Burcon NutraScience Corporation has reported results for the fiscal year 2022, during which the company established its joint venture Merit Functional Foods.
The company’s primary focus during the twelve months ended March 31 was to support Merit Foods, which it called the world’s first and only commercial producer of food-grade canola protein ingredients, and fine-tune its 94,000-square-foot state-of-the-art protein production facility.
“Fiscal 2022 was a year in which we saw the successful commercialization of Burcon’s pea and canola protein technologies, establishing our joint venture and licensee, Merit Functional Foods,” interim CEO and Chairman Peter Kappel said in a statement.
READ: Burcon NutraScience executes $10M loan agreement with Large Scale Investments to fund plant-based technology commercialization efforts
During the year, Merit’s protein sales increased each quarter and achieved total revenues of C$6.3 million, with an 84% quarter-over-quarter increase in total sales in the fourth quarter. Burcon reported Merit royalty revenues of C$171,000.
Kappel continued, “Merit reached a significant milestone in 2021 announcing their facility is commercially ready to supply best-in-class pea and canola proteins to leading food and beverage customers. We are pleased to see Merit fulfilling more and more customer orders as it continues to ramp up production.”
Burcon’s net loss totaled C$10.3 million, or C$0.09 per basic and diluted share, for fiscal 2022, compared to a net loss of C$618,000, or C$0.01 per share, in fiscal 2021.
As of March 31, the company’s cash balance was C$7 million, compared to C$14 million a year earlier. During fiscal 2022, Burcon entered into a secured loan agreement of up to C$10 million with a major shareholder. If fully drawn, the company believes it has sufficient resources to fund its expected level of operations and working capital requirements until February 2024.
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