Eve & Co Inc (CVE:EVE) CEO on What Women Want From Cannabis

Eve & Co Inc (CVE:EVE) (OTCMKTS:EEVVF) is a women-led company that prioritizes female cannabis consumers. CEO Melinda Rombouts believes Eve’s leadership group brings an authentic attitude when addressing women’s cannabis concerns and wellness goals. The company knows that while the appeal of dried flower is universal when it comes to cannabis, derivative products have tremendous potential with female consumers. Women are enthusiastic about cannabis infused products such as wines, cosmetics, sensual and sexual enhancement products, and menstrual health products, which represent tremendous value for potential investors. The company has supply agreements with British Columbia, Newfoundland, and Ontario as well as an agreement to export its products to Germany; consequently, Rombouts believes Eve, with its great brands, supply agreements, unique focus, and expertise, is an obvious value buy for investors.

Transcript:

Fraser Toms:  Hey, welcome to Midas Letter Live. I’m joined with Melinda Rombouts, the CEO of Eve & Co Incorporated. How are you?

Melinda Rombouts:  Good, and you?

Fraser Toms:  Good, yeah. So we’ve had you in here before.

Melinda Rombouts:  Yes.

Fraser Toms:  And I just wanted to start off by asking a few questions about just basic stuff like how you got in the industry in general.

Melinda Rombouts:  Sure. So I’ve actually had this facility, this greenhouse, for I think almost 20 years now, so I was in the flower industry. It was changing; the big box stores were all getting involved in that industry, and the industry is changing really quickly, that you’re not really seeing, you know, it’s a difference of demographics, people aren’t really getting into gardening. So it was a decision to move into this. This came up and we decided, half-heartedly, really, to apply for it, and once we started looking into it more is when we really became a big believer in the plant itself.

I really didn’t know very much about it before, but really love growing, really love working in the greenhouse, and so that’s kind of how we moved to this industry.

Fraser Toms:  Yeah, well, I guess it’s still flower, right? You’re still growing flowers!

Melinda Rombouts:  They’re all female flowers, now, actually.

Fraser Toms:  That’s true. Well, speaking of females, your company is focused on marketing to women. How would you characterize women consuming cannabis as being different from how men might consume cannabis?

Melinda Rombouts:  Well, I don’t think it’s really about the difference in consumption; I think that there’s, you know, there’s a lot of benefits out there, but what we were seeing was that, you know, there’s a lot of brands out there that are really coming from male-dominated companies that we really wanted to be able to address really authentically as female leaders, you know, our company, one of the first female CEOs, and most of our department heads are female, just by chance. And I think that we really have an authentic attitude towards addressing women’s concerns and thinking in those terms of, you know, what do women want from cannabis? What do they want to address in their lifestyle and wellness?

Fraser Toms: Okay, so what kind of products do they want – what do you sell?

Melinda Rombouts:  So I think that dried flower is very universal, and really what’s going to be really exciting is when Health Canada kind of opens up to allow more things like the edibles that we expect next year. So there’s a lot of exciting – as you know, this industry move so quickly, there’s so many changes. I mean, there’s probably not another industry that is this exciting. But there’s all these brands coming out from, of course, wines – there’s been a lot of new articles about infused wines. Cosmetics, beauty lotions. There’s also sensual products, there’s – yeah, there’s everything coming out, right? There’s also specifically for dealing with female issues, either sanitary issues, or dealing with PMS, those kind of things.

So there’s a lot of work going on and we’re seeing that in the gray market, and out in the States, that there’s a lot of exciting things coming up. And you know, as female-led, we were like, Wow, we really love the work that’s coming in. we want to be involved in that. And that’s where it really all came from.

Fraser Toms:  That’s great. There’s probably, you know, as a business, there’s probably potentially a lot of money in that, too, because it’s simply not out there as much as some of the other kind of product that we’re seeing.

Melinda Rombouts:  Yeah. I think that we’re approaching this with a totally different view, and maybe those are the things that are exciting us more than maybe some of the other companies is that, you know, this is something that women want to use an all-natural product. We want our families to have these options as well. So you know, I think this is, you know, where we’ve really kind of formed the company and really decided to direct it.

Fraser Toms:  Yeah, okay. Well, there’s not a ton of female CEOs in the cannabis industry right now. Do you have any thoughts on why that is, and how that might change? And I want to include senior leadership roles as well, because it’s not always about the CEO, even though you’re a CEO.

Melinda Rombouts:  Yeah. Um, I’m not really sure why – like, we have seen a lot of people come from the financial industry, which is really male-dominated, entering the cannabis industry just because of the opportunities there, and also the pharmaceutical industry has also been, you know, very heavy in male leadership. I think that it’s also very difficult for women. We come across differently, right? So we’ve done the road trips, and I think that it’s, you know, there’s certain expectations of leaders that women maybe just don’t portray it the same way. And I think, you know, Kevin O’Leary had a, I think it was in Niagara Falls when he spoke, and you know, he said, women do speak differently. They portray themselves differently.

And you know, where I find our company, we’ve put out very conservative numbers, and people say, Why? Well, it’s like, it’s my attitude; I’m not going to, you know, I’m not going to make everything overblown. What I’m putting out is very authentic, and what I think is very reachable, and maybe that doesn’t necessarily attract every financier. It doesn’t attract everyone, but I mean, I think what we’re putting out is a very authentic company, and I think, you know, we just, we speak differently, and people react to us differently. And I think maybe that’s an adjustment that we have to make, and maybe some understanding, as well.

Fraser Toms:  Yeah, well that sounds good. I mean, being a little bit more conservative might protect investors a little bit from the downside, because you’re not kind of blowing things up to be this, like, you know, once in a lifetime act now kind of deal. So, I could see where you’re coming from, there.

Melinda Rombouts:  Yeah.

Fraser Toms:  Um, so let’s get into the nuts and bolts of your company, a little bit. Where are you located, and what’s your capacity and an overview of what your operation looks like and how it functions?

Melinda Rombouts:  Sure. So we are close to Strathroy, which is close to London, so a couple hours from here. So we started with 120,000 square feet of licensed square footage, so we have about three-quarters of an acre of vegetative space, and we started with about an acre and a half of flowering space. So we’ve added another two acres, so we’re very excited about that, so that’s been ready since July. And then we’re actually adding on again, so we’re adding about 780,000 square feet to get to that 1 million mark of greenhouse space. So that is underway, and it’s very exciting.

You know, there’s been a lot of rain this year, so that’s put us off a little bit – might put us off by a month or two, but we’re really hoping to have this up and running by Q2 of next year, and hopefully our first harvest is in Q3.

Fraser Toms:  Okay, so that – so what are you at right now, today, in terms of the capacity?

Melinda Rombouts:  So we are sitting at, we have 120,000 square feet; that other 100,000 square feet, we’re still awaiting approvals from Health Canada, so it’s been ready since July, but I know they are overwhelmed as well; there’s so much going on in the industry, so they’ve been – they are really working with us to try to get this through. So we have plants ready to go; we’re kind of like overwhelmed with, we’ve had these plants ready, so we are anxious to get into that room.

So right now, we are at full capacity with our current greenhouse. We are harvesting almost every day, and basically building up a lot in the vault.

Fraser Toms:  Great. So you guys have raised 20.8 million in gross proceeds from private placements; how is the company doing in terms of cash? Are you going to need to raise more, are you good, or what’s the deal?

Melinda Rombouts:  I think we’re keeping our options open right now. There’s just so many opportunities right now that, you know, having a little bit of cushion – so you know, we, I just came back from Germany, there’s so many opportunities in Germany, so you know, there’s quite a few companies there that we’ve been speaking to, and touring their facilities, and looking at partnerships. Again, we’re looking at a lot of different brands out of the gray market or out of California and Colorado, that have some really great work done on female-oriented brands and products. So you know, we’re looking at a lot of different JVs and partnerships. So you know, right now we’re probably looking for a little bit of cushion so that we can kind of explore our possibilities and follow through on some of thee partnerships.

Fraser Toms:  Great. Just wanted to get your thoughts on the initial recreational launch, and I’ll just leave it to you to sort of give us your thoughts.

Melinda Rombouts:  Sure, sure. So you know, everyone, for the last year, has been moving 100 miles an hour, so we did have a concern back in July, so everyone’s license looks a little bit different. So back in July, we got a hold of Health Canada and said Hey, we’re concerned about this one wording on our license. Can you let us know? And unfortunately with the regulators, everything is moving fast for them as well, they’re like, well, we’re not sure how your license is going to migrate, so we’ll let you know. Unfortunately, it was at the beginning of October that they said Ah, I think we have to do an amendment to your license in order to ship.

So have not shipped yet, which is unfortunate, but we have a huge stockpile ready to go. Health Canada very good about working with us to move this along, as well as the provinces has been really great. They understand why. So we’re hoping that within the next few weeks, that we’re going to be able to get this out there once Health Canada addresses this amendment.

Like I said, it’s difficult once because we didn’t know, and they didn’t know, how the licenses were going to be migrated. So you know, we have this one thing to clear up, as far as, it’s just a statement about who exactly we can sell to. So, we get this cleared up and we should be shipping shortly.

Fraser Toms:  Okay, that sounds good. So you’re just kind of waiting a little bit on Health Canada. The supply agreements that you do have, can you talk a little bit about how much product that might involve?

Melinda Rombouts:  Ah-hah.

Fraser Toms:  No?

Melinda Rombouts:  No, most of the time we sign NDAs with them. But basically, everything that we can grow in our current facility, including flower in room 2, is basically if we can fulfill all those contracts with BC, Ontario and Newfoundland, we’ve released all of those. You know, they’ve basically spoken for all of our product, as well as, you know, we have some export to Germany that we’re looking at, as well.

So basically, everything can be sold, you know, tomorrow, and basically, until we have Phase 2, that extra 78-,000 square feet, we won’t have any extra product until that’s up and running.

Fraser Toms:  Good. Okay, so one last thing is, you’ve touched on a few of them, but what could investors who are looking at your company look forward to moving into the New Year and beyond?

Melinda Rombouts:  Probably one of the biggest comments that we have is, Why are you guys going so undervalued? Not really sure, but you know what, I think that we are a great buy right now. If you look at what we can produce, basically our agreements, and you know, the export possibilities and our brands, you know, we’ve go some really great feedback on our brands. I think there’s a lot of possibility for this company, and I do agree we’re probably one of the best buys on the public market right nw. so I think that gives everyone an opportunity to, you know, have a chance of getting in with Eve and, you know, being kind of part of our path in this, you know, exciting industry.

Fraser Toms:  Cool. Well, thanks so much for joining us. We’ll leave it there, and hope you come back soon.

Melinda Rombouts:  I will! Okay, thank you very much.

Original article: Eve & Co Inc (CVE:EVE) CEO on What Women Want From Cannabis

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