 Hi, how are you all doing today? This is Richard and we have a rich TV live with our very special guest. It is Ben Nikolaski, the CEO of Pure Extracts. How are you doing today, Ben? Doing great. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. This is actually our second interview. We've done one before at the cannabis conference about a year ago and I'm very excited that now you are about to IPO and go public. So congratulations. Thank you. Very exciting. Yeah, I can imagine. Very exciting. And we've been talking to our community about your company and we're excited to learn more about Pure Extracts. So why don't we get right into it? Why do you tell us about Pure Extracts and how you got involved? Sure. So Pure Extracts is a plant-based extractor and we extract a host of different plant-based products. Functional mushrooms, cannabis, hemp is our three minds of business. I was previously involved in a large-scale cultivar called Mature and Natural that we sold to Tilray about a year and a half ago. So I've been in the cannabis business for several years. My team is seasoned CPG and cannabis folks, some from the alcohol side of the business also from a CPG perspective. So I've been in the agricultural slash cannabis business for a decade, give or take. So seasoned professional, we actually retired after our brief sale from Tilray and the one business that I would come back for as I told my friends was something in the extraction business but it really made sense because to me the 2.0 products that are coming online both from a functional and a Cipacylon perspective and a cannabis perspective is where the market is really going to today and that's what really excites me about this opportunity and the reason why I came out of retirement for one more lap around the field. Now really excited. So let's talk about what are the main focuses of Pure Extracts? So we have three lines of business as I said. Our first line of business is extraction and for the cannabis slash hemp space. So I'll kind of wrap those into one business line. So we do towing which is taking in product from other LPs and hemp providers, running them through our extraction process, either full spectrum or making a distillate product through an ethanol process and returning it back to those LPs and they're using it in a host of different products and they pay us a fee for that. Highly lucrative from that perspective. We have two of those contracts underway. We also do white labeling as we create the products with their label on it, vape cartridges, tinctures and the like and then we return it to them and they sell it on to the provinces and then we have our Pure Pulse products and Pure Edibles which is branded product that we sell directly to the provincial entities. We are our formulations, custom formulations, we're a full spectrum product provider. We also have a exciting edible that we're going to launch in the end of first queue that's from a very prominent U.S. brand that will be announced very shortly. Wow. So super exciting super exciting super proprietary packaging that gets rid of a whole bunch of issues that people have around edibles and temperature variations. So super excited about that and so that's our our main lines of business in our cannabis hemp business and then we have our functional mushroom segment of the business. We looked at the functional mushroom business as a whole and really that business hasn't changed a lot since the 60s. People are still grinding up functional mushroom, capitalizing the powder and selling it on at retail. When we looked at that product set, we wanted to take that from a holistic brand methodology to a nutraceutical type product, extracting the functional mushrooms, you know, mixing them with other puritanicals. Eventually we'll be mixing them with some forms of cannabis and bringing that to market. Really upgrading the products so you have the traceability authenticity of the product set and you know the dosing, you're not worried about where it came from because it's been run through a purification process and you can you can definitely do more from a formulation perspective than using powder-tied products and it's just from a dosing perspective it's easier to deal with and safer for the consumer. So that's the first part of our business and we're the commercialization agent for people that are producing functional mushrooms. We're in discussions with some of the most prominent producers today that are in the functional space that want us to take over their manufacturing and formulations of some of their products and then we go one step further and being a plant-based extractor, we know how to work with mushrooms and other plant-based products. As psilocybin becomes legalized, we have a relationship with Dr. McGregor and the Transforma Institute in Toronto. They have a dealers license for a narcotics license for R&D. As our clients come online to commercialize the production of psilocybin, we will have that ability to produce commercialized psilocybin for the medical field. We're going through the process of our dealers license and assessing the requirements for that in our new facility. As you know, our facility was built to a GMP standard in Pemberton. So as we upgrade our lab equipment to handle eventually our narcotics license, we'll be able to produce that product as it becomes legal in Canada. And while we do R&D, our partner with Transforma will be able to do our R&D research with us under their other their dealers license. Now, the extraction market has had some pricing pressures as of late. The entire cannabis sector has specifically in Canada. How does peer intent to combat this issue? Well, the market in Canada is under a little bit of pressure from extraction. We are very lean shop to begin with. We've lived through the famine part of being a large scale cultivar when it was hard to raise money. So we know how to stretch a dollar first off. So our facility was very cost effective from a catapact perspective. The second part that we have the benefit for is biomass pricing. So when we originally looked at our pricing models and the business was put together, biomass was much higher. We're talking over a dollar a gram wholesale. We're now acquiring biomass at that 25 cents a gram perspective. So our costs are for the good, you know, the cost of extraction has fallen, but not as great as the amount of biomass has fallen even more. So, you know, in that perspective, our margins are sustained, if not better because of the biomass input when we have to buy biomass and provide it to our customer. So we're able to compete, you know, head on with our larger counterparts. And our cost structure is much more favorable to them. Now, the extraction segment has a lot of opportunities as a whole. You mentioned some of it, white labeling, tolling, custom manufacturing. What is Peer's target segment and how will you stand out from your peers? Peer comes from a legacy brand background. So Doug Bendo was involved in the big market before. We have a proven tracker we bought over 35 different formulations in the oil segment of full-spectrum product. So we don't have to go to our lab and formulate things of that nature. Our science folks already have it in inventory. So that's the first off. So we're able to bring products to market very quickly. The second area, you know, we focus on is branded product and private label. That's our two main focuses on the cannabis and hemp side. You will see pure povet, pure edibles on market to have a branded product to safeguard our margins. And also bringing these smaller LPs to market to white label products. We have the benefit of having all those different formulations in house already created. And we're being approached by a plethora of those small LPs that have really great ideas and formulations in some of their strains that they may have grown, but they don't have the ability to translate that into a product that they can sell to the provincial government. We have that ability under our white label programs to work with those smaller LPs. They're, you know, a lot of small LPs, well-funded, well-ran that then need a customized solution and they're not, you know, they're not a giant and we're okay with that. We like the small to medium size clients that, you know, we can give value add to them and they're more sticky that way. Now on speaking on that, do you have any arrangements in place with partners as of yet? We do. We have two tolling arrangements already in place. We're working on several private label program, white label programs right now. We received our license a few weeks ago. So yeah, thank you very much. You know, everything happens at once, you know. So we're pretty busy at the shop, but we're working on several trials right now with different LPs for white label programs. So that'll be announced, you know, in the first quarter. Now Pure mentions that they have a brand expansion plan. Can you elaborate on what that is? Sure. So as I talked about, Pure is a brand product itself. Have you seen some of my counterparts? You know, they've figured out that you need a brand to survive in this market and continue to foster your own products. We already have that under our belt. Pure polls and pure edibles in that gray market was available. We bought the IP event. Nothing to do with the oil company, but we bought the formulations. So we know that those products, you know, sell and sell well. We are working on innovation to bring new products to the marketplace. We're all about innovations of bringing new products as to the Canadian market. We're working on some products that are not seen in the Canadian marketplace that are available in the US that we're bringing north to the border in the edible space. And that's what really excites me about that business is the 2.0 products as they get more prevalence, the drinks, the edibles. There's real segment growth. The nice thing about all those products is they need an oil-based product to be able to fulfill them. And that's right in our wheelhouse. So I'm super excited about that. And then the functional mushroom space, super excited also about that space. That's a green pasture. It's like cannabis was five years ago. There's just a lot of people trying to figure it out. The nice thing is that we have expertise in dealing with plant-based extraction. So extracting in mushrooms and eventually psilocybin isn't a stretch for us. We've touched that material before. So we're able to extract for functional mushrooms. And you can just see on your Instagram feed, there's a plethora of new products coming to market that have infused mushrooms in some way. And we see more and more products coming to market and becoming more mainstream like CBD was four or five years ago. I look at functional mushrooms I equated to the new CBD of this generation. Now you touched on it. So you're getting involved in the mushrooms and psychedelics markets to a certain degree. What's the go-forward plan for this business segment and why did you elect to enter the space? We entered the space by chance to be honest with you. We were really looking at the functional mushroom and the psilocybin space. We were approached by four of probably what I would call the leading functional mushroom folks and psilocybin folks to look at helping them extract the product as being one of the well-known extractors in the market that have touched plant-based products. We were approached by these companies to say, do you participate in the mushroom market? And as we looked at that after call, we go, you know what? It's a valuable market for us. We're a plant-based extractor. One plant is really no different than us and our science team has already done some R&D in that area through Dr. McGregor and some of his other folks. So we had a natural progression. It wasn't like we were hopping on the bangling. We kind of pulled in versus where we pushed ourselves in. It's a great segment. We were working on three SKUs that will be launched the end of first SKU in the functional space. And we have the expertise and the ability to help those clients bring their products to market. Now you guys have multiple business directions. Which one gets you the most excited right now? Which opportunity gets you really, really excited? Obviously psychedelics is, like you said, something very new and very hot. Is that something that gets you more excited or are you more excited about extraction? You know, I'm excited about extraction period, right? So if it's, you know, obviously the functional and psilocybin space, super interesting because I've seen firsthand what this psilocybin can do and help the general population through a medical side and how micro dosing, you know, could change the future of a lot of people out there. And functional mushrooms, I personally, you know, I hopped on the banglanger and I take functional mushrooms every day and they really do help. So that's a super exciting area for growth for me. The hemp CBD and cannabis business is also exciting. Obviously, it's not a new story, the product development that's going on and the distribution that's finally kicking in in Ontario. We're seeing that it's a viable business to make money in and it's a viable area where you can have new product development and get penetration. Drinks are, you know, a perfect example. You know, nobody thought the beverage area would really grab hold. It's not that prevalent in California or Oregon, but in Canada, you know, they've sold like 2 million, 2 million drinks since launch in February, March. So it's a viable business line and for sure. And we're seeing growth in the edible market for sure. And that's super exciting because you get to formulate and take her for new new products set. So that's exciting for us also. Now, we've got investors all over the world that will be watching this video. If an investor wanted to know why they should invest in pure extracts and why this company, in your opinion, is undervalued, underappreciated, underexposed, what would you tell those investors? Well, I would tell them that we have a unique business model that lets our investors participate in the functional mushroom area and the psilocybin area eventually, plus have the benefit of a more mature cannabis market and CBD production arm where we have real contracts and real revenue. So you get a natural hedge to both sides of the business. The cannabis business has come back in the marketplace over the last two or three months. The Canadian LPs and the US MSO have gotten stronger from a trading perspective and the winners and losers are shining through today. And then on the functional side will definitely be one of the players in the functional and eventually the mass production for medical use of psilocybin will be right there with some of our bigger counterparts in the production of that. So you get a natural play on both sides. You get the growth of the mushroom business, plus you get the stability of the daily production of cannabis. Now, if an investor wants to get in contact with you or a company wants to get in contact with you or with PureExtracts, what's the best way for them to reach you? Best way is to come to our website PureExtractsCorp.com and there's a contact sheet we'll be trading next week on the CSC. Our symbol is PULL. We're going to be trading at Co. We're excited about that. If any of your investors or other companies need some information about PureExtracts, happy to have a chat with them. Great. Well, we wish you all the best of luck on your IPO. I know that myself and our entire community be watching very, very closely. And congratulations on all your success so far. And I hope you have an amazing launch on Thursday. This is the CEO of PureExtracts, Ben Nikolovsky. Thank you, Ben. Have yourself a great day. Thanks very much for having me again. Enjoy the time. Yeah, we hope to do it again soon. If you guys ever have any big news, anything you want to talk to the community about, we'd love to invite you back. Thank you for your time and congratulations on all your success. And I hope you have a phenomenal debut on Thursday next week. Thanks very much. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Ben. We'll see you again soon. Thank you for watching, everybody. Have a nice day.