Great, thanks very much, Lauren, and good afternoon, everyone, or good evening, or good morning, depending on where you are. Appreciate you joining the call today as we take a little bit of time to review Q1 and where we're going.

Today, we'll talk about our performance both from an operating point of view and a financial point of view for Q1. We'll take a look at what our priorities are as we're moving forward throughout the year, and then as Lauren mentioned, we'll take as many questions as we can in the time that we have allotted.

Thanks again for joining. As we look at the first quarter, it was a solid quarter for us.

We had record growth and our financial position remains quite solid. It was a really busy period for us, and it's busy when you take a look at the sales growth that we had.

During the quarter, we added six new growing partners in key sourcing regions. We added eight new European retailers to our customer portfolio.

That brought three new geographic regions that we're serving to our customer portfolio, and we added Switzerland, Spain, and Ukraine. We added four new sea carriers.

We added two new ports of origin where product was being loaded from, and we added three new destination ports. From an operating and commercial point of view, it was an incredibly busy first quarter.

We're proud of the progress that we made. It wasn't perfect.

We had some additional costs in the quarter related to all of that expansion and integration, but a heavy lift and a great job by the team. That resulted in record results.

We had our largest sales quarter in the history of the company. Our sales were $25.6 million, up 88% versus the prior year.

That translated into the largest gross profit in the history of the company at $1.8 million. That was up 62% from the prior year.

We didn't see the growth completely in gross profit, i.e., if sales went up 88%, you'd hope gross profit went up 88%. It only went up 62%.

We'll talk about it. There were a number of one-time issues that impacted us in the quarter, but even with that, and those issues were related to all of the platform expansion that was going on, even with that, record gross profit.

We continued to see our cash operating costs, our SG&A, management fees, labor, and benefits continue to lever down against sales down to 6.2% in the first quarter of this year versus 6.5% in the first quarter of last year, and 7.7% versus all of last year. Our costs went up later in the year as we onboarded more business versus Q1 of last year.

Again, very positive to see that leverage. That translated, as we expected, into positive EBITDA.

We had positive EBITDA in the quarter, which is in line with what our expectations were. We had flat earnings of 0 versus a loss in the prior year of $300,000.

Really, really solid P&L activity in the month resulting in a lot of records for us. Our balance sheet continued to be solidified.

During the quarter, we expanded our Rabobank flexible funding facility from €4 million to €7 million. That really to support this growth that we're having and fund the working capital that was required.

We also completed an early warrant exercise program in February of last year for gross proceeds of $5 million. We'll get into the balance sheet in a couple of minutes, but it remains very, very strong.

At the same time, we've expanded our leadership team during the quarter, and going to talk a little bit more about more expansion today. We increased the management team by taking resources that we had and focusing them on key areas really to allow us to both leverage our operating expertise and dedicate time to strategic growth, which is really, really important to us.

During the quarter, we continued to expand our strategic growth pipeline. We're looking at a number of opportunities to bolt on new businesses to the platform, and we made really good progress on that, and we'll talk about that in a minute.

When we're talking about our team, I'm really excited to announce and introduce to everyone Daryl Bergman, who come next Monday will assume the role of President, reporting to myself and working very, very closely with the entire team. We're thrilled to have Daryl join us.

He comes with deep operational, financial, and strategic growth expertise, and lots of public company expertise. He's been involved in numerous business development opportunities, M&A opportunities, and so we're just thrilled to have a guy like Daryl join the team as we prepare ourselves for our next phase of growth.

As I mentioned, Daryl will start on Monday next week with an initial focus on supporting the operations and helping us position the company for continued growth. We're thrilled to have Daryl joining us, and he'll play a large part in our growth as we continue to build this company.

Welcome aboard, Daryl. Just to go back and talk a little bit about the business before we dive into the numbers.

Our core products are banana, ginger, mangoes, and other seasonal items. We provide those as much as we can on a year-round basis.

We're dealing with 20 major retail accounts today in Europe. That includes the number one and two largest grocers in France, Germany, Austria, and the number one and three largest growers in Denmark.

Our business platform is delivering, and it's a key part of delivery of core products to this retail base. Today, we're going to market in 16 countries in Europe.

Our larger markets are France and Germany and Denmark, with other markets continuing to grow. We have an established and expanding supply and logistics network.

We deal with over 10 key sourcing partners that would represent over 500 growers. We ship product from 20 different ports into six ports in Europe.

We use six different sea carriers. We have over 10 over-the-road-type service providers.

Last year, we served about 60 customers, and that continues to grow as we grow our business. It's an expansive operation that we're continuing to build as we build our core business.

We always like to talk about our guiding principles because they anchor our growth. Those three leaves in our new logo really mean something.

They stand for us providing healthy, quality, organic products and fair trade products. They stand for our commitment to sustainability, for responsible, transparent business practices.

They stand for our drive to add value, and to drive value across our entire ecosystem from our growers and our suppliers, our customers, our shareholders, and of course our team. We like to always refer to these as we talk about what we're doing as we grow our business.

When we take a look at the results for Q1, as I mentioned, sales were $25.6 million, up from $13.6 million in the prior year. That's an 88% lift.

Gross margins were $1.8 million versus $1.1 in the prior year, up 62%. During the quarter, we had two key issues that impacted our margins.

In bringing on all those new suppliers, bringing on all those new sea carriers, new ports, etc., we did have some one-time costs that we couldn't avoid, primarily product losses and extra costs related to some logistics as we got everything running appropriately. That impacted us in the quarter.

The good news is that's not an ongoing issue, and the team has worked really hard to address those. Would have been great to avoid those, but that didn't happen.

Those cost us in the range of $250,000. Then in addition, later in the quarter, we were impacted by the increased costs related to energy costs with the Middle East war.

It was in the latter part of the quarter, impacted us by about $50,000, and we're obviously in the process of passing those costs through. There was some impact in the quarter.

Our gross profit was impacted by about $300,000 of costs that hopefully won't be recurring. Obviously, we're dealing with the volatility that comes with the conflict in the Middle East, but our team is doing a good job managing that.

Gross profit up 62% versus the prior year. Our cash overheads down to 6.2%, and as I mentioned, EBITDA positive for the quarter.

We were EBITDA positive last year. It was our only EBITDA positive quarter of last year, and we expect EBITDA positive to continue as we go forward each quarter.

From a balance sheet point of view, as I mentioned, we're still seeing nice strength. We have about $5 million, just a little under $5 million in cash at the end of the quarter.

Our working capital was $14.5 million. That was up some $7.6 million at the end of last year, which really goes to the growth that we had in the business, primarily in receivables, as our sales are way up, and also in inventory, because we have a lot more product moving around on the water.

Keep in mind that our product is on the water between two and four weeks, and then in our warehouses another week, week and a half, as everything gets moved through, ripened, and sold. A nice, strong working capital position of $14.5 million.

If you went back to the end of fiscal 2024, we had negative working capital. It's a significant shift in our balance sheet.

We have no long-term debt on the balance sheet, and we have equity of $15.7 million, up from $8.8 million at the end of last year, really driven by the early warrant exercise program. Then when you compare that versus fiscal '24 where we were negative equity, nice, solid growth in the business, in the profitability of the business, and a balance sheet that's really nice and stable and positions us to be able to fund our growth initiatives going forward.

Our market cap is sitting about $150 million, a reminder that about 19% of the company is held at the board and management level. We've seen nice growth in the stock over the last year, and we believe that that will continue to grow as we move the business forward.

Always want to talk about our strategy going forward. Today, our product mix is primarily fresh, high-volume, lower-margin products, and we're going to market in Europe with those products.

That's by design. That's by intention.

When we restructured and repositioned the business, we said first, we get a nice core base in place where we're paying all the bills. We're there now.

Now our efforts are focused on continuing to grow the fresh program in Europe, but also adding new products to the portfolio in Europe, new products that offer higher margins, they're not as high volume, they're specialty products where we can add those to our portfolio and take them to our existing group of customers. We'd also like to expand the fresh program into North America, and I know we've been talking about that for a while, but we are working on it and we have some good opportunities in development.

Then, of course, we'd like to move into non-fresh and then value-added products as well over time. The whole idea here is to leverage the core platform that we have in place, but move from volume to value, and shift our product mix to higher-value products, and with that, increased margins.

Strategically, we are where we wanted to be right now, which is a nice growing platform, moving into EBITDA positive, paying the bills so that we can fund ourselves as we go, and move into higher-margin products. As I mentioned earlier, we have opportunities that we're assessing in literally every one of the categories that I've noted here.

We're excited by what the next six to 12 months should bring on that regard. Just to wrap this up, our key priorities for 2026: Obviously, we want to continue to grow the business on the Euro fresh platform that we have today, drive to sales of $100 million.

We were over 25 in the first quarter, we're on pace for over $100 million this year, and hopefully, we'll be able to exceed that a bit. We want to continue to focus on gross margin.

I'm really proud of the work that the team did to maintain the margins that we had this quarter, given the complexity that we were building into our supply chain combined with the volatility that came with some of the geopolitical issues, but we want to continue to improve our gross margin. It's a major focus for us.

We want to continue to really control our cash operating costs so that we can drive those below 5% of sales. Then at the same time, as I mentioned, those are more financially driven, we want to increase the core product portfolios that we have, add new categories with higher margins, add new geographies, add new regions, and then really we're working hard now to utilize technologies and AI to drive efficiencies and improve transparency and reduce waste across the platform.

That's a major initiative that is underway now, and we'll have a lot more to say about our technological efforts here over the next period of time. We want to continue to build organization depth, and obviously with the announcement of Daryl joining the team yesterday, that's really positive.

The reorganization that was put in place is working really well. We've added more people to the team as we continue to grow, and we need to continue to do that because at the end of the day, it's all about the team and we're going to succeed as a team, and so we need good, strong resources in place, and we're continuing to do that.

We want to continue to push on our strategic expansion and pipeline development. We've dedicated resources in our reorg to look at strategic expansion and continue to build out that pipeline.

We're really excited by what we have in the pipeline. I hope the next time we're chatting, we'll be able to provide more detail into some of the opportunities that we have there.

We're working hard at that. Then lastly, we want to drive market awareness and visibility.

Organto is now getting to the point over $100 million and now through EBITDA positive, even covering all of the corporate overheads related to being public. We have a great story to tell, and we're going to be dedicating more effort to get out to make sure that people know who we are, what we're doing, and why we're excited about the future.

With that, I'll take a pause, and then if the team could gather the questions out of the Q&A bucket, and we'll take questions here for a bit.

Thank you. Just as a quick reminder to everybody, you should be able to submit questions yourselves using the Q&A function on Zoom.

It might be in the more option, but please feel free to submit. We will start off with one of the first ones that came in.

What drove Organto's Q1 2026 performance?

From a top-line basis, there were really two key drivers to the top line. The first driver, of course, was we onboarded eight new customers.

Those customers came on between the end of January and kind of the end of February. They played a large role in the growth of the business.

Then expanded growth pardon me, expanded sales with our existing customers also was a was a key was a key factor. I would put those at about 60/40 or 50/50.

I apologize, I don't have the exact number, but growth came both from continued growth from existing customers, which is really, really important to us. First, we want to make sure that we're serving our existing customers well and they want to do more business with us because as we bring on more additional customers, we can continue that growth that growth funnel.

Very little of the growth came from new products, it was essentially our core products that were being sold to new and existing customers. We expect to see that throughout the balance of the year.

Thank you, Steve. Next question: How have inflation, rising fuel costs, and potential disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz impacted Organto?

It's a really good question and and changes every day with the the craziness that's going on, but it certainly impacted us in the quarter. The major impact has been on fuel, energy, primarily in our particular case, bunker fuel, which which is which is with the ships, and then, of course, there's over-the-road fuel as well.

We haven't felt much, as far as grower inputs and and packaging-type costs, although those are all going to come over time. We were very much limited in the first quarter.

We were able to manage everything, and it kind of happened later in the quarter, started later in the quarter, we didn't have a lot of impact. We're seeing more impact as we get into the second quarter as the, the full impacts are being realized.

We've taken a number of steps. Obviously, the first step is to get to our end customers and work to pass that cost through, which we're doing.

Then at the same time, we've really gone to work on our supply chain to, shift shift certain supply chain routes, shift carriers, etc., to really make sure that we have the lowest-cost option given, the the the premiums that are being passed through. It's a big undertaking by our commercial and operating teams.

I think we've had good success. We don't expect it to have material impact going forward.

I caveat that answer with that this stuff's changing every day. I don't think the higher fuel costs are going away anytime soon, even if there is a if and if there is a resolution to the conflict, it's going to take time.

It's very cooperative. We're working with our growers.

We're working with our customers. We're working with our supply chain and logistics partners.

We're all doing the best that we can to manage through. I think we've done a a pretty good job if you take a look at a lot of other sort of larger food producers, everyone's feeling it and it's not escapable.

I think at the end of the day, the unfortunate reality is we as consumers are going to we're going to be paying more for our food going forward, as there's really not a lot of other options.

Thank you, Steve. Our next question: M&A was a major part of SunOpta's growth strategy.

What is Organto seeing in terms of acquisitions and potential US expansion?

I think as I said, look at, we see a real opportunity here to get out and build off the platform that's in place. The time was not right until recently to do that from the point of view is that you need a platform that's standing on its own.

We're there now. We've been building a pipeline.

We see real opportunity. We've indicated that we would like to establish a platform in the US.

We've done a lot of work on it. Unfortunately, we don't have anything concrete to share today.

We really would like to do that. We also have a contingency plan to build it on our own if we can't find something that's a platform, but I'm pretty confident we will.

I think it's also a real opportunity to diversify our product portfolio, acquire additional fresh category products, and more importantly, acquire non-fresh categories, think about seeds and nuts and oils and those sort of things, same capital-efficient business models, but diversifying our product portfolio. While we're not there, the real opportunity is to margin stack.

Today, we're big in banana and ginger, as an example, on the fresh side. What about banana-type ingredients and banana-type consumer products, same with ginger.

We're looking at a lot of those opportunities as well, you can take margin on the same product two or three times. Look at, we're planning on it becoming a big part of our growth going forward, a nice combination of quick internal growth on the base business and then very selective, accretive acquisitions that we can bolt on.

We've got a team of people now that are dedicating a significant amount of time, and for anybody that's been in the M&A world, these things don't happen overnight. You can get way down the road on things and find out that the deal won't come together, but we're encouraged and we're spending a lot of time there.

Thanks, Steve. Our next question: What caused the increased costs and estimates going forward for Q2?

Sorry, could you repeat the question?

What caused the increased costs and estimates going forward for Q2?

I think, as I said on the call, we had about $300,000 in incremental costs, give or take a little bit, in gross profit. We ended up with situations where because of the new logistics and everything, we had a little bit of the wrong product in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Some of that was on us, some of it was on the carriers, but we ended up losing the better part of 250 in the quarter on that. Not too much we can do about it.

The team has worked incredibly hard, and we don't think those will continue. Then the rest of the cost was really related to cost increases, as I mentioned, and yeah, we're managing that best we can and don't think it'll have a material impact.

We haven't given guidance, but we expect sales to continue to grow in the second quarter, and hopefully gross profit will move accordingly. Our SG&A spending's tightly controlled, we expect to continue to see positive results going forward.

Great. Thank you, Steve.

Our next question comes from Nicholas: What products drove the growth in Q1, anything new aside from bananas?

No, it was primarily banana and ginger where we saw growth. Those were the categories, Nick, that we were really focused on because we saw those as our biggest growth opportunities.

The sort of challenge we have is, do you add more products for growth or do you just continue to grow hard on what you have in the portfolio? We sort of ran with those two core products.

We've got some other ones and we're looking to build others, but the bulk of the growth came from those categories.

Thank you. Our next question also comes from Nicholas: What are your views on the increased accounts receivable quarter over quarter?

Have you started collecting on that subsequent to the quarter?

No, receivables certainly went up, and a lot of that was related to, the growth in the business. I can't remember the exact numbers, but less than 5% is over 60 days.

We're collecting on the receivables. We don't think there's any problem with the receivables.

They were a little higher on as a percentage of sales at the end of the quarter, but the quarter was, because of the way customers were ramping up, the quarter the March was the largest largest month that we had in the quarter as all the new customers came on, when you take a look at it, you just can't sort of divide the quarter by three and figure out what the day's receivables are because the last the last part of the quarter was, higher as we get into the higher products. Not worried about not worried about our receivables.

We credit insure our receivables as well. Which by the way, we haven't had any significant bad debts.

We're also credit insured on those, we're feeling, yeah, but and and they have and by the way, receivables have come down a little bit now that we're at the run rate and we're caught up and, it's more consistent now, don't think there's any issues there.

Great. Thanks, Steve.

Our last question unless there are any others coming through: Do you think that this growth is repeatable through to 2027?

Listen, we've brought on the bulk of the new business that we expected to bring on in Q1. If you kind of follow what happened last year, as last year's probably the best proxy, we had a nice bump into Q2, and then the rest of the year flattens out a little bit because a lot of the new business that's been brought on has been brought on.

Given that much of our business is contracted, we're not going to go from 30 we're not going to go to $40 million next quarter. We're going to see it get up into the close to the $30 million range, I would think, and we'll see that throughout the year.

Keep in mind that in the summer season, primarily driven by our banana category, we see volumes drop a little bit in the summer. Now, we're working with some of our core retailers for some promotions throughout the summer, but summer volumes drop, primarily on the banana category, which is a large category for us, because in the summer when it's hot out, consumers tend to eat more citrus and local fruits than bananas.

Also, I think the statistic is that 80% of school lunch boxes normally either have an apple or a banana in it. Of course, there's no school lunch boxes in the regions that we're selling in in the summer, there's not as many bananas going into that.

We normally see a strong Q2, a little bit of a dip in Q3, and then strong again in Q4. Then next year when we get back into the contracting cycle, we see another lift going into Q1, or we plan to see another lift before we go into Q1.

That's before any acquisitions, and it's also before any new products that we're also looking at to put in the back half of the year.

Great. Thank you, Steve.

That's all the time we have for questions today. Thank you, everyone, for joining Organto Foods' Q1 2026 results review and business update.

A replay of today's webinar will be made available following the session. For additional information, we encourage you to visit Organto's website at organto.com, as well as the company's public filings available on SEDAR.

If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to Organto directly through the website or contact Steve and the team. Thank you again for joining us, and hope you all have a great day.

Thanks, guys. Take care.