Elias Sabo
Analyst · Larry Solow from CJS Securities. Your line is open
Yes, so, the -- this has been a problem actually that the company has encountered really repeatedly. And one of the problems is in converting farmland to organic has a multiyear process. So it's not something that we can just on the turn of kind of a switch get our organic harvest to kind of come online. We've been working on getting more quality organic supply contracted for us, Larry, over the last few years. And I saw we the company had been doing that prior to our ownership. But, the growth in demand right now predominantly remains in the organic side. And as I think we'd mentioned to everybody at our Investor Day, Mike Fata did a great presentation on this. The U.S. market, which is kind of the primary growth market that we're looking at right now, is still really a nascent market. It's kind of a tiny household penetration, well less than 1%. But, that group that's buying is really more oriented towards kind of that organic product. And so, our view is, as we grow this to be something, and to say mainstream is really probably too strong of a word. But, as we grow the awareness significantly and hopefully towards what the Canadian levels are, we think that that will drive a lot more of the natural. But, for right now, organic really is what is in demand. And we're trying to convert as much farmland as we possibly can. But, we think coming into 2016, to this crop season at the fall here we're going to be in far better place because we have a lot more acres that are planted. And right now, it looks like there will be a good harvest. So, it wasn't an issue with harvest. It's just an issue that demand continues to outstrip kind of the supply and the speed at which we can get kind of traditional farmland converted over to organic. I would also mention that there's some things that we're doing in terms of some facility improvements and upgrades that will allow us to also bring in some additional organic supply that may not have historically met our quality thresholds, but with some process improvements in our facility will allow us to do that. So, we think, on a number of measures, we're addressing this -- or on a number of fronts, we're addressing this issue head on. And we think that the next crop cycle, which should go from fall of this year until kind of early, late summer of next year, will be far, far better. And hopefully, we'll have adequate supply to meet the rising demand levels.