Edible Garden AG Inc: Form 10-K for the period ended Dec 31, 2022

Overview

Edible Garden is a controlled environment agriculture (“CEA”) farming company. We use traditional agricultural growing techniques together with technology to grow fresh, organic food, sustainably and safely while improving traceability. We use the controlled environment of traditional greenhouse structures, such as glass greenhouses, together with hydroponic and vertical greenhouses to sustainably grow organic herbs and lettuces. In our hydroponic greenhouse, we grow plants without soil. Instead of planting one row of lettuce in the ground, by using a vertical greenhouse, we can grow many towers of lettuce in the same area by planting up instead of planting across. Growing these products sustainably means that we avoid depleting natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance, such as by renewing, reusing and recycling materials in order to lower the overall one-time use of materials.

Our controlled greenhouse facilities allow us to grow consistent quality herbs and lettuces year-round, first by eliminating some of the variability of outdoor farming with our CEA techniques, and second by leveraging our proprietary software, GreenThumb. In addition to using hydroponic and vertical greenhouse systems, we use a “closed loop” system in our greenhouses. Generally, in a “closed loop” system, drain water is recollected and reused for irrigation. In our closed loop system, we also cycle water back into the system that has been collected through reverse osmosis. When compared to conventional agriculture, our closed looped systems and hydroponic methods use less land, less energy and less water (than legacy farms), thus conserving some of the planet’s limited natural resources. Our advanced systems are also designed to help mitigate contamination from harmful pathogens, including salmonella, e-coli and others.

We have also developed patented software called GreenThumb that assists in tracking plants through our supply chain. Utilizing our GreenThumb software to track the status of our plants as they grow and move throughout the greenhouse allows us to add a layer of quality control due to the frequent monitoring of the growing process, leading to improved traceability. In this context, traceability means being able to track a plant through all stages of production and distribution. In addition to improving traceability, GreenThumb helps us better manage the day-to-day operations of our business. GreenThumb is a web-based greenhouse management and demand planning system that does the following:

• integrates in real-time with our cloud business software suite for monitoring daily sales data;
• generates reports by category, product, customer, and farm to allow us to analyze sales, trends, margins and retail shrink (spoiled product);
• provides dynamic pallet mapping for packout, which enables us to more efficiently ship our products;
• utilizes a proprietary algorithm that uses year-over-year and trending sales data to develop customer specific and aggregate product specific forecasting for our greenhouses;
• aggregates all greenhouse activity input to provide real-time inventory and availability reports of all products in our greenhouses;
• manages our online ordering system with user controlled product availability based upon greenhouse inventory;
• provides a route management system for coordinating the logistics of our direct store delivery program; and
• tracks all production activities at greenhouses, including sowing, spacing, dumping, spraying, picking and packing, using hand held devices.

We also use our GreenThumb software to help monitor the quality of our products, and we have dedicated quality assurance and quality control personnel that check and monitor our products. We have customer service personnel that answer any questions the consumers of our products may have, and we regularly ask for feedback from our customers on the quality of our products. The combination of the GreenThumb software, quality assurance and control processes (including compliance with food safety standards), and feedback from consumers and purchasers holds us accountable for maintaining the quality of our herbs and lettuce.

We focus our efforts on producing our herbs and vegetables in a sustainable manner that will reduce consumption of natural resources, by recycling water in our closed loop system and using LED lights instead of conventional lightbulbs to accelerate crop growth and yield, when necessary. In addition, the inventory management component of GreenThumb allows us to manage inventory levels, order quantities and fill rates while maximizing truck loads. This means that we are better able to control shipping our products in full truck loads, thus eliminating multiple deliveries and decreasing the excess emission of greenhouse gases that would result from many partially full trucks delivering our products. Together, these elements of our production and distribution process are intended to reduce our carbon footprint, or the total amount of greenhouse gases that are generated by our actions, as compared to a legacy farm business.

We believe our focus on our brand “Edible Garden” is a significant differentiator. The brand not only lends itself to our current portfolio of products but allows us to develop other products in the “Consumer Brands” category. Our focus on sustainability, traceability, and social contribution, which we define as an ongoing effort to improve employee relations, working conditions, and local communities, presents our value proposition to our customers and supermarket partners and distributors.

We believe that Edible Garden’s facilities comply with food safety and handling standards.

We have food safety certifications from Primus GFS (“Primus”), a Global Food Safety Initiative (“GFSI”) certification program, the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) for organic products, and some of our products are verified as non-genetically modified (“non-GMO”) by the non-GMO Project. We are licensed under Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (“PACA”) to operate our business. We voluntarily comply with the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (“HACCP”) principles established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”).

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Primus annually audits our growing process and entire food safety management system to ensure that our process and products meet the standards established by the GFSI. We value this certification because our customers require purchasing products from producers who are GFSI certified. When we undergo the GFSI audit, Primus audits the following:

• standard operating procedures and their documentation;
• food safety testing (biological hazards) by an ISO 17025 accredited lab;
• water testing by an ISO 17025 accredited lab;
• quality control processes;
• personnel health, hygiene and safety;
• sanitation programs;
• mock recalls/products on-hold process;
• internal auditing system for organic, GFSI, non-GMO and HACCP certifications and verifications;
• records retention;
• food defense/food fraud;
• supplier approval program;
• pest management program; and
• visual inspection of growing and packing processes.

Some of our products are verified as non-GMO by the non-GMO Project. To have a product verified by the non-GMO Project, we submit to an annual review process of the relevant products. We must source seeds and cuts from reputable and safe suppliers, not use bio-engineered products or ingredients during the growing process, and not include bio-engineered ingredients or products in the final goods sold to customers.

To maintain our PACA license, we submit to an annual review of our business, including our history and principles, to ensure we are meeting our contractual obligations under the law. This includes abiding by fair trading practices, meeting our contractual agreements and specifications, promptly paying all contracts, and maintaining trust assets.

The HACCP principles require that we submit to USDA audits annually. We must also identify the various chemical, physical, and biological hazards that exist in crop production and manage and control those hazards so that they do not contaminate our products or packaging. We must also implement and document critical control points, and implement and document corrective actions taken when those critical control points do not adequately control a hazard.

We have a history of operating losses since inception and expect to incur additional near-term losses. As discussed further in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis - Liquidity and Capital Resources,” our auditors have issued an opinion that there is a substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.

We believe that the power of our brand together with the quality, innovative packaging and traceability of our products allow all of our customers to associate Edible Garden with locally grown and sustainably sourced packaged herbs and vegetables. Our tag line “Simply Local, Simply Fresh” is intended to describe our business plan: growing herbs and lettuce in local farms in the regional communities where our customers sell our products so that the products stay fresher for longer. We believe this strategy allows us to drive local grass roots brand awareness while we grow our business to support our plan to become a national brand.

Acquisitions

Our strategy for growth includes acquisitions. Our acquisition strategy includes expanding our greenhouse capacity in order to reduce our dependence on contract growers which we believe will benefit our profit margin. Greenhouse expansion also supports our effort to grow local which reduces transportation costs. We expect to make acquisitions that expand our consumer product offerings and leverage our channels to market.

Heartland Facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan

On August 30, 2022, through our wholly owned subsidiary, 2900 Madison Ave Holdings, LLC (the “Michigan Subsidiary”), we acquired a five-acre greenhouse facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan for $2,886,000. The greenhouse facility is operating as Edible Garden Heartland. After Edible Garden Heartland is fully transitioned to growing our herbs and lettuce products, which is expected during the first half of 2023, it will add approximately five acres of directly controlled growing capacity to our operations. We believe the addition of Edible Garden Heartland will contribute to higher gross margin over time. We expect lower cost of sales by growing, picking and shipping our products instead of working with a contract grower to grow those products. In addition to serving customers in the Midwest, the facility will house a research and development center focused on improving existing products, developing new products, innovations in plant-based protein and nutraceuticals, and applying advanced agricultural technologies.

Pulp

In November 2022, we acquired the assets of Pulp, including its line of sustainable gourmet sauces and chili-based products. Pulp’s product lines are all-natural, Non-GMO and preservative free. The products include Hungarian wax hot sauce, poblano serrano jalapeno hot sauce, Fresno chili hot sauce, habanero carrot hot sauce, salsa macha, chili crisp, and chili oil.

Products and Customers

We currently offer 34 stock keeping units (“SKUs”) and expect to further cross sell products across our supermarket partners to meet their demand. These products include:

• 10 types of individually potted, live herbs;
• 10 types of cut single-herb clamshells;
• 2 specialty herb items;
• 6 different types of lettuce;
• 3 garden salad kits;
• hydro basil;
• bulk basil; and
• vegan protein powder.

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We also expect to sell Pulp’s products, which consist of Hungarian wax hot sauce, poblano serrano jalapeno hot sauce, Fresno chili hot sauce, habanero carrot hot sauce, salsa macha, chili crisp, and chili oil in the summer of 2023.

Our fresh produce and plant-based protein products are currently sold at over 4,000 supermarket stores and food distributors across the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country. Some of the supermarkets that sell our products include Walmart, Target, Meijer, Wakefern Food Corporation/ShopRite, King Kullen, D’Agostino’s, Kroger, and Food Bazaar. We also service a large number of food distributors. This market segment allows us greater penetration with smaller local and regional supermarkets and the food services business.

Since inception, a few of our customers constitute a majority of our total revenue. For example, during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, we earned approximately 76% of our revenue from three customers, and at December 31, 2022 and 2021, approximately 68% and 79%, respectively, of our gross outstanding trade receivables were attributable to these three customers. While we value our strong relationship with these major customers, we face the risk of losing a significant source of revenue if our major customers do not continue to purchase our products. If that were to occur and we were unable to replace the revenue by selling our products to additional customers, our ability to earn revenue would be significantly negatively impacted. Part of our growth strategy is to reduce this customer concentration by expanding our production capacity, which would allow us to sell our products to more supermarket partners.

We sell products to our customers on a purchase order basis, with no spend or purchase commitments, in the ordinary course of business. We and our customers enter into purchase orders on a daily basis. To date, no purchase order has exceeded 2.0% of our revenue for the particular quarter in which the products were delivered to the customer.

The packaging we use for our produce leverages the latest technology to reduce plastics, extend the shelf life of our products, and reduce retail shrink - all leading to a reduced carbon footprint by reducing waste. The packaging we use for our produce features bio-based (sugar cane) sleeves. Using this material, we are able to reduce our use of plastic in our business. Generally, retail shrink is a loss of inventory. For our supermarket customers, one source of this shrinkage is spoiled product, such as herbs that have been in packaging for so long that they become poor quality. We use herb bags that have micro-perforations that allow ethylene gas to escape from the product packaging. Ethylene gas accelerates spoilage of herbs and lettuce. By allowing this gas to escape, we are able to extend the shelf life of the product while reducing the likelihood that our customers experience retail shrink because they have to throw our products in the garbage. Using this technology, cilantro, for example, is in good quality after 11 days, while it would be in poor quality after seven days in other packaging, according to the developer1 of this bag material. The CO2 laser perforation creates well-defined holes which allow for a controllable and consistent environment in the bag, while other typical bagged herbs are perforated with a cold needle, which produce inconsistent holes and, therefore, an uncontrollable atmosphere. Less product spoilage means less waste, and less shrinkage means that we will not have to produce as many lettuce and herbs to achieve the same level of retail sales. Altogether, we should be able to produce less carbon and minimize the size of our carbon footprint by using these packaging innovations.

1 “Shelf Life Studies: Herbs,” Windham Packaging, LLC.

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More recently we have expanded our product line to include nutraceuticals and other food products as well as vitamins, plant and whey proteins, and other products utilizing next-generation plant ingredients grown and sourced using sustainable methods.

Production and Properties

We utilize prime greenhouse locations in the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country, allowing us to provide local fresh and organic products to these local communities. Our locally grown and delivered products using a network of sustainable greenhouse farms provide local communities, retailers and consumers the quality they demand with the food safety they expect. The communities, retailers and consumers benefit from this as this allows us to get our products to market in the shortest time without compromising the plant’s quality and nutritional value. The growing locations are chosen to be near key trucking lanes within hours of major cities to cut down on “food miles” and fuel costs. We believe our strategy enhances our products’ appeal to major consumer constituencies that desire products grown and delivered locally.

Potential Growing Capacity

Consistent year round growing that adheres to our stringent sustainability protocols occurs in greenhouse locations in Indiana, New Jersey, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The combination of: (1) our 5-acre, 200,000 square ft., flagship greenhouse location in Belvidere, NJ (“Flagship Facility”); (2) our recently acquired 5-acre, 200,000 square ft., Heartland Facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan (“Edible Garden Heartland”); and (3) over 480,000 square feet of available growing capacity in contracted greenhouse space from contract growers, enables us to use standardized methods and a suite of proprietary technology innovations to operate these hydroponic greenhouses and deliver consistent, fresh produce. Although we have access to this growing capacity at our contracted greenhouses, we do not use all of this capacity at any one time. We work with the contract growers to have products grown in locations that are near our customers, and because of changes in customer demand or the ability of the contract grower to meet the terms of our purchase orders, the locations where our products are grown change over time. We believe we have sufficient potential growing capacity with contract growers, at Edible Garden Heartland and at our Flagship Facility to supply products to our existing customers.

Since January 1, 2022, we have grown or purchased products grown in the following locations and with the following potential growing capacity:

Order Process

We rely on long-term relationships with contract growers to grow our herbs and produce, but have no formal long-term contracts with these growers. We classify our relationships with growers as “long term” because of the length of the personal working relationship between members of our management team and the growers. In some cases, these relationships began more than five years ago. While the personal relationships are long term, we typically do not have formal written contracts with these growers. Instead, we and the growers use purchase orders to transact business. Our growing relationships require our produce to be grown in strict accordance with our proprietary growing process and to our specifications, but otherwise leaves control over the growing process to the contract growers.

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We use our GreenThumb software to analyze year-over-year and trending sales data to develop customer-specific and aggregate product-specific forecasts. Each week, we provide our contract growers an estimated forecast that the grower can use to determine the quantity of herbs or produce it will sow. We use the same forecasts to determine what products to grow in the facility in Belvidere, New Jersey and the Heartland Facility. The quantity of products sown will later be used to fill a purchase order. The forecast precedes any purchase order from us or the customer because the products take time to grow and customers in the industry adjust their orders frequently to attempt to meet demand without taking on excess perishable inventory.

We typically receive purchase orders from our customers one to two weeks prior to harvest of the products. If we are using a contract grower, we then submit a purchase order to the grower to fulfill the order and choose the grower based on the proximity of the contract grower to the specific customer and the grower’s ability to fulfill the order. The contract grower is not obligated to accept any orders, or any certain minimum order, that we submit to the grower. The contract grower bears the inventory risk and risk of loss during the growing process. We take title of the produce after inspection has been made in accordance with the specifications agreed to by both parties. However, the contract grower is responsible for any customer rejections of products upon final delivery, and we do not pay the contract grower for products that are rejected by our customers. We pay the contract growers based on the number of products grown and accepted by the customer, and we are not otherwise financially obligated to the contract grower. Although it is not our practice to do so, we can terminate the purchase orders we submit to contract growers at any time and for any reason.

If the contract grower has not grown enough of a specific product to fulfill a purchase order, we attempt to supplement the order with products from other growers or the New Jersey facility to meet the customer’s order. We only pay the contract grower for the number of products we purchase from them. If we are unable to meet the customer’s order, the customer typically finds another source of the product, which may harm our reputation with the customer but does not result in us incurring costs for the order.

If the contract grower has grown more of a specific product than is needed to fulfill a purchase order, we attempt to supplement other purchase orders that may need more of that product. Ultimately, if the contract grower sows too much of one crop than is needed to fill the purchase order, the contract grower must absorb those costs.

Flagship Facility in Belvidere, New Jersey

In addition to our contract growers, we operate a 5-acre Flagship Facility in Belvidere, New Jersey, which began commercial operations in 2015. Our facility incorporates a hydroponic gutter system developed in Holland for the exclusive production of herbs. The Flagship Facility also includes a cold storage freezer which allows us to package herbs for our distribution partners and a 20,000 sq. ft packhouse, which is under construction. Because we control the growing and shipping processes at this facility, we bear inventory risk, risk of loss, and other risks for the produce grown at this facility.

We are currently party to an ongoing, informal arrangement with our predecessor company, Edible Garden Corp., whereby we made lease payments of approximately $15,500 per month and $15,300 per month during 2022 and 2021, respectively, to the Landlord of the land on which our Flagship Facility is built and for which our predecessor company is the lessee. We effectively rent the property on a month-to-month basis with no set term. We do not have a lease in place directly with the lessor of the property that gives us the right to operate the property, and there is no written agreement between us and our predecessor company or us and the Landlord describing this arrangement. We have not entered into a sub-lease or assignment of the agreement between our predecessor company and the Landlord, and we are not a party to or a beneficiary of the original lease between our predecessor company and the Landlord. We have been operating under this arrangement with the lessor for more than one year and do not expect to lose access to the property. We believe we will be able to continue operating the property because our operations and monthly payments benefit the current lessee, our predecessor company, and Landlord. Our predecessor company benefits from our effective assumption of the lease, because we are making lease payments that the predecessor company would otherwise be obligated to pay. In addition, an affiliate of our predecessor company, Sament Capital Investments, Inc. (“Sament”), is a creditor of ours, and our ability to repay amounts owed to Sament or increase the value of its investment in us depends in part on our ability to continue operating at the facility. From the Landlord’s perspective, it has been receiving consistent lease payments from an operator of the property since at least 2015 and from us for over two years, and many of the same individuals that worked for our predecessor company at the New Jersey facility continue to work at the facility as Edible Garden employees. If the Landlord did not assign the current lease or renegotiate a new lease with us, the Landlord would have to find another suitable tenant for the facility, which could result in additional costs to the Landlord or the risk of holding a vacant property. We expect to have the lease assigned to us once the Landlord obtains the permits necessary to complete construction of the packhouse. We do not know when those permits may be issued and cannot predict with certainty the timing of the expected assignment or the conditions upon which the Landlord’s consent to the assignment will be based.

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Construction began on the packhouse at the New Jersey facility prior to our inception. Under the terms of the lease between our predecessor company and the Landlord, our predecessor company paid to build a foundation and construct the prefabricated building for the packhouse. Although the packhouse building is standing, it requires utilities and other improvements before we can use the building for our business. The Landlord was responsible for obtaining the permits required from the county and municipal governments for the construction. The permits used when the packhouse building was constructed have expired, and we believe that the Landlord will need to fund the widening of the road in front of the property and the addition of traffic lights as safety measures before new permits will be issued. After the applicable permits from the county government have been obtained by the Landlord, the construction of the packhouse should take between six months and one year to complete. We anticipate investing between $700,000 to $900,000 in capital expenditures to add utilities such as HVAC, electrical service, septic system, and a well to complete the packhouse. We have not yet incurred expenses on construction of the packhouse. The Landlord is aware of the construction of the packhouse. We do not anticipate construction on the packhouse will impact our ability to operate the property.

We source the raw materials for production from multiple suppliers, including Ball Horticulture, Brandt Box and Paper, PPC Flexible Packing, Sumit Plastics, Sun Gro Horticulture, Sunshine FPC, and expect that those supplies will continue to be available for our use.

Heartland Facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan

On August 30, 2022, through the Michigan Subsidiary, we acquired a five-acre greenhouse facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which will operate as Edible Garden Heartland. After Edible Garden Heartland is fully transitioned to growing our herbs and lettuce products, which is expected during the first half of 2023, it will add approximately five acres of directly controlled growing capacity to our operations. We believe the addition of Edible Garden Heartland will contribute to higher gross margin over time. We expect lower cost of sales by growing, picking and shipping our products instead of working with a contract grower to grow those products. In addition to serving customers in the Midwest, the facility will house a research and development center focused on improving existing products, developing new products, innovations in plant-based protein and nutraceuticals, and applying advanced agricultural technologies.

Distribution

Edible Garden utilizes advanced, sustainable, environmentally controlled indoor agriculture to grow and process organic herbs and lettuces. Through our extensive distribution platform and proprietary predictive modeling, we pick, pack and ship to big box retailer’s distribution centers in our network. We distribute our products through more than 50 retail partners including national big box retailers, regional grocery stores, distributors, restaurants and local purveyors.

Our growing and distribution plans are designed to get our locally grown products to our retail partners and consumers as soon as possible after harvest. We want to make sure that our products arrive as fresh, undegraded and nutrient rich as when they were harvested. In order for us to meet this objective we strive to deliver our products to market in no less than 24 hours from when they are picked. We currently rely on our own fleet delivery vehicles, as well as other independent shipping operators. We continue to build a broader footprint and intend to increase our logistics and shipping fleet to include more energy efficient vehicles that will use less fuel and leave less waste in our environment. Our greenhouse farms have to be strategically located in order for us to deliver on this objective.

We hold our transportation-related assets and manage the distribution of our products through our wholly-owned subsidiary, EG Transportation, LLC. This entity owns and leases the delivery vehicles we use to distribute products and holds the liability insurance needed for the transportation aspects of our business. As of December 31, 2022, we have 11 delivery vehicles and less than 10 drivers.

Competition

The U.S. fruits and vegetable markets are highly competitive. Our main competitors are Aero Farms, Gotham Greens, Bright Farms, Bowery Farms, Plenty. Many of these companies may have significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and distribution resources, as well as greater experience in the industry than we have. Our services may not be competitive with their services. In addition, our current and potential competitors may establish cooperative relationships with larger companies, to gain access to greater development or marketing resources. Competition may result in price reductions, reduced gross margins and loss of market share. However, we believe the following elements will give us a competitive advantage in the rapidly growing CEA category:

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Customer Relationships and Brand. Our herbs and lettuce product portfolio is sold through our supermarket partners including Walmart, Target, Meijer, Wakefern Food Corporation/ShopRite King Kullen, D’Agostino’s, Kroger, Food Bazaar and food distributors. These key partners make up the majority of our revenue. We believe that we will continue capture more opportunities with these partners as we expand our business and product offering. We also utilize an efficient marketing mix of social media, in-store signage and premium shelf positioning to drive consumer awareness and reinforce purchases.

Value Proposition. We are part of repositioning the way food is grown, packaged and distributed. We believe this is the next generation of farming that is good for people and our planet. We believe scaling our grow operations in a fully controlled environment will result in a higher optimization on yields together with freshness, taste and texture. In addition, our proposition focuses on intelligent, common-sense approach to growing more with less resources. Our Zero Waste Inspired approach is in everything we do - from innovative recyclable packaging across our product portfolio and enterprise, using less water, electricity and land, zero pesticides and less road miles. Simply Local Simply Fresh delivers all of this together with our local farming partners with an accessible, traceable, organic product at a competitive price.

Technology Platform. Technology and data are competitive differentiators for Edible Garden. Rather than relying on “off-the-shelf” systems, we have created a data-driven technology platform to power traceability and integration across plant production, operations, data analytics and demand planning. Our proprietary platform allows us to consistently monitor and control plant production inputs across our Flagship Facility as well as integrate with all of our contract growers. This allows us to scale throughput with disruption and capture data analytics for better yield and predictability.

Management Team. Our management team has worked together for 7 years. Jim Kras, our CEO and Mike James, our CFO, have a strong working relationship and work collaboratively to advance our growth. We believe that they bring strong senior leadership in their respective roles and responsibilities and have been instrumental in our success to date, including growing our business during a pandemic. Our management team is committed to developing young talent in our business and are committed to continue this employee development as the organization continues to grow.

Industry Overview

Traditional Outdoor Agriculture. The traditional agriculture industry in the United States consists primarily of field crop farms. According to the USDA, the United States had almost 900 million acres of farmland in 2019. Over the last few decades this acreage has shifted and consolidated to larger and larger farms. Today, large-scale family farms make up just 3 percent of farms in the United States and 42 percent of overall production. Production of produce is also regionalized. The American Farm Bureau Foundation reports that Monterey County in California, home of Salinas Valley, supplies 61% of all leaf lettuce and 56% of head lettuce in the United States.

This regional dependency contributes to long, complex distribution chains, with some produce traveling thousands of miles over several days before reaching store shelves. With the environmental and social macrotrends mentioned herein, we believe traditional field farming is also less prepared to support a growing world population, due to its reliance on large amounts of land and water, both of which are becoming scarcer and less available for food production. We also believe consumer trends continue to want to know where their food comes from together with traceability and food safety (food pathogens - listeria and salmonella) are becoming more important to all business partners and consumers.

Traditional Greenhouse Operators and Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). CEA has gained market share in recent decades as an alternative source of food production. This consists of both greenhouse operating companies and more high-tech greenhouses selling to retailers and grocery stores throughout the country. Despite growth in select crops, greenhouses have not been able to take meaningful market share from traditional field farms in the United States or in the leafy greens market until now. This is a function of shifting consumer trends together with the realization that the planet has finite natural resources. Overall consumer behavior is shifting away from commoditized produce as they associate consumer branded produce as sustainable, safe, organic, pesticide free all year long that is good for them and the social fabric of our planet. That’s why we believe as a market innovator we can continue to capture market share and brand awareness.

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Growth Strategy

We are at an important point as we are operating at commercially viable scale and ready for the next level of growth with additional greenhouses and capabilities. Our business plan is to develop, own and operate commercial greenhouses across North America through a combination of organic and acquisitive growth. Presently and in the near term our greenhouse operations will continue to grow herbs and lettuces. We expect to scale our business by building or acquiring a portfolio of new, fully scaled commercial greenhouses across the Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, South and Southwest. We plan to locate farms with easy access to distribution centers and major population demographic centers and to sell products into established supermarkets partners and distributors. We expect these full-scale commercial greenhouses to have more production capacity than our current facility and contract growers and to benefit from economies of scale. We believe this fledgling industry is at an early stage of consolidation and we have the opportunity with our strong channels to market, retailing expertise and technology in CEA to be a leader in this space.

Site selection for future facilities is based on a detailed methodology that weighs factors we believe to be indicative of farm unit economics, operational reliability and market accessibility, among other criteria. Examples include customer access and market depth within a 300-mile radius. The availability, reliability and cost of electricity; construction costs, speed to build, site infrastructure and permitting; local labor are further inputs to our selection process.

Intellectual Property

We rely on a combination of trademark laws, trade secrets, confidentiality provisions, and other contractual provisions to protect our proprietary rights, which are primarily our inventions, brand names, marks, and proprietary pods and seeds. Edible Garden owns trademarks, three pending patent applications, and two issued patents in the United States. The issued patents include claims related to greenhouse management software and systems (GreenThumb) and are expected to remain in force until November 2040, provided that all required maintenance fees are paid. One of the three pending patent applications is a recently filed continuation patent application related to greenhouse management software and systems. If this pending patent is granted, it would remain in force until at least November 2040, provided that all required maintenance fees are paid. The two remaining patent applications, a design patent application and a utility patent application, are related to automatically watering display stands for herbs and other vegetation. Should these pending patent applications be granted, the design patent would remain in force until February 2035 and the utility patent would remain in force until February 2041, provided that all required maintenance fees are paid for the utility patent.

Research and Product Development

Edible Garden recognizes the consumer acceptance and growth opportunities associated with plant-based derivatives of the products/plants it currently grows. As a leader in sustainability, research and development is a key focus for us moving forward. We sell plant-based nutraceuticals under the Vitamin Way brand. These products are produced by a co-manufacturer according to our specifications. We expect to grow our nutraceuticals product suite with additional products by working with Nutracom, an established developer and contract manufacturer of nutritional products, on new formulations. We believe that expanding into multiple product lines and diversifying from fresh produce to shelf-stable products will increase revenue opportunities.

Our Sustainability Plan - Renew, Reuse, Recycle & Innovate

We adhere to an Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) criteria and set of standards for our operations that is socially conscious. Our Environmental criteria considers how our company performs as a steward of nature. The Social criteria examines how we manage relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where we operate. Our Governance deals with the company’s leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls and stockholder rights.

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Environment: We operate our CEA greenhouse facilities with the goal of being a good steward of nature. With our closed loop systems, we recapture and recycle water into our growing process. We are pesticide-free in our Flagship Facility, Edible Garden Heartland and all contracted grow facilities. In vertical greenhouses, we are able to grow more herbs and lettuce per square foot than legacy farms. Our GreenThumb software allows us to be more efficient in our packing and shipping process with the goal of reducing excess emission of greenhouse gases and carbon that would result from more trucks transporting our products. The packaging we use is intended to reduce food spoilage and food waste while utilizing bio-based materials, leading to a reduction of plastics in the packaging. In the future, we intend for our greenhouses to take advantage of areas with renewable energy alternatives such as solar, wind, and hydro together with suppliers that support greenhouse gas-free electricity generation, when available. We plan to continue to deliver innovation in the products we use for our packaging and potting, further eliminating plastics from our products with recycled, biodegradable packaging. We intend to migrate to alternative fuel vehicles for our shipping needs by 2030. We commit to be carbon neutral by 2030, meaning that any carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from our business activities will be balanced by an equivalent amount being removed. Beyond our own operations, we consider the business activities of our suppliers, distributors, and other partners to be an important component of our overall environmental impact. We continually try to find partners who share our vision and commitment to sustainability. Accordingly, we prefer to work with suppliers and distributors that mirror our sustainability and carbon-neutrality goals. Many of our major retailers and suppliers have made public commitments to sustainability, net-zero, and zero-waste with a horizon timeline, and we seek partners who are taking a similar approach to reducing their environmental impact and carbon footprint. Although we ultimately rely on our partners to maximize their efficiencies, we drive reductions in overall carbon emissions and food miles by growing and delivering from facilities that are as close to our supermarket partners’ distribution centers as possible. We are working to help those partners who are not currently pursuing sustainability goals to move in that direction by raising awareness and providing information and guidance. However, we recognize that some of our smaller partners are subject to resource limitations and we will not require all of them to achieve our 2030 goals.

Social - Employees: Being local and producing year-round not only allows for competitive produce prices and the opportunity for more consumers to access high quality produce, it also allows our facilities to offer full time, indoor jobs to members of the community, offsetting the seasonal work offered by more traditional agriculture businesses. We are also committed to paying at a living wage, hiring locally, and promoting internally by investing in internal and community training programs to train employees with a skill set that will allow them to be part of the 21st-century workforce in the next generation of farming. We are committed to work with all of our employees to help us understand any issues and to develop and enhance our indoor agriculture training and internal development opportunities, and to advance this commitment, created a committee of employees that provides direct feedback to our management team about potential improvements for our employees.

Social - Community: We will prioritize underserved communities whether urban or rural where our facilities are located. As a company we will continue to develop our corporate mission of giving back to these communities. For example, beginning in Fall 2022, we are partnering with the University of Michigan’s School of Environment & Sustainability to offer students an opportunity to work with our team at Edible Garden Heartland to develop and implement initiatives that address the environmental and societal impacts of the food industry. Charitable contributions to food banks, school systems, community anti-hunger and social reintegration programs are also part of giving back to these communities. For example, we partner with Abilities of Northwest Jersey Inc. to offer skills training in hydroponics and greenhouse farming at our Belvidere, New Jersey, greenhouse for individuals with disabilities, and we were named the Employer of the Year for 2020 by Abilities of Northwest Jersey. These initiatives aim to provide better economic and social results for these underserved communities. Our strategy will be to partner with both local, state and federal programs to help identify investment zones or redevelopment areas that would benefit from one of our greenhouse facilities in their community because of the expected local economic development and employment that would be associated with a new facility. We expect that each of our facilities will employ approximately 35-40 employees in these communities. We plan to consider underserved communities in all our future site selection process.

Governance: Edible Garden looks at diversity as a competitive advantage and strives to be fully supportive of diversity endeavors at all levels of the company. This alignment and focus will aid us in steering our long-term corporate actions in the right direction. Our goal is to build diversity across the whole enterprise with specific focus on the management team and board of directors. Our nominating and governance committee is responsible for overseeing these fundamental areas.

2022 and 2021 Sustainability, Waste Reduction and Carbon Emission Avoidance

The following measures demonstrate Edible Garden’s ongoing commitment to sustainability, waste reduction and carbon neutrality for 2022:

• The equivalent of 6 passenger car emissions were avoided by route optimization.
• Reduced our overall fuel demand by 8,100 gallons of diesel fuel by route optimization.
• Conserved 200 barrels of crude oil by route optimization.
• 136 metric tons of virgin plastic use was avoided by a simple packaging change (hydro basil cup).
• Recycled 32 metric tons of mixed recyclables including corrugate, plastic, and glass by implementing a recycling program.
• Avoided 2 tons of food waste through a new donation program to local food pantries.
• Reduced overall pesticide use by 30% using an Integrated Pest Management system.
• Through recirculating water systems, we were able to reduce the amount of water used by 936,000 gallons.

Total estimated emissions avoided: 539.3 metric tons of CO2.

The following measures demonstrate Edible Garden’s ongoing commitment to sustainability, waste reduction and carbon neutrality for 2021:

• The equivalent of 14 passenger cars emissions avoided by route optimization.
• Reduced our overall fuel demand by 21,000 gallons of diesel fuel through route optimization.
• Conserved 500 barrels of crude oil by roue optimization.
• 5.5 tons of virgin corrugate materials avoided by removing an inch from every box height. Also allowed us to ship 20% more product on a pallet.
• 38 tons of materials were recycled and not destined for landfills.

Total estimated emissions avoided: 442 metric tons of CO2.

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Regulatory Compliance

As a producer and distributor of food products, we are subject to the laws and regulations in the jurisdictions where our facilities are located and where are products are distributed. In particular we are subject to the FSM Act, which is enforced by the FDA. The FDA has the authority to regulate the growing, harvesting manufacture, including composition and ingredients, processing, labeling, packaging import, distribution and marketing and safety of food in the United States. The FSM Act significantly enhances the FDA's authority over various aspects of food regulation. For example, the FSM Act granted the FDA mandatory recall authority when the FDA determines there is a reasonable probability that a food is adulterated or misbranded and that the use of, or exposure to, the food will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. While the FDA has been active in implementing the requirements of the FSM Act through issuance of regulations designed to result in a reduction of the risk of contamination in food manufacturing, the full impact of the FSM Act is not yet known, and we cannot assure you that it will not materially impact our business. Regulatory agencies in other jurisdictions have similar authority to address the risk of contamination or adulteration, and to require that contaminated products be removed from the market. The failure to comply with these laws and regulations in any jurisdiction, or to obtain required approvals, could result in a ban or temporary suspension on the production of our products or limit or bar their distribution, and affect our development of new products, and thus could materially adversely affect our business and operating results. In addition, the USDA regulates the import and export of certain fruits and vegetables into and from the United States, and the USDA also imposes growing, manufacturing and certification requirements for certain products labeled with organic claims. Failure to obtain necessary permits or otherwise comply with USDA regulations and requirements could result in a ban or temporary suspension of our ability to grow, manufacture or market our products as organic, and thus could materially adversely affect our business.

Corporate History and Structure

Our business is a successor business of a subsidiary of Terra Tech Corp. (now known as Unrivaled Brands, Inc.)(“Terra Tech”). We purchased substantially all of the assets of Edible Garden Corp., a subsidiary of Terra Tech, from Terra Tech as of March 30, 2020 .Our company was incorporated on March 28, 2020 in the State of Wyoming as Edible Garden Inc. We subsequently changed our name to Edible Garden AG Incorporated on July 20, 2020, and we effected a stock split of 20 for 1 as of October 14, 2020. Effective July 7, 2021, our parent company, Edible Garden Holdings Inc., merged with and into us with us as the surviving entity. We converted into a Delaware corporation effective July 12, 2021. On September 8, 2021, we effected an additional forward stock split of 20 for 1. On January 26, 2023, we effected a reverse stock split of 1 for 30. As of December 31, 2022, we had 77 full-time employees.

Our principal address is 283 County Road 519, Belvidere, NJ 07823. Our telephone number is (908) 750-3953. We maintain a website at www.ediblegarden.com (http://www.ediblegarden.com). The information contained on our website is not, and should not be interpreted to be, incorporated into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The SEC maintains a website at www.sec.gov (http://www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

You should carefully consider the risks described below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, which could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition. Our business faces significant risks and the risks described below may not be the only risks we face. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may materially affect our business, results of operations, or financial condition. If any of these risks occur, the trading price of our common stock could decline and you may lose all or part of your investment.

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Risks Related to Our Business

We have a history of losses, expect to continue to incur losses in the near term and may not achieve or sustain profitability in the future, and as a result, our management has identified and our auditors agreed that there is a substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.

We have incurred significant losses since our inception. We experienced net losses of approximately $12.453 million in the year ended December 31, 2022 and $5.538 million in the year ended December 31, 2021. We expect our capital expenses and operational expenses to increase in the future due to expected costs to retrofit the Edible Garden Heartland facility, increased sales and marketing expenses, operational costs, and general and administrative costs and, therefore, our operating losses will continue or even increase at least through the near term. Furthermore, to the extent that we are successful in increasing our customer base, we will also incur increased expenses because costs associated with generating and supporting customer agreements are generally incurred up front, while revenue is generally recognized ratably over the term of the relationship. You should not rely upon our past results as indicative of future performance. We may not reach profitability in the near future or at any specific time in the future. If and when our operations do become profitable, we may not sustain profitability.

The report of our independent registered public accounting firm that accompanies our audited consolidated financial statements contains a going concern qualification in which such firm expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. Our consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result if we are unable to continue as a going concern. If we are unable to continue as a going concern, holders of our securities might lose their entire investment. The doubts raised relating to our ability to continue as a going concern may make our shares an unattractive investment for potential investors, which may make it difficult to raise any additional capital and may cause us to be unable to continue to operate our business.

We currently operate our Flagship Facility pursuant to an informal arrangement with our predecessor and the lessor of the land instead of a lease.

We currently do not have a formal lease to the land on which our Flagship Facility, in Belvidere, New Jersey, is built. We are currently party to an ongoing, informal arrangement with our predecessor company, Edible Garden Corp., whereby we make lease payments of approximately $21,860 per month to the lessor of the land on which our facility is built, Whitetown Realty, LLC (the “Landlord”), and for which our predecessor company is the lessee. We effectively rent the property on a month-to-month basis with no set term. We do not have a lease in place directly with the lessor of the property that gives us the right to operate the property, and there is no written agreement between us and our predecessor company or us and the Landlord describing this arrangement. We have not entered into a sub-lease or assignment of the agreement between our predecessor company and the Landlord, and we are not a party to or a beneficiary of the original lease between our predecessor company and the Landlord. Accordingly, we are subject to the risk that we will lose access to the property if the lessor were to evict us from the facility and property. If we were unable to access the property and continue operations in Belvidere, New Jersey, we may:

• lose the ability to continue growing as great a quantity of herbs and lettuce;
• incur costs in locating and leasing or purchasing a substitute for the Flagship Facility;
• incur costs in purchasing new equipment or improving equipment at a new leased facility;
• incur increased costs in filling purchase orders from our customers from contract growers;
• lose access to the management team and skilled employees that operate the Flagship Facility, if we were to relocate those operations;
• risk our earned reputation with customers if there is a disruption in our business; and
• harm our reputation in our community.

If those risks occur, we may be unable to continue our business and you could lose the entire value of your investment in us.

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We may need to raise capital in the future, which may not be available on favorable terms, if at all, and which may cause dilution to holders of our common stock, restrict our operations or adversely affect our ability to operate and continue our business.

If we need to raise additional funds in the future, we cannot be certain that we will be able to obtain financing on favorable terms, if at all, and any financings could result in additional dilution to holders of our common stock. Debt financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions such as incurring additional debt, expending capital, or declaring dividends, or which impose financial covenants on us that limit our ability to achieve our business objectives. If we need additional capital and cannot raise it on acceptable terms, we may not be able to meet our business objectives, our stock price may fall and you may lose some or all of your investment.

We have a relatively short operating history, which makes it difficult to evaluate our business and future prospects.

We have a relatively short operating history, which makes it difficult to evaluate our business and future prospects. While the predecessor business has existed since 2013, our company has been in existence only since March 2020. We have encountered, and will continue to encounter, risks and difficulties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries, including those related to:

• market acceptance of our current and future products and services;
• our ability to compete with other companies offering similar products and services;
• our ability to effectively market our products and services and attract new customers;
• the amount and timing of expenses, particularly sales and marketing expenses, related to the maintenance and expansion of our business, operations and infrastructure;
• our ability to control costs, including our expenses;
• our ability to manage organic growth and growth through acquisitions;
• changing regulatory environments and costs associated with compliance; and
• general economic conditions and events.

If we do not manage these risks successfully, our business and financial performance will be adversely affected.

We have historically earned most of our revenue from a limited number of customers, and if we lose any of these customers or if we are unable to replace the revenue through the sale of our products to additional customers, our financial condition and results from operations would be materially and adversely affected.

During the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, three customers accounted for approximately 76% of our total revenue, and at December 31, 2022 and 2021, approximately 61% and 79%, respectively, of our gross outstanding trade receivables were attributable to these three customers. These customers generally do not enter into long-term contracts. We face risks related to maintaining the volume demanded on a short-term basis from these customers, which can also divert resources away from other customers. This concentration of customers leaves us exposed to the risks associated with the loss of one or more of these significant customers, which would materially and adversely affect our revenue and results of operations. If these customers were to significantly reduce their relationship with us, or in the event that we are unable to replace the revenue through the sale of our products to additional customers, our financial condition and results from operations could be negatively impacted, and such impact would likely be significant.

The loss of one or more of our customers, or a reduction in the level of purchases made by these customers, could negatively impact our sales and ability to generate profits.

We sell our products to national and local supermarket chains. Our business and financial condition will be materially adversely affected if sales to one or more of our largest customers are reduced. These customers make purchase decisions based on a combination of price, product quality, consumer demand, customer service performance, desired inventory levels and other factors that may be important to them at the time the purchase decisions are made. Changes in these customers’ strategies or purchasing patterns may adversely affect our sales. For example, the customers may face financial or other difficulties, which may impact their operations and cause them to reduce their level of purchases, which could then adversely affect our results of operations. Any bankruptcy or other business disruption involving one of our significant customers also could adversely affect our results of operations.

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Our business is characterized by low margins, which are sensitive to inflationary and deflationary pressures, and intense competition and consolidation in the grocery industry, and our inability to increase our gross margins could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our industry is characterized by a relatively high volume of sales with relatively low profit margins, and as competition in certain areas intensifies and the industry continues to consolidate, our results of operations may be negatively impacted through a loss of sales and reduction in gross margin dollars. The grocery business is intensely competitive, and the competitive landscape is dynamic and continues to evolve, including from competitors that have greater financial and other resources than we do. We cannot provide assurance that we will be able to compete effectively against current and future competitors.

The continuing consolidation of retailers, the growth of chains and closures of grocery locations may reduce our gross margins in the future should we experience pricing pressure from our customers. Prolonged periods of product cost inflation and periods of rapidly increasing inflation also have a negative impact on our gross margins and results of operations to the extent that we are unable to pass on all or a portion of such product cost increases to our customers, or to the extent our operating expenses increase. If we are unable to increase our gross margins, our results of operations will be adversely affected.

Our relationships with customers and suppliers are based on purchase orders rather than long-term purchase commitments.

We are subject to uncertainty because our relationships with customers and suppliers are based on purchase orders rather than long-term purchase commitments. Our produce is grown at facilities we own or control in Michigan and New Jersey and at third-party locations by contract growers. Based on forecasts derived from our GreenThumb software, to ensure availability of products, we or our contract growers start sowing products in advance of receiving purchase orders for those products. Inaccuracies in our forecasts of customer demand and product mix could negatively affect our ability to supply product to our customers and consequently, our operating results. Our customers can cancel purchase orders or defer the shipments of our products under certain circumstances with little or no advance notice to us. If we grow more products than we are able to sell to our customers, we will incur losses and our results of operations and financial condition will be harmed. If we or the contract grower have not grown enough of a specific product to fulfill a purchase order, our customers typically find another source of the product and we do not incur any additional costs. However, if we are unable to fill orders over time, we may harm our reputation with the customer and may be unable to maintain our relationship with the customer. Similarly, we may terminate the purchase orders we submit to contract growers at any time and for any reason, but if we do so, we risk jeopardizing the relationship with the contract grower and they may be less likely to accept purchase orders we submit, which would limit the potential growing capacity we can access and may limit our ability to supply products to our customers.

We depend on contract growers as suppliers for fulfilling our customers’ purchase orders, and the loss of significant potential growing capacity would negatively impact our results of operations and financial condition.

We depend, in part, on contract growers to grow the herbs and lettuce we sell to our customers. By using contract growers, we are able to increase the potential growing capacity for our products because we are limited in the amount of products we can grow in the Michigan and New Jersey facilities. If the contract growers were to significantly increase their prices, we will earn less per unit than we anticipate and may suffer losses if we are not able to pass those costs on to our customers. If we lost a relationship with a contract grower whose location was near to an important customer, we may not be able to deliver product to that customer as quickly as we would prefer and may have to transport the product over a longer distance, which would negatively impact our goals of delivering product as quickly as possible and using less “food miles.” If we were to lose a relationship with a significant number of our contract growers and were not able to find suitable alternatives for growing the affected products, we would be unable to fulfill purchase orders from our customers. If that were to occur, our reputation with our customers could suffer, and we may ultimately lose those customers and be unable to continue our business.

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Our secured indebtedness could have important consequences to you.

Our secured indebtedness could have important consequences to you. For example, it could:

• limit our ability to obtain additional financing for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions and other general corporate requirements;
• require us to dedicate a portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our debt, thereby reducing the availability of our cash flow for operations and other purposes;
• limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry in which we operate; and
• place us at a competitive disadvantage compared to competitors that may have proportionately less debt and greater financial resources.

Our secured indebtedness held by Sament Capital Investments, Inc. (“Sament”), is secured by a security interest in all of our assets located at the New Jersey Facility, and the Michigan Note is secured by a mortgage on Edible Garden Heartland. If we were to default on our obligations under these loans, the lenders would have the right to our assets. We could be required to dispose of material assets or operations to meet our debt service and other obligations, and the value realized on such assets or operations will depend on market conditions and the availability of buyers. Accordingly, any such sale may not, among other things, be for a sufficient dollar amount. If we were to otherwise attempt to sell material assets or operations, the foregoing encumbrances may limit our ability to dispose of material assets or operations. In the event that the lenders enforced their rights to our assets, we may have to discontinue our business, and our stockholders could lose all or a part of their investment in us.

We have material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, which if left unremediated could materially and adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

As of December 31, 2022, we did not maintain effective controls over the control environment, including our internal control over financial reporting. Because we are a small company with few employees in our finance department, we lacked the ability to have adequate segregation of duties in the financial statement preparation process. Since these entity level controls have a pervasive effect across the organization, management has determined that these circumstances constitute a material weakness. In addition, we have a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting because we lack maintenance of appropriate documentation to support our internal controls and we have insufficiently reviewed reports identifying user entity controls. If we are unable to remediate the material weaknesses, our financial reporting may not be reliable and the market price of our common stock may be adversely affected.

Our performance may be impacted by general and regional economic volatility, inflation, or an economic downturn.

An overall decline in economic activity could adversely impact our business and financial results. Economic uncertainty may reduce consumer spending as consumers make decisions on what to include in their food budgets, particularly if food costs increase more quickly than wages in an inflationary environment. Economic uncertainty could also result in changing consumer preference and could reduce the demand for our products. Shifts in consumer spending could result in increased pressure from competitors or customers that may require us to increase promotional spending or reduce the prices of some products, which could then lower revenue and profitability.

Additionally, we are subject to regional economic volatilities since our potential growing capacity is located in a few areas, including Belvidere, New Jersey; Francesville, Indiana; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Hixton, Wisconsin. Our use of hydroponic farming requires that it rely on local disease-free water sources and growing materials. Accordingly, any change in the availability of these local raw materials could adversely affect our operating results.

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Because our business is concentrated on a limited set of products, we are vulnerable to changes in consumer preferences and changes in economic conditions affecting disposable income that could harm our financial results.

Our business is not diversified and consists primarily of growing, shipping and selling fresh herbs and lettuce, along with plant-based protein and a line of gourmet sauces and chili-based products. Consumers’ preferences change rapidly and without warning, moving from one trend to another among many retail concepts. Therefore, our business is substantially dependent on our ability to anticipate shifts in consumers’ tastes and preferences. Any future shifts in consumer preferences away from the consumption of these products would also have a material adverse effect on our results of operations. Consumer purchases of specialty retail products, including our products, are discretionary in nature and are historically affected by economic conditions such as changes in employment, salary and wage levels, and confidence in prevailing and future economic conditions as may be affected by geopolitical issues, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, trade restrictions, unseasonable weather, pandemics and other public health emergencies, as well as other factors that are outside of our control. Discretionary purchases may decline during recessionary periods or at other times when disposable income is lower, such as during highly inflationary periods. If periods of decreased consumer spending persist, our sales could decrease, and our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our business would be adversely affected by the departure of members of our management team.

Our success depends, in large part, on the continued contributions of James E. Kras and Michael James. Although we have employment agreements in place for each of these executives, we cannot assure you that each will remain with us for a specified period. Although we have additional personnel that contribute to our business, the loss of either of these executives could harm our ability to implement our business strategy, operate our day-to-day business and respond to the rapidly changing market conditions in which we operate.

If we are unable to attract, train and retain qualified personnel, we may not be able to effectively execute our business strategy.

Our future success depends on our ability to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel, including our management, sales and marketing, operational, transportation, finance and administration personnel. For example, we currently have a limited number of drivers to transport our products to our customers. We do not know whether we will be able to hire sufficient workers for these positions to meet our production and delivery goals or, if hired, retain all of these personnel as we continue to pursue our business strategy. The loss of the services of one or more of our key employees, or our inability to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

The costs of our operations may exceed our estimates due to factors outside of our control, such as labor shortages or external price increases, and we may be unable to pass those costs to our customers, which would negatively impact our financial results.

We depend on our employees and contracted grow operations teams to grow and distribute our products to our customers. We rely on access to competitive, local labor supply, including skilled and unskilled positions, to operate our business consistently and reliably. Any labor shortage and any disruption in our ability to hire workers would negatively affect our operations and financial condition. If we experience a sustained labor shortage, we may need to increase wages to attract workers, which would increase our costs of growing our products. We have experienced price increases for packaging materials, natural gas supply, and shipping, and we have increased wages for our existing employees to adjust for inflation. If these increases continue or worsen, including due to inflationary pressures, and we are unable to pass those increased costs on to our customers, our gross margin will decline and our financial results would be negatively impacted.

We may not successfully integrate assets from acquisitions.

We completed two asset acquisitions during 2022: Edible Garden Heartland and Pulp. If we fail to accurately assess and successfully integrate any recent or future acquisitions, we may not achieve the anticipated benefits, which could result in lower revenue, unanticipated operating expenses, and increased losses. Successful integration involves many challenges, including:

• the difficulty of integrating acquired operations and personnel with our existing operations;
• the difficulty of developing, manufacturing, and marketing new products and services;
• the diversion of our management’s attention as a result of evaluating, negotiating and integrating acquisitions;
• in some cases, our exposure to unforeseen liabilities of acquired companies; and
• the loss of key employees of an acquired business operation.

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In addition, an acquisition could adversely impact cash flows, operating results, and stockholder interests, for many reasons, including:

• contingent consideration payments;
• the issuance of securities in connection with an acquisition or new business venture that dilutes or lessens the rights of our current stockholders;
• charges to our income to reflect the impairment of acquired intangible assets, including goodwill; and
• interest costs and debt service requirements for any debt incurred in connection with an acquisition or new business venture.

If we are not able to successfully integrate the assets from our acquisitions into our business, we could significantly increase our costs without realizing expected benefits, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

If the integration of any or all of our acquisitions or future acquisitions is not successful, it could have a material adverse impact on our operating results and stock price.

Our future business acquisition efforts may not be successful, which may limit our growth or adversely affect our results of operations, and financing of any future acquisitions could result in stockholder dilution and increase our outstanding indebtedness. If we identify an appropriate acquisition candidate, we may not be able to successfully negotiate terms or finance the acquisition. If economic downturns or other matters of national or global concern continue for an extensive period of time or recur, our ability to pursue and consummate potential acquisitions could be materially adversely affected. In addition, to successfully complete targeted acquisitions, we may issue additional equity securities that could dilute our stockholders’ ownership, or we may incur additional debt, which could increase our existing indebtedness. If we fail to successfully acquire businesses, our growth and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We may implement new lines of business, such as the Pulp sauces, or offer new products and services within existing lines of business.

As an early-stage company, we may implement new lines of business at any time. For example, in the first quarter of 2023, we launched a line of gourmet sauces and chili-based products to expand our reach into supermarkets. There are substantial risks and uncertainties associated with these efforts, particularly in instances where we have limited experience with the new lines of business or products or the markets are not fully developed. In developing and marketing new lines of business and/or new products and services, we may invest significant time and resources. Initial timetables for the introduction and development of new lines of business and/or new products or services may not be achieved, and price and profitability targets may not prove feasible. We may not be successful in introducing new products and services in response to industry trends or developments in technology, or those new products may not achieve market acceptance. As a result, we could lose business, be forced to price products and services on less advantageous terms to retain or attract customers, be subject to cost increases, or harm our brand’s reputation. As a result, our business, financial condition or results of operations may be adversely affected.

Damage to our reputation could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our reputation and the quality of our brand are critical to our business and success in existing markets, and will be critical to our success as we enter new markets. Any incident that erodes consumer loyalty for our brand could significantly reduce its value and damage our business. We may be adversely affected by any negative publicity, regardless of its accuracy. Also, there has been a marked increase in the use of social media platforms and similar devices, including blogs, social media websites and other forms of internet-based communications that provide individuals with access to a broad audience of consumers and other interested persons. The availability of information on social media platforms is virtually immediate as is its impact. Information posted may be adverse to our interests or may be inaccurate, each of which may harm our performance, prospects or business. The harm may be immediate and may disseminate rapidly and broadly, without affording us an opportunity for redress or correction.

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We are subject to risk of product contamination and product liability claims.

The sales of our products involve the risk of injury to consumers. Such injuries may result from tampering by unauthorized personnel, product contamination or spoilage, including the presence of foreign objects, substances, chemicals, or residues introduced during the growing, production, packing, storage, handling or transportation phases. We cannot be sure that consumption of our products will not cause a health-related illness in the future or that we will not be subject to claims or lawsuits relating to such matters. Even if a product liability claim is unsuccessful, the negative publicity surrounding any assertion that our products caused illness or injury could adversely affect our reputation with existing and potential customers and our brand image, which could significantly harm our business.

We may incur substantial costs enforcing or acquiring intellectual property rights and defending against third-party claims as a result of litigation or other proceedings.

We may incur substantial costs enforcing or acquiring intellectual property rights and defending against third-party claims as a result of litigation or other proceedings. In connection with the enforcement of our own intellectual property rights, the acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights or disputes related to the validity or alleged infringement of third-party intellectual property rights, including patent rights, we may be subject to claims, negotiations or complex, protracted litigation. Intellectual property disputes and litigation may be costly and can be disruptive to our business operations by diverting attention and energies of management and key technical personnel, and by increasing our costs of doing business. If we fail to prevail in any future litigation and disputes, it could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. Third-party intellectual property claims asserted against us could subject us to significant liabilities, require us to enter into royalty and licensing arrangements on unfavorable terms, prevent us from assembling or licensing certain of our products, subject us to injunctions restricting our sale of products, cause severe disruptions to our operations or the marketplaces in which we compete or require us to satisfy indemnification commitments with our customers. In addition, we may incur significant costs in acquiring the necessary third-party intellectual property rights for use in our products. Any of these could seriously harm our business.

If we are unable to obtain patent protection for our products or otherwise protect our intellectual property rights, our business could suffer.

Our success depends, in part, on our ability to obtain patent protection for or maintain as trade secrets our proprietary products, technologies and inventions and to maintain the confidentiality of our trade secrets and know‑how, operate without infringing upon the proprietary rights of others and prevent others from infringing upon our business proprietary rights. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, it is possible that competitors or other unauthorized third parties may obtain, copy, use or disclose our technologies, inventions, processes or improvements. We cannot assure you that any of our existing or future patents or other intellectual property rights will be enforceable, will not be challenged, invalidated or circumvented, or will otherwise provide us with meaningful protection or any competitive advantage. In addition, our three pending patent applications may not be granted. If our patents do not adequately protect our technology, our competitors may be able to offer products similar to ours. Our competitors may also be able to develop similar technology independently or design around our patents, and we may not be able to detect the unauthorized use of our proprietary technology or take appropriate steps to prevent such use. We may need to enter into intellectual property license agreements in the future, and if we are unable to obtain these licenses, our business could be harmed. Any of the foregoing events would lead to increased competition and lower revenue or gross margins, which could adversely affect our operating results.

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Confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties may not prevent unauthorized disclosure of trade secrets and other proprietary information, and our inability to maintain the confidentiality of that information, due to unauthorized disclosure or use, or other event, could have a material adverse effect on our business.

In addition to the protection afforded by patents, we seek to rely on trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect proprietary know-how that is not patentable or that we elect not to patent, processes for which patents are difficult to enforce, and any other elements of our product discovery and development processes that involve proprietary know-how, information, or technology that is not covered by patents. Trade secrets, however, may be difficult to protect. We seek to protect our proprietary processes, in part, by entering into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, advisors, contractors and collaborators. Although we use reasonable efforts to protect our trade secrets, our employees, consultants, advisors, contractors, and collaborators might intentionally or inadvertently disclose our trade secret information to competitors. In addition, competitors may otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or independently develop substantially equivalent information and techniques. Furthermore, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent or in the same manner as the laws of the United States. As a result, we may encounter significant problems in protecting and defending our intellectual property both in the United States and abroad. If we are unable to prevent unauthorized material disclosure of our intellectual property to third parties, or misappropriation of our intellectual property by third parties, we will not be able to establish or maintain a competitive advantage in our market, which could materially adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Our business could be negatively impacted by cyber security threats, attacks and other disruptions.

We face advanced and persistent attacks on our information infrastructure where we manage and store various proprietary information and sensitive/confidential data relating to our operations. These attacks may include sophisticated malware (viruses, worms, and other malicious software programs) and phishing emails that attack our products or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities. These intrusions sometimes may be zero-day malware that are difficult to identify because they are not included in the signature set of commercially available antivirus scanning programs. Experienced computer programmers and hackers may be able to penetrate our network security and misappropriate or compromise our confidential information or that of our customers or other third-parties, create system disruptions, or cause shutdowns. Additionally, sophisticated software and applications that we produce or procure from third-parties may contain defects in design or manufacture, including “bugs” and other problems that could unexpectedly interfere with the operation of the information infrastructure. A disruption, infiltration or failure of our information infrastructure systems or any of our data centers as a result of software or hardware malfunctions, computer viruses, cyber-attacks, employee theft or misuse, power disruptions, natural disasters or accidents could cause breaches of data security, loss of critical data and performance delays, which in turn could adversely affect our business.

Security breaches of confidential customer information or confidential employee information may adversely affect our business.

Our business requires the collection, transmission and retention of large volumes of customer and employee data, and other personally identifiable information, in various information technology systems that we maintain and in those maintained by third parties with whom we contract to provide services. The integrity and protection of that customer and employee data is critical to us. The information, security and privacy requirements imposed by governmental regulation are increasingly demanding. Our systems may not be able to satisfy these changing requirements and customer and employee expectations or may require significant additional investments or time in order to do so. A breach in the security of our information technology systems or those of our service providers could lead to an interruption in the operation of our systems, resulting in operational inefficiencies and a loss of revenue. Additionally, a significant theft, loss or misappropriation of, or access to, customers’ or other proprietary data or other breach of our information technology systems could result in fines, legal claims or proceedings.

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Risks Related to Our Industry

Failure to obtain necessary permits or otherwise comply with USDA regulations and requirements could result in a ban or temporary suspension of our ability to grow, manufacture or market our products as organic, and thus could materially adversely affect our business.

As a producer and distributor of food products, we are subject to the laws and regulations in the jurisdictions where our facilities are located and where our products are distributed. In particular we are subject to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, as amended by the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011 (the “FSM Act”), which is enforced by the FDA. The FDA has the authority to regulate the growing, harvesting manufacture, including composition and ingredients, processing, labeling, packaging import, distribution and marketing and safety of food in the United States. The FSM Act significantly enhances the FDA’s authority over various aspects of food regulation. For example, the FSM Act granted the FDA mandatory recall authority when the FDA determines there is a reasonable probability that a food is adulterated or misbranded and that the use of, or exposure to, the food will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. While the FDA has been active in implementing the requirements of the FSM Act through issuance of regulations designed to result in a reduction of the risk of contamination in food manufacturing, the full impact of the FSM Act is not yet known, and we cannot assure you that it will not materially impact our business. Regulatory agencies in other jurisdictions have similar authority to address the risk of contamination or adulteration, and to require that contaminated products be removed from the market. The failure to comply with these laws and regulations in any jurisdiction, or to obtain required approvals, could result in a ban or temporary suspension on the production of our products or limit or bar their distribution, and affect our development of new products, and thus could materially adversely affect our business and operating results. In addition, the United States Department of Agriculture (the “USDA”), regulates the import and export of certain fruits and vegetables into and from the United States, and the USDA also imposes growing, manufacturing and certification requirements for certain products labeled with organic claims. Failure to obtain necessary permits or otherwise comply with USDA regulations and requirements could result in a ban or temporary suspension of our ability to grow, manufacture or market our products as organic, and thus could materially adversely affect our business.

Improper use of hydroponic farming methods may significantly impact our ability to maintain our operations and may adversely affect our financial results.

Improper use of indoor hydroponic farming techniques may adversely impact our operating results. For example, hydroponic farming commingles the use of water and electricity in close proximity which, if combined, may cause an electric shock or a power outage. As the nutrients supply in a hydroponic garden is powered by electricity, an outage could be detrimental to the garden. If an outage occurs, and lasts for a considerable period of time, the plants may die out if a supplementary system of nutrition is not implemented.

Hydroponic farming also necessitates proactive disease management practices to protect against pests and other natural conditions, outside of our control, from spreading through water sources. If we fail to properly manage its hydroponic farms, our operations and financial results may be adversely affected.

We are subject to fluctuations in market price and demand for agricultural products.

Fresh produce is highly perishable and generally must be brought to market and sold soon after harvest. The selling price received for our products may depend on a variety of factors, including timing of the sale, the availability and quality of the produce item in the market, and the availability and quality of competing produce.

In addition, general public perceptions regarding the quality, safety, or health risks associated with particular food products could reduce demand for some of our products. Food safety warnings, advisories, notices, and recalls, such as those administered by the FDA, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, other federal/state government agencies, could also reduce demand. To the extent that consumers evolve away from products that we produce for health, food safety or other reasons, and we are unable to modify the product or to develop products that satisfy new consumer preferences, there will be a decreased demand for our products.

Our results may vary from quarter to quarter depending on seasonal fluctuations related to the sale of our products.

Earnings may be affected by seasonal factors, including the availability, quality, and price of raw materials, the timing and effects of ripening and perishability, the ability to process perishable raw materials in a timely manner, the leveraging of certain fixed overhead costs during off-season months, and the slight impacts on consumer demand based on seasonal and holiday timing. Because our products are grown, the expenses incurred to meet consumer demand are often incurred in advance of the revenue earned by selling the herbs and lettuce. For example, in our New Jersey facility, we begin sowing our longest-growing crop 13 to 14 weeks in advance of delivery. The impact of seasonal demand and the sales cycle for our products may cause our results to vary from quarter to quarter, which may make an investment in us less attractive to some investors.

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Increases in commodity or raw product input costs, such as fuel and packaging materials, could increase costs significantly.

Our costs are determined in part by the prices of fuel and packaging materials. We may be adversely affected if sufficient quantities of these materials are not available. In addition, any significant increase in the cost of these items could also materially and adversely affect our operating results. Specifically, we require significant quantities of fuel for our delivery vehicles and thus are exposed to the risks associated with fluctuations in the price for fuel. The price and supply of fuel can fluctuate significantly based on international, political, and economic circumstances, as well as other factors outside of our control. If we are unable to manage the potential volatility in these input costs, our operations and financial results may be adversely affected.

Government policies and regulations specifically affecting the agricultural sector and related industries could adversely affect our operating results.

As a manufacturer of consumable products, our operations are subject to extensive regulation by various federal government agencies, including the FDA, the USDA and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), as well as state and local agencies, such as the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, with respect to production processes, product attributes, packaging, labeling, storage, and distribution. Under various statutes and regulations, these agencies prescribe requirements and establish standards for safety, purity, and labeling. In addition, the advertising for our products is subject to regulation by the FTC, and our operations are subject to certain health and safety regulations, including those issued under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Failure to comply with existing or modified regulations promulgated by these agencies may adversely affect our operating results.

We face intense competition that could prohibit us from developing or increasing our customer base.

The indoor agriculture industry is highly competitive. We may compete with companies that have greater capital resources and facilities. More established companies with much greater financial resources which do not currently compete with us may be able to more easily adapt their existing operations to our line of business. Our competitors may also introduce new and improved products. We may not be able to successfully compete with larger enterprises devoting significant resources to compete in our target market. Our ability to compete depends upon our ability to predict, identify, and interpret the tastes and dietary habits of consumers and to offer products that appeal to those preferences. There are inherent marketplace risks associated with new product or packaging introductions, including uncertainties about trade and consumer acceptance. If we do not succeed in offering products that consumers want to buy, our sales will decrease. If we are unable to accurately predict which shifts in consumer preferences will be long-lasting or are unable to introduce new and improved products to satisfy those preferences, our sales will decrease. If we fail to develop products in more profitable categories, we could fail to expand margins. Due to this competition, there is no assurance that we will not encounter difficulties in increasing revenue and maintaining and/or increasing market share. In addition, increased competition may lead to reduced prices and/or margins for products we sell.

Risks Related to the Ownership of our Securities

There can be no assurance that we will be able to comply with the continued listing standards of the Nasdaq Capital Market, a failure of which could result in a delisting of our common stock and certain warrants.

The Nasdaq Capital Market requires that the trading price of its listed stocks remain above $1.00 in order for the stock to remain listed. If a listed stock trades below $1.00 for more than 30 consecutive trading days, then it is subject to delisting from the Nasdaq Capital Market. In addition, to maintain a listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market, we must satisfy minimum financial and other continued listing standards, including those regarding minimum stockholders’ equity, minimum publicly available shares, director independence and independent committee requirements and other corporate governance requirements. We recently regained compliance with Nasdaq’s listing standards, and Nasdaq will continue to monitor our compliance with the stockholders’ equity requirement. If, at the time we file our report for the quarter ending March 31, 2023, we do not evidence compliance with the stockholders’ equity requirement, our common stock and traded warrants will be subject to delisting.

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If we are unable to satisfy these standards, we could be subject to delisting, which would have a negative effect on the price of our common stock and warrants and would impair your ability to sell or purchase our common stock or warrants when you wish to do so. In the event of a delisting, we would expect to take actions to restore our compliance with the listing standards, but we can provide no assurance that any action we take to restore our compliance would allow our common stock or warrants to become listed again, stabilize the market price or improve the liquidity of our common stock, prevent our common stock from dropping below the minimum bid price requirement, or prevent future noncompliance with the listing requirements.

We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act, and a “smaller reporting company” within the meaning of the Securities Act, and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies or smaller reporting companies will make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act. For as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we may take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies, including (1) not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, (2) reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, (3) exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved, and (4) an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards applicable to public companies. Additionally, we may take advantage of certain reduced disclosure obligations as a “smaller reporting company” as defined in Item 10(f)(1) of Regulation S-K. To the extent we take advantage of such reduced disclosure obligations, it may also make comparison of our financial statements with other public companies difficult or impossible.

After we are no longer an “emerging growth company,” we expect to incur additional management time and cost to comply with the more stringent reporting requirements applicable to companies that are deemed accelerated filers or large accelerated filers, including complying with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we may incur or the timing of such costs.

We have not and do not expect to declare any dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future.

We have not and do not anticipate declaring any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Therefore, you should not rely on an investment in our common stock as a source for any future dividend income. There is no guarantee that our common stock will appreciate in value or even maintain its current market price. You may not realize a return on your investment in our common stock and you may even lose your entire investment in our common stock.

We may seek to raise funds, finance acquisitions or develop strategic relationships in the future by issuing securities that would dilute your ownership. Depending on the terms available to us, if these activities result in significant dilution, it may negatively impact the trading price of our common stock.

Any financing that we secure may require the granting of rights, preferences or privileges senior to, or pari passu with, those of our common stock. Any issuances by us of equity securities may be at or below the prevailing market price of our common stock and in any event may have a dilutive impact on your ownership interest, which could cause the market price of our common stock to decline. We may also raise additional funds through the incurrence of debt or the issuance or sale of other securities or instruments senior to our shares of common stock, which may be highly dilutive. The holders of any securities or instruments we may issue may have rights superior to the rights of our common stockholders. If we experience dilution from the issuance of additional securities and we grant superior rights to new securities over holders of our common stock, it may negatively impact the trading price of our common stock and you may lose all or part of your investment.

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Provisions in our certificate of incorporation, bylaws, and outstanding equity-linked securities could discourage a change in control, or an acquisition of us by a third party, even if the acquisition would be favorable to you, thereby adversely affecting existing stockholders.

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that may have the effect of making more difficult or delaying attempts by others to obtain control of our Company, even when these attempts may be in the best interests of our stockholders. For example, our certificate of incorporation authorizes our Board of Directors, without stockholder approval, to issue one or more series of preferred stock, which could have voting and conversion rights that adversely affect or dilute the voting power of the holders of common stock. In addition, provisions of certain of our outstanding warrants could make it more difficult or expensive for a third party to acquire us. The warrants prohibit us from engaging in certain transactions constituting “fundamental transactions” unless, among other things, the surviving entity assumes our obligations under the warrants. These provisions and others that could be adopted in the future could deter unsolicited takeovers or delay or prevent changes in our control or management, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares over then-current market prices. These provisions may also limit the ability of stockholders to approve transactions that they may deem to be in their best interests.

Our certificate of incorporation designates the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain litigation that may be initiated by our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or increase the stockholder’s costs in bringing such a claim.

Our certificate of incorporation specifies that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware shall be the sole and exclusive forum for (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (ii) any action asserting a claim of breach of fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers, or other employee to us or to our stockholders, (iii) any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law, the certificate of incorporation or the bylaws or (iv) any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine, in each case subject to the Court of Chancery having personal jurisdiction over the indispensable parties named as defendants therein. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in our securities shall be deemed to have notice of and to have consented to the provisions of our certificate of incorporation described above.

This provision may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against our directors, officers, employees and agents as it may limit any stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that the stockholder finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, employees or agents or increase the stockholder’s costs in bringing such a claim. The enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that, in connection with any applicable action brought against us, a court could find the choice of forum provisions contained in our certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in such action. If a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

General Risk Factors

A prolonged economic downturn could adversely affect our business.

Uncertain global economic conditions could adversely affect our business. Negative global and national economic trends, such as decreased consumer and business spending, high inflation, rising interest rates, high unemployment levels and declining consumer and business confidence, pose challenges to our business and could result in declining revenue, profitability and cash flow. Unfavorable economic conditions may negatively affect demand for our products.

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Increases in costs, disruption of supply or shortage of raw materials could harm our business.

We may experience increases in the cost or a sustained interruption in the supply or shortage of raw materials. For example, the tariffs currently imposed for importing goods from China has significantly increased. Any such an increase or supply interruption could materially negatively impact our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results. We use various raw materials in our business including aluminum. The prices for these raw materials fluctuate depending on market conditions and global demand for these materials and could adversely affect our business and operating results. Substantial increases in the prices for our raw materials increase our operating costs, and could reduce our margins if we cannot recoup the increased costs through increased prices for our products and services.

Litigation may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

From time to time in the normal course of our business operations, we may become subject to litigation involving intellectual property, data privacy and security, consumer protection, food safety, commercial disputes and other matters that may negatively affect our operating results if changes to our business operation are required. We may also be subject to claims involving health and safety, hazardous materials usage, other environmental impacts, or service disruptions or failures. The cost to defend such litigation may be significant and may require a diversion of our resources. There also may be adverse publicity associated with litigation that could negatively affect customer perception of our business, regardless of whether the allegations are valid or whether we are ultimately found liable. As a result, litigation may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, insurance may not cover existing or future claims, be sufficient to fully compensate us for one or more of such claims, or continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, thereby adversely affecting our results of operations and resulting in a reduction in the trading price of our stock.

We are currently party to an action for an alleged breach of contract with a former contract grower. See “Business — Legal Proceedings” for more information. If we settle this claim or the action is not resolved in our favor, we may suffer reputational damage and incur legal costs, settlements or judgments that exceed the amounts covered by our existing insurance policies. We can provide no assurances that our insurer will insure the legal costs, settlements or judgments we incur in excess of our deductible. If we are unsuccessful in defending ourselves from this claim or if our insurer does not insure us against legal costs we incur in excess of our deductible, the result may materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

An active, liquid and orderly trading market for our common stock may not develop, the price of our stock is volatile, and you could lose all or part of your investment.

Even though our common stock is currently listed on Nasdaq, we cannot predict the extent to which investor interest in our company will lead to the development of an active trading market in our securities or how liquid that market might become. If such a market does not develop or is not sustained, it may be difficult for you to sell your shares of common stock at the time you wish to sell them, at a price that is attractive to you, or at all. There could be extreme fluctuations in the price of our common stock because there are a limited number of shares in our public float.

The trading price of our common stock has been highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. Our stock price is subject to wide fluctuations in response to a variety of factors, which include:

• whether we achieve our anticipated corporate objectives;
• actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly or annual operating results;
• changes in our financial or operational estimates;
• our ability to implement our operational plans;
• changes in the economic performance or market valuations of companies similar to ours; and
• general economic or political conditions in the United States or elsewhere.

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In addition, broad market and industry factors may seriously affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of actual operating performance. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against these companies. This litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.

We will continue to incur increased costs and demands upon management as a result of complying with the laws and regulations affecting public companies, which could adversely affect our operating results.

As a public company, we will continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that are not incurred by private companies, including costs associated with public company reporting and corporate governance requirements. These requirements include compliance with Section 404 and other provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as rules implemented by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Nasdaq. Complying with these rules and regulations substantially increases our legal and financial compliance costs and makes some activities more time-consuming and costly than if we were a private company. As a public company, it is more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage year-over-year. As a result, it may be more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified individuals to serve on our board of directors or as our executive officers. The increased costs associated with operating as a public company will decrease our net income or increase our net loss and may require us to reduce costs in other areas of our business or increase the prices of our products or services. Additionally, if these requirements divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

As a public company, we are obligated to develop and maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting. We may not complete our analysis of our internal control over financial reporting in a timely manner, or these internal controls may not be determined to be effective, which may adversely affect investor confidence in our company and, as a result, the value of our common stock.

We are required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to furnish a report by management on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting with our annual report for the year ending December 31, 2023. This assessment needs to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting.

We are in the early stages of the costly and challenging process of compiling the system and processing documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404. We may not be able to remediate future material weaknesses, or to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which would have a material adverse effect on the price of our common stock.

If we were to dissolve, the holders of our securities may lose all or substantial amounts of their investments.

If we were to dissolve as a corporation, as part of ceasing to do business or otherwise, we will be required to pay all amounts owed to any creditors before distributing any assets to holders of our capital stock. There is a risk that in the event of such a dissolution, there will be insufficient funds to repay amounts owed to holders of any of our indebtedness and insufficient assets to distribute to our capital stock holders, in which case our stockholders could lose their entire investment.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish or cease publishing research or reports about us, our business or our market, or if they change their recommendations regarding our securities adversely, our stock and warrant prices and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock is influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts may publish about us, our business, our market or our competitors. If any of the analysts who may cover us change their recommendation regarding our securities adversely, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, our stock and warrant prices would likely decline. If any analyst who may cover us were to cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock and warrant prices or trading volume to decline.

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We own Edible Garden Heartland, a 5-acre greenhouse location in Grand Rapids, Michigan, through the Michigan Subsidiary. We own Edible Garden Heartland subject to a mortgage on Edible Garden Heartland and a security interest in the assets owned by the Michigan Subsidiary that secure a promissory note with a principal amount of $1,136,000 issued by the Michigan Subsidiary to NJD Investments, LLC. We guaranteed the Michigan Subsidiary’s obligation to repay the amounts due under the mortgage on Edible Garden Heartland.

We operate our Flagship Facility, a 5-acre greenhouse location in Belvidere, New Jersey, and effectively rent the Flagship Facility on a month-to-month basis. We currently do not have a formal lease to the land on which our Flagship Facility is built. We are party to an ongoing, informal arrangement with our predecessor company, Edible Garden Corp., whereby we make lease payments of approximately $21,860 per month to the lessor of the land on which our Flagship Facility is built, Whitetown Realty, LLC (the “Landlord”), and for which our predecessor company is the lessee. We do not have a lease in place directly with the lessor of the property that gives us the right to operate the property, and there is no written agreement between us and our predecessor company or us and the Landlord describing this arrangement. We have not entered into a sub-lease or assignment of the agreement between our predecessor company and the Landlord, and we are not a party to or a beneficiary of the original lease between our predecessor company and the Landlord.

We believe we have sufficient potential growing capacity, to supply products to our existing customers, at Edible Garden Heartland, our Flagship Facility, and with our contract growers, as described above in Part I, Item 1 “Business,” under the heading “Potential Growing Capacity.”

From time to time, we may be party to or otherwise involved in legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. Management does not believe that there is any pending or threatened proceeding against us, which, if determined adversely, would have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition, except as described below.

On February 9, 2023, the breach of contract claim brought by Dennis Rodrigues, a former officer and director, was dismissed by the Superior Court of New Jersey in Warren County. Prior to the dismissal, we paid an aggregate of $235,000 pursuant to a settlement agreement we had entered into with the plaintiff.

The Company is party to an action filed against us on November 29, 2021 by Green City Growers Cooperative in the Court of Common Pleas in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The plaintiff seeks damages of approximately $600,000 for an alleged breach of a supplier agreement. The Company denies the allegations and filed a counterclaim against the plaintiff on January 3, 2022. The Company believes it has meritorious defenses and plans to vigorously defend itself. This action arises from our entry into two agreements with the plaintiff. First, we entered into the Assumption Agreement in May 2021, whereby we assumed a liability of $78,976 that Arch City owed to the plaintiff. Second, also in May 2021, we entered into a supplier agreement with the plaintiff (the “Supply Agreement”), under which we agreed to purchase an aggregate of 6.0 million units of herbs and lettuce that were processed by the plaintiff over a three-year period according to agreed-upon prices. The plaintiff was one of our suppliers of cut basil, sage, rosemary, thyme and parsley during this time. On August 2, 2021, the plaintiff sent a notice to us terminating the Supply Agreement in accordance with its terms. Following the termination of the Supply Agreement, we do not have any written supply agreements with the plaintiff. Management concluded that a loss related to this matter was probable and reasonably estimable as of December 31, 2022. The accrual for the loss contingency totaled $120,000 as of December 31, 2022.

If we settle this claim or the action is not resolved in our favor, we may suffer reputational damage and incur legal costs, settlements or judgments that exceed the amounts covered by our existing insurance policies. We can provide no assurances that our insurer will insure the legal costs, settlements or judgments we incur in excess of our deductible. If we are unsuccessful in defending ourselves from this claim or if our insurer does not insure us against legal costs we incur in excess of our deductible, the result may materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations and quantitative and qualitative disclosures should be read in conjunction with our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022. In addition, please refer to the discussion of our business contained in Part I, Item 1 of this Annual Report. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations contains a number of forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates, and beliefs, all of which are based on our current expectations and could be affected by certain uncertainties, risks, and other factors described under Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements, Risk Factors, and elsewhere throughout this Annual Report. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements or from our prior results.

OVERVIEW

We are a controlled environment agriculture (“CEA”) farming company. We use traditional agricultural growing techniques together with technology to grow fresh, organic food, sustainably and safely while improving traceability. We use the controlled environment of traditional greenhouse structures, such as glass greenhouses, together with hydroponic and vertical greenhouses to sustainably grow organic herbs and lettuces. In our hydroponic greenhouse, we grow plants without soil. Instead of planting one row of lettuce in the ground, by using a vertical greenhouse, we can grow many towers of lettuce in the same area by planting up instead of planting across. Growing these products sustainably means that we avoid depleting natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance, such as by renewing, reusing and recycling materials in order to lower the overall one-time use of materials.

Our controlled greenhouse facilities allow us to grow consistent quality herbs and lettuces year-round, first by eliminating some of the variability of outdoor farming with our CEA techniques, and second by leveraging our proprietary software, GreenThumb. In addition to using hydroponic and vertical greenhouse systems, we use a “closed loop” system in our greenhouses. Generally, in a “closed loop” system, drain water is recollected and reused for irrigation. In our closed loop system, we also cycle water back into the system that has been collected through reverse osmosis. When compared with conventional agriculture, our closed looped systems and hydroponic methods use less land, less energy and less water (than legacy farms), thus conserving some of the planet’s limited natural resources. Our advanced systems are also designed to help mitigate contamination from harmful pathogens, including salmonella, e-coli and others.

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We have also developed patented software called GreenThumb that assists in tracking plants through our supply chain. Utilizing our GreenThumb software to track the status of our plants as they grow and move throughout the greenhouse allows us to add a layer of quality control due to the frequent monitoring of the growing process, leading to improved traceability. In this context, traceability means being able to track a plant through all stages of production and distribution. In addition to improving traceability, GreenThumb helps us better manage the day-to-day operations of our business. GreenThumb is a web-based greenhouse management and demand planning system that does the following:

• integrates in real-time with our cloud business software suite for monitoring daily sales data;
• generates reports by category, product, customer, and farm to allow us to analyze sales, trends, margins and retail shrink (spoiled product);
• provides dynamic pallet mapping for packout, which enables us to more efficiently ship our products;
• utilizes a proprietary algorithm that uses year-over-year and trending sales data to develop customer specific and aggregate product specific forecasting for our greenhouses;
• aggregates all greenhouse activity input to provide real-time inventory and availability reports of all products in our greenhouses;
• manages our online ordering system with user controlled product availability based upon greenhouse inventory;
• provides a route management system for coordinating the logistics of our direct store delivery program; and
• tracks all production activities at greenhouses, including sowing, spacing, dumping, spraying, picking and packing, using hand held devices.

We also use our GreenThumb software to help monitor the quality of our products, and we have dedicated quality assurance and quality control personnel that check and monitor our products. We have customer service personnel that answer any questions the consumers of our products may have, and we regularly ask for feedback from our customers on the quality of our products. The combination of the GreenThumb software, quality assurance and control processes (including compliance with food safety standards), and feedback from consumers and purchasers holds us accountable for maintaining the quality of our herbs and lettuce.

We focus our efforts on producing our herbs and vegetables in a sustainable manner that will reduce consumption of natural resources, by recycling water in our closed loop system and using LED lights instead of conventional lightbulbs to accelerate crop growth and yield, when necessary. In addition, the inventory management component of GreenThumb allows us to manage inventory levels, order quantities and fill rates while maximizing truck loads. This means that we are better able to control shipping our products in full truck loads, thus eliminating multiple deliveries and decreasing the excess emission of greenhouse gases that would result from many partially full trucks delivering our products. Together, these elements of our production and distribution process are intended to reduce our carbon footprint, or the total amount of greenhouse gases that are generated by our actions, as compared with a legacy farm business.

We believe our focus on our brand “Edible Garden” is a significant differentiator. The brand not only lends itself to our current portfolio of products but allows us to develop other products in the “Consumer Brands” category. Our focus on sustainability, traceability, and social contribution, which we define as an ongoing effort to improve employee relations, working conditions, and local communities, presents our value proposition to our customers and supermarket partners and distributors.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Public Follow-on Offering

On February 7, 2023, we closed on an underwritten public offering of 1,619,000 units, with each unit consisting of one share of common stock and one warrant to purchase one share of common stock at an exercise price equal to $6.30 per share. Each unit was sold at a public offering price of $6.30 per unit. Gross proceeds, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses, were approximately $10.2 million.

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On February 10, 2023, the Company received a letter from the Listing Qualifications Department of the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”) indicating that the Company had regained compliance with the minimum stockholders’ equity requirement for continued listing on Nasdaq under Nasdaq Rule 5550(b)(1), the publicly held shares requirement under Nasdaq Rule 5550(a)(4), and the minimum bid price requirement under Nasdaq Rule 5550(a)(2). Nasdaq will continue to monitor the Company’s ongoing compliance with the stockholders’ equity requirement and, if at the time of filing its periodic report for the quarter ending March 31, 2023, the Company does not evidence compliance with that rule, the Company’s common stock may be subject to delisting.

CRITICAL ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES

The preparation of the consolidated financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”) requires management to use judgment in making estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses. The following accounting policies are based on, among other things, judgments and assumptions made by management that include inherent risks and uncertainties. Management’s estimates are based on historical experience, the relevant information available at the end of each period, and their judgment. Although management believes the judgment applied in preparing estimates is reasonable based on circumstances and information known at the time, actual results could differ materially from these estimates under different assumptions or market conditions.

The most significant accounting estimates involve a high degree of judgment or complexity. Management believes the estimates and judgments most critical to the preparation of our consolidated financial statements and to the understanding of our reported financial results include allowance for doubtful accounts. The following are the accounting policies most critical to the preparation of our consolidated financial statements.

Revenue Recognition

Revenue is recognized when control of the promised goods or services is transferred to the Company’s customers, in an amount that reflects the consideration the Company expects to be entitled to in exchange for those goods or services. The Company does not offer returns, discounts, loyalty programs or other sales incentive programs that are material to revenue recognition. Payments from our customers are due upon delivery or within a short period after delivery.

Property, Equipment and Leasehold Improvements

Property, equipment and leasehold improvements are stated at cost less accumulated depreciation. Depreciation is calculated using the straight-line method over the estimated useful lives of the assets. Our fixed assets, which are comprised of leasehold improvements, equipment and vehicles, have useful lives of five years. Expenditures for major renewals and improvements are capitalized, while minor replacements, maintenance and repairs, which do not extend the asset lives, are charged to operations as incurred. Upon sale or disposition, the cost and related accumulated depreciation are removed from the accounts and any gain or loss is included in operations.

The Company continually monitors events and changes in circumstances that could indicate that the carrying balances of its property, equipment and leasehold improvements may not be recoverable in accordance with the provisions of ASC 360, “Property, Plant, and Equipment.” When such events or changes in circumstances are present, the Company assesses the recoverability of long-lived assets by determining whether the carrying value of such assets will be recovered through undiscounted expected future cash flows. If the total of the future cash flows is less than the carrying amount of those assets, the Company recognizes an impairment loss based on the excess of the carrying amount over the fair value of the assets.

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Income Taxes

The provision for income taxes is determined in accordance with ASC 740, “Income Taxes.” The Company files a consolidated United States federal income tax return. The Company provides for income taxes based on enacted tax law and statutory tax rates at which items of income and expense are expected to be settled in our income tax return. Certain items of revenue and expense are reported for Federal income tax purposes in different periods than for financial reporting purposes, thereby resulting in deferred income taxes. Deferred taxes are also recognized for operating losses that are available to offset future taxable income. Valuation allowances are established when necessary to reduce deferred tax assets to the amount expected to be realized. The Company has incurred net operating losses for financial-reporting and tax-reporting purposes. At December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, such net operating losses were offset entirely by a valuation allowance.

The Company recognizes uncertain tax positions based on a benefit recognition model. Provided that the tax position is deemed more likely than not of being sustained, the Company recognizes the largest amount of tax benefit that is greater than 50.0% likely of being ultimately realized upon settlement. The tax position is derecognized when it is no longer more likely than not of being sustained. The Company classifies income tax related interest and penalties as interest expense and selling, general and administrative expense, respectively, on the consolidated statements of operations.

RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

COMPARISON OF THE TWELVE MONTHS ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2022 AND 2021

(in thousands)

Revenue

Revenue was $11.552 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, an increase of $1.045 million, or 9.95%, compared with $10.507 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021. The increase represents growth from our existing customer base.

Cost of goods sold

Cost of goods sold increased $1.329 million, or 13.48% to $11.188 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, compared with $9.859 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021. The increase was due to higher packaging costs due to inflation, higher labor costs due to the tight labor market and increases in rates charged by our contract growers.

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Gross profit

Gross profit declined by $284 thousand, or 43.83%, to $364 thousand, or 2.46% of sales, for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, compared with $648 thousand, or 6.17% of sales, for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021. Margin contraction was the result of increased costs incurred to fulfill the demand by our customers due to higher packaging and labor costs as well as increased in fees charged by our contract growers.

Selling, general and administrative

Selling, general and administrative (“SG&A”) expenses increased by $3.757 million, or 66.96%, to $9.368 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, compared with $5.611 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021. Higher compensation and related expense of $1.240 million was driven primarily by $500 thousand transaction bonuses paid to each of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer upon the completion of our initial public offering (the “IPO”) pursuant to their employment agreements. The balance of the increase in compensation expense included $122 thousand of common stock issued to the employees and higher wages required to retain talent and expanding the workforce to support growth initiatives. Approximately $877 thousand of the increase in SG&A was associated with becoming a public company, including obtaining a Directors and Officers liability insurance policy, investor relations support and audit and quarterly financial review expenses. Director fees increased by $204 thousand, comprised of $134 thousand paid in cash and the issuance of common stock valued at $70 thousand. Repairs and maintenance increased by $191 thousand as a result of maintaining the condition of the Belvidere, New Jersey greenhouse. Other professional fees increased by $436 thousand for work performed by outside experts and legal expenses for settling the matter with Green City Growers. Depreciation expense increased by $244 thousand due to the acquisition of Edible Garden Heartland and the purchase of additional trucks. Travel expense increased by $86 thousand for business development and performing due diligence on greenhouse locations for potential acquisitions.

Loss from operations

Lower gross margin and higher SG&A resulted in an increase in loss from operations of $3.941 million to $8.904 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, compared with $4.963 million for the twelve months December 31, 2021.

Interest expense

Interest expense was $2.033 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, versus $617 thousand for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021. The increase was primarily due to additional expense of $552 thousand for amortization of debt discounts in the current year. Interest expense relates to the seller financing notes for the acquisition of Edible Garden Heartland, loans provided by an officer for working capital, bridge loans from Evergreen Capital Management, LLC (“Evergreen”) for working capital prior to the IPO, and the notes held by Sament. See Note 8 to our financial statements for more information regarding our notes payable.

Loss from extinguishment of debt

We incurred a loss from the extinguishment of debt of $829 thousand as a result of consolidating our debt and entering into an amended and restated consolidated secured promissory note (the “A&R Note”) with Evergreen in June of 2022, compared with a gain of $42 thousand for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021.

Other income (loss)

We incurred a loss of $590 thousand for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022. The revaluation of the warrants issued to Evergreen (as a result of the exercise prices being reduced to the public offering price in May of 2022) was $186 thousand of the loss while $401 thousand was due to a leak out provision for stock owned by Evergreen.

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Net loss

Net loss was $12.453 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022, compared with a net loss of $5.538 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021.

LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

Going Concern Considerations

We have incurred significant losses since our inception. We have experienced net losses of approximately $12.453 million during the twelve months ended December 31, 2022 and $5.538 million in the year ended December 31, 2021. We expect our capital expenses and operational expenses to increase in the future due to expected increased sales and marketing expenses, operational costs, and general and administrative costs. Therefore, we believe our operating losses will continue or even increase at least through the near term.

The risks and uncertainties surrounding our ability to continue our business with limited capital resources raises substantial doubt as to our ability to continue as a going concern for twelve months from the issuance of these financial statements. Our financial statements have been prepared on a “going concern” basis, which implies we may not continue to meet our obligations and continue our operations for the next twelve months. Our consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result if we are unable to continue as a going concern. If we are unable to continue as a going concern, holders of our securities might lose their entire investment. These factors, among others, may make it difficult to raise any additional capital and may cause us to be unable to continue to operate our business.

There is no assurance that we will ever be profitable or that debt or equity financing will be available to us in the amounts, on terms, and at times deemed acceptable to us, if at all. The issuance of additional equity or equity-linked securities by us would result in significant dilution in the equity interests of our current stockholders. Obtaining commercial loans, assuming those loans would be available, would increase our liabilities and future cash commitments. If we are unable to obtain financing in the amounts and on terms deemed acceptable to us, we may be unable to continue our business as planned and as a result may be required to scale back or cease operations, which could cause our stockholders to lose some or all of their investment in us. The financial statements do not include any adjustments to reflect the possible future effects on the recoverability and classification of assets or the amounts and classifications of liabilities that may result should we be unable to continue as a going concern.

Liquidity

The Company’s primary liquidity requirements are for working capital, continued investments in capital expenditures, and other strategic investments. Although income taxes are not currently a significant use of funds, after the benefits of our net operating loss carryforwards are fully recognized, they could become a material use of funds, depending on our future profitability and future tax rates. The Company’s liquidity needs have been met primarily through public equity offerings, term loan borrowings, convertible notes, and related party loans.

As of December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, we had $110 thousand and $31 thousand in cash and cash equivalents available, respectively. As of December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, we had working capital deficits of $2.966 million and $5.898 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, we had $6.324 million and $8.775 million of total debt outstanding, respectively. To resolve our working capital deficit and meet our cash needs, we are implementing cost savings programs in addition to having raised $10.2 million from the sale of securities in February 2023. In February 2023, we paid off the secured promissory note in the amount of $677 thousand held by Sament and the A&R Note in the amount of $1.022 million. We believe that the remaining offering proceeds will be sufficient to fund our operations through December 2023. We may not be able to access the capital markets in the future on commercially acceptable terms or at all. Our ability to fund future operating expenses and capital expenditures and our ability to meet future debt service obligations or refinance our indebtedness will depend on our future operating performance, which will be affected by general economic, financial and other factors beyond our control, including those described under “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Capital Resources

On May 9, 2022, we completed our IPO and raised net proceeds of approximately $13.2 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and expenses associated with the offering of approximately $1.4 million. Subsequent to December 31, 2022, we raised total net proceeds of approximately $9.5 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and expenses associated with the offering of approximately $0.8 million.

On August 30, 2022, we entered into the Greenleaf Promissory Note for $1,136,000, which provided seller financing in connection with the purchase of Edible Garden Heartland. The Greenleaf Promissory Note accrues interest at a rate of 5% per annum and will mature on September 1, 2026. The Company may prepay the outstanding amount due under the Greenleaf Promissory Note at any time without penalty. The Company will make monthly payments of principal and interest of $28,089 beginning January 1, 2023 and until the maturity date of the Greenleaf Promissory Note. The Greenleaf Promissory Note is secured by a mortgage on the Property (the “Mortgage”) and a security interest in the assets owned by the Subsidiary in favor of NJDI (the “Security Agreement”).

In addition, the Company’s obligation to repay the amounts due under the Promissory Note, or up to $1,136,000 plus any accrued interest, is guaranteed by the Company under a guaranty in favor of NJDI (the “Guaranty”) entered into on August 30, 2022. Under the Guaranty, in the event that the Company defaulted on the Greenleaf Promissory Note, the Company would be responsible for any sum remaining due after NJDI foreclosed on the Mortgage and exercised its rights under the Security Agreement.

On June 22, 2020, the Company entered into a U.S. Small Business Administration Loan Authorization and Agreement pursuant to which the Company received loan proceeds of $150,000 (the “SBA Loan”). The SBA Loan matures on June 22, 2050 and incurs interest at a fixed rate of 3.75% per year.

On March 30, 2020, the Company issued a promissory note to Sament, an affiliate of our predecessor, for $3.0 million when the Company purchased the assets of its predecessor. This note accrues interest at a fixed rate of 3.5% per year on a 360-day year basis and matures March 30, 2025. This note is secured by all of the assets the Company purchased from its predecessor.

From time to time, the Company enters into loans to purchase vehicles that are secured by the vehicle purchased. Some of these loans are also personally guaranteed by the Company’s chief executive officer and/or chief financial officer. These loans accrue interest at annual rates ranging from 7.64% to 18.66% and mature on dates between April 2024 and July 2027.

For more information on our outstanding debt as of December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, see Note 8 to our financial statements.

Cash Flows

Operating activities

During the twelve months ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, cash used for operating activities was $9.185 million and $4.078 million, respectively. Cash expenditures for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022 increased primarily due to the increase in net loss, timing of vendor payments and an increase in executive and directors’ compensation.

Investing activities

During the twelve months ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, cash used in investing activities was $2.033 million and $151 thousand, respectively. The increase in cash used in for investing activities was primarily driven by our purchase of Edible Garden Heartland. See Note 3 to our financial statements for more information about this asset acquisition.

Financing activities

During the twelve months ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, cash provided by financing activities was $11.297 million and $4.255 million. The increase in cash provided by financing activities was primarily driven by completion of the IPO, partially offset by the repayment of indebtedness.

As a smaller reporting company, we are not required to provide the information required by this Item.

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Disclosure Controls and Procedures

We maintain a set of disclosure controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in reports that we file or submit under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”) is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported, within the time periods specified in Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) rules and forms. We carried out an evaluation under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including the Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) and the Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”) of the effectiveness of its disclosure controls and procedures. Based on that evaluation, the CEO and CFO have concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were ineffective as of December 31, 2022, due to the existence of a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting that we have yet to fully remediate.

Because we are a small company with few employees in our finance department, we lacked the ability to have adequate segregation of duties in the financial statement preparation process. Since these entity level controls have a pervasive effect across the organization, management has determined that these circumstances constitute a material weakness. In addition, we have a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting because we lack maintenance of appropriate documentation to support our internal controls and we have insufficiently reviewed reports identifying user entity controls. If we are unable to remediate the material weaknesses, our financial reporting may not be reliable and the market price of our common stock may be adversely affected.

Internal Control over Financial Reporting

This Annual Report on Form 10-K does not include a report of management’s assessment regarding internal control over financial reporting due to the transition period established by the Commission for newly public companies.