- The Very Good Food Company (VERY) has signed a lease to secure a new production facility in Vancouver, British Columbia
- The Rupert facility will provide the company with 45,000 square feet of production, refrigeration, warehousing, R&D, and office space
- The company’s facilities in British Columbia and California are yet to be completed
- In other news, the company has engaged Good Now Foods, to secure new U.S. wholesale partnerships for next year
- The Very Good Food Company is up 1.94 per cent and is currently trading for $3.67 per share
The Very Good Food Company (VERY) has signed a lease to secure a new production facility in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Rupert facility, as it’s known, was previously owned by a plant-based operator who already built it out as a food production facility. As such, the facility will provide the company with 45,000 square feet of production, refrigeration, warehousing, R&D, and office space.
Over the next year, the Rupert facility will be capable of producing up to 37 million pounds of annualised product. This will increase the company’s current production capacity from its Victoria facility by approximately 2,690 per cent.
The Rupert facility’s operations are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2021. The company’s initial lease is for ten years, but comes with the option for two additional terms of five years each.
For the first two years of the lease, the company will pay annual lease payments of approximately C$881,528. In years three and four, this will increase to annual payments of $961,306, before rising to $1,007,177 in years five to seven.
For years eight and nine, the company will pay $1,053,048 annually, before reaching $1,098,919 for the tenth year.
With the addition of the Rupert facility, the company has decided to make changes to how it will use its facility in Mount Pleasant, British Columbia. The Mount Pleasant facility, which has had its design and layout finalised, will now be used primarily for research and development (R&D).
The company’s facility in Patterson, California, is also yet to be completed. However, its initial layout design has been completed, and a plant manager has been recruited to oversee its operations.
The Very Good Food Company’s CEO, Mitchell Scott, commented on the company’s latest facility lease.
“The timely availability of the Rupert facility has presented us with a unique opportunity to address near-term demand while we work to operationalise our facility in Patterson, California,” he said.
“We expect to be able to bring the Rupert facility online swiftly and add significant capacity to address current production shortfalls arising from strong demand for our products in Canada and the US,” he added.
In other news, the company has engaged US sales and marketing agent, Good Now Foods in a wholesale broker agency relationship. Good Now Foods will work to secure US wholesale partnerships for the company, in preparation for its production ramp-up in 2021.
The Very Good Food Company is up 1.94 per cent and is trading for $3.67 per share, as of 9:41am EST.
