people in Canada we look at the one tourist market in Vegas and 42 million people are coming into that town every every year once things are back to normal and I actually was doing some research because I like to I like to watch programs like yourselves and I like to see interviews of other founders and CEOs in the same marketplace that I'm in and the founders of Planet 13 made a very a key sort of statistic in an interview two years ago so again two years ago Nevada's just coming through you know full adult legal recreational use and and they said you know what we're actually not even tapping into the tourist market we're only getting about 17 percent of that tourist market so 42 million people times 17 percent that's nowhere near where it needs to be in Planet 13 is the largest dispenser in the world they're a great barometer or or benchmark to use so what I'd really like to see is again when you land there when you you know you take that tax here that uber to your resort all you're seeing is cannabis advertising which we don't see a lot in Canada if at all you're seeing great branding strong you know colorful packaging and just really it's it's everything you'd expect Vegas to be which is fun which is you know come in for a good time and I really think that you know the interesting thing is that flour is still king there which is a little bit ironic to me because I think for that tourist we're starting to think about and create those 2.0 3.0 products because you're you're kind of contesting you know that alcohol game with the tourist right and you know you don't want to provide them with something that's going to make them want to go back to their hotel room and go to sleep you're going to want to provide them with a drink an edible something that enhances that that nighttime experiences and allows them to basically have a have a something to replace alcohol with I think that's a huge opportunity so we're working ourselves in our own production house and kitchen as well as with some close partnerships we have in the production space in Vegas to look at some connoisseur type products in the in the form of concentrates like an ice hash rosin you know stuff like that for the real connoisseur market and then for that tourist market you know we've we've got a couple of product ideas that are coming down as well too that's really meant to distribute and dose properly for somebody who's just coming into Vegas for four nights so I would say that the number one thing that I would want people to know about our company and where we're situated is that both in in Las Vegas which we think has got the potential to eclipse Canada someday in terms of sales they're about they were on the path to about a billion dollars in in sales until the pandemic Canada just finished the most recent statistics were 2.6 billion so still a long ways to go from a money standpoint but you've got the population you've got you got to tie into that that tourism and then if we shift over to the Coachella Valley again Palm Springs again really relying on tourism when it comes back with but we're getting in front of it we're partnering with the wellness spas we're we're partnering with the resorts we put together an e-commerce site where you can order and we'll deliver it right to your resort you've got to drive right by our store on the way to Joshua tree or on the way out to to to the Coachella music festival and stuff like that so we're already ahead of the game in terms of marketing and we just basically waiting for tourism to come back so that's the big thing for us is we think that we're in two excellent tourist markets two great markets for Canadian snowboards to be coming down as well too and so we're taking all of our experiences that that we've learned from the Canadian industry where I come from and a lot of our management and and people come from as well and we're really just waiting for the pandemic to be over and you know we're doing good now and we'll be doing great by the time that all happens that's fantastic Eric Anderson the CEO of Fiora Cannabis very excited about watching your company grow and evolve and you've done a great job since you've taken over the helm like you said from nine cents to where you are today it's already up big and the reality is just getting started everyone who's watching this just remember Rich TV Live is strictly for education and entertainment purposes always do your due diligence always do your research before you invest in anything that we discuss here on Rich TV Live consult with a financial advisor chances are financial advisors are going to say yeah it's a good pick our success speaks for itself we've brought in winner after winner after winner and I believe Fiora Cannabis is going to be a big winner for our community if you like this video please smash the like button comment down below share the video everywhere and subscribe and remember if you're not winning you're not watching we bring you the winners and we bring them to you first thank you for joining us Eric continue the great work and hope to have you on the show again soon thanks for having me take care thank you for joining us thank you guys for watching this is Rich from Rich TV Live saying have a nice day we'll talk to you soon