Gabriella’s Kitchen Provides 2018 Year End Summary and 2019 Corporate Goals and Announces Change of Senior Officers

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CALGARY, Jan. 3, 2019 /CNW/ – Gabriella’s Kitchen Inc. (the “Company” or “GABY”) (CSE : GABY) is pleased to announce that the Company has appointed a new Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”) and provides shareholders with a summary of corporate achievements in 2018, as well as a discussion on the Company’s strategy and goals for 2019.

Appointment of Senior Officers

Consistent with the Company’s aggressive growth trajectory and capital markets engagement strategy, GABY is pleased to announce that Ms. Barb Feit has been appointed CFO and Ms. Maureen Putman has been appointed as Interim President, effective January 1, 2019.  Current President and CFO, Mr. Vince Micallef, will remain as a consultant to GABY until January 31, 2019 to assist with the transition.  GABY thanks Vince for his significant contributions to the Company over the last two and a half years and wishes him the best in his future endeavours.

Ms. Feit was formerly the CFO at Big Rock Brewery and also served as its Interim CEO for a period.  Big Rock Brewery is a Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”) listed company (TSX:BR) and is the largest independent craft brewery in Canada.  In her prior role, Barb was also responsible for Information Technology, Human Resources and Government Relations.  Barb’s regulatory and public company experience position her well in her new role with GABY.

Ms. Putman is ideally suited to the Interim President role as she was formerly the President of the Grocery and Snack Division for Hain Celestial a NYSE listed company (NYSE:HAIN) and one of the largest natural and organic food manufacturers in the world. During her tenure at Hain, Ms. Putman was instrumental in growing revenue to over $2.5 billion in annual global sales.

To assist the Company with its search for a new President & COO, GABY has retained the services of Boyden Executive Search Professionals, a global executive search firm with 60 offices worldwide and a vast cannabis practice that has provided advisory services for C-Suite level executive searches for some of the top cannabis companies in the world.

2018 Corporate Achievements

Throughout 2018, GABY accomplished a number of key value-drivers, the most significant of which are outlined below:

• Commenced trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the “CSE”) under the trading symbol GABY which provides liquidity to shareholders and allows the Company to attract new retail and institutional investors;
• Raised C$6.35 million concurrent with the CSE listing earmarked for targeted acquisitions and operational improvements;
• Acquired 100% interest in The Oil Plant Inc. (“TOP”), a leading cannabis extractor and infused product manufacturer in northern California;
• Through the acquisition of TOP, acquired a valuable Type 6 non-volatile manufacturing licence issued by the California Bureau of Cannabis Control (“CBCC”);
• Under the TOP acquisition, acquired a license to manufacture and sell the Aunt Zelda’s line of health and wellness products, including a well-established line of cannabis topicals, tinctures and concentrates;
• Agreed to acquire the shares of Sonoma Pacific Distribution (the “Sonoma Acquisition”), California’s premier independently-owned cannabis distribution and marketing company holding a distribution license issued by the CBCC;
• Launched its proprietary line of cannabis-infused products for sale throughout California;
• Applied to list GABY’s shares for trading on the OTCQB to enhance liquidity for investors resident in the US and to attract the interest of US retail investors, brokers, investment banks and institutions;
• Enhanced and further strengthened the Company’s board of directors through the following appointments:
  • Mr. Robert Travis, an expert in the cannabis industry who has acted as a human resources adviser to companies such as Canopy Growth, Tilray, Harvest One Cannabis and The Green Organic Dutchman; and
  • Russell Wilson,  currently the Manager, New Ventures at Prairie Merchant Corporation (W. Brett Wilson’s family office) overseeing investments in real estate, sports franchises, the energy sector, and most recently has been focusing on the cannabis space. For the last 2 years, he has cultivated a portfolio of 50 plus cannabis investments from across the globe.
• Bolstered GABY’s advisory board through the appointment of Ms. Maureen Putnam, an expert in building brands, creating and delivering strategic growth plans and developing strong and impactful teams within the consumer product goods space;
• Appointed Ms. Mara Gordon, an expert in the field of cannabis and cannabis extractions, dosing and formulations, to the position of Chief Research Officer;
• Launched a robust market awareness campaign designed to increase Canadian trading liquidity and achieve a fair market value that can be sustained for the benefit of GABY shareholders; and
• Grew organically and through acquisitions to reach an annualized management estimated pro forma gross revenue as at 12 months ended December 31, 2018 of over CDN$9,000,000¹

 

Near Term and 2019 Corporate Strategy and Goals

Building on the momentum and success realized over the past 12 months, GABY intends to continue focusing on the execution of the Company’s strategy and striving to maximize shareholder value with the following short and longer-term outlook:

• Focus will continue to be on increasing revenue supported by planned exponential growth over the next 12 months;
• Additional accretive corporate acquisitions will be pursued that are designed to expand market share, geographic footprint and the diversity of GABY’s product offering;
• New hires with industry specific expertise will be pursued in order to augment GABY’s existing team, accelerate its growth and reduce time to market for new products;
• The Company plans to submit an application to obtain processing and exporting licenses to enable the Company to establish a Canada-wide manufacturing facility under the Cannabis Act (Canada);
• GABY has secured relationships allowing for collaboration and sharing of resources including product development, and marketing and sales which are expected to launch in early 2019; and
• Upon completion of the Sonoma Acquisition, GABY intends to leverage the expertise acquired through the Sonoma Acquisition to deploy additional resources and expertise to establish a Canadian and global distribution network.

Consistent with 2018, the Company’s unwavering focus will be to continue maximizing shareholder value in 2019 and beyond.

“Through the acquisitions that were announced and those that closed during 2018, GABY has firmly established a platform to continue to build revenue and achieve exponential growth,” said Margot Micallef, Founder and CEO of GABY. “We believe our plan for 2019, including the plan to continue making accretive acquisitions, supplementing our strong leadership team and launching new products, will move us ever closer to GABY’s goal of becoming the global leader in cannabis wellness and products.”

“Our additional priority for 2019 is to continue raising awareness of the GABY story,” added Micallef.  “Considering our estimated pro forma gross revenue for 2018 of over $9 million, we believe that GABY is trading at a fraction of the multiple at which our peers are trading. We attribute this anomaly to the fact that we are relatively new to the public markets and not as well-known as some of our peers. We intend to change that in 2019.”

For further details regarding the TOP acquisition and the Sonoma Acquisition, please see GABY’s prior press releases as well as the Unaudited Condensed Interim Consolidated Financial Statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017 (“Q3 2018 Financial Statements”) and related Interim Management’s Discussion & Analysis – Quarterly Highlights September 30, 2018 (“Q3 2018 MD&A)”.