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Good morning. My name is Colin, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Fire & Flower's First Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]I would now like to turn the conference over to Trevor Fencott, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and thank you all for joining us today for our first quarter 2021 conference call. I'm Trevor Fencott, President and CEO of Fire & Flower. And joining me today is Judy Adam, our new CFO; and Nadia Vattovaz, our COO.Earlier today, our company published its operational and financial results for the first quarter ended May 1, 2021, and the results are available on the company's website and on SEDAR.Prior to beginning our call, I will direct listeners to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information published in the news release for the first quarter as well as on the company's filings on SEDAR. Similar to previous earnings calls, we'll be providing commentary in the fiscal first quarter 2021 financial results, along with an overview of our operational progress as today's leading technology-powered cannabis retailer. We will then conclude with the moderated question-and-answer period from equity research analysts that cover Fire & Flower.First and foremost, I'd like to highlight the continued performance of our data-driven retail business model. I'm pleased to report today that we've achieved our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA and record quarterly revenue of $44.1 million. These are true measures of the continued growth of our 3 business segments: retail, wholesale and digital, each of which independently contribute to our total revenue and gross profit growth.Our ability to operate our multi-banner retail network throughout Canada, operating as extensions or spokes to our digital ecosystem hub, our Hifyre data and analytics platform, offers a true competitive edge to our business.The first quarter of our year is typically our softest. And this quarter, we were unfortunately operating in a more restrictive sales environment caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns, which most notably affected Ontario, where a large part of our retail expansion has been focused.Ontario is the largest cannabis market in Canada, and extending our geographic footprint in this market has been key to our long-term growth. I'm pleased to report that we successfully opened 29 stores in Ontario to date. And now with our recent entry into British Columbia last month, we operate a total of 83 licensed cannabis retail stores as of today, covering Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, British Columbia and the Yukon territory.For the first quarter, we were able to generate retail revenue of $33.6 million while operating under prolonged COVID-19 lockdown conditions in the provinces of Ontario and Alberta, which account for 68 of the total 79 stores in the company's owned and operated retail network as of May 1, 2021.We're pleased that we faced minimal disruption in our retail stores as we are able to quickly adapt to changing purchasing behaviors and achieved strong sales growth throughout the quarter. However, our new store openings were slightly delayed by the pandemic and took more than double the amount of time that we estimated for store to gain traction in the new market, especially in the province of Ontario. In addition, since we can't advertise unless you're at home, on the Internet, on a Fire & Flower website or walking down the street, which, of course, people were not, it continues to be challenging to raise awareness and get customers into new stores. However, in order to keep our sales momentum going forward and efficiently reach to our customers, we focus on driving retail digital traffic from our retail stores rather than by flip.We do remain hopeful as Ontario does have a formal reopening plan tied to vaccinations, and first-dose vaccinations are up over 50%. So we've seen the impact of COVID. However, even with these headwinds, we were able to achieve our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA and record quarterly revenues.Let me also highlight the value of our Spark Perks program. As a key component of our proprietary Hifyre ecosystem, our Spark Perks program directly connects cannabis consumers with the latest cannabis products by digitally engaging them and offering cutting-edge insights, which, in turn, allow us to deliver a personalized and curated shopping experience.As only one facet of our Hifyre digital retail analytics platform, this information is invaluable. It allows us to drive strong same-store sales growth as we utilize insights from our customers' purchasing behaviors to provide a superior retail experience for our widening customer base. Our ability to deliver an exceptional service model through valuable data provided by our Spark Perks program speaks to our key competitive advantage as a data-driven cannabis retailer. In addition, our Sparks Fastlane click and collect, curbside pickup and the Rapid Delivery home delivery service have strongly supported our continued sales growth, specifically in Ontario during the pandemic as foot traffic to our stores slowed.Today, we have over 270,000 Spark members, and we see this number consistently increasing due to the incredible ease and flexibility of online purchasing and same-day delivery. Several cannabis leaders throughout Canada and also in the U.S. are partnering with Fire & Flower to utilize our powerful predictive analytics and data-driven retail functionality to achieve higher-margin, growth-oriented revenue streams. Our technology powered by our Hifyre digital platform has proven to make cannabis retail a significantly more streamlined and efficient experience, benefiting customers, retailers and producers.In February, we signed a strategic licensing partnership with American Acres Managers, in which American Acres offered us a path to corporately owned cannabis retail stores in California, Arizona and Nevada. In exchange for a license to our Fire & Flower brand, store operating system and Hifyre technology platform, Fire & Flower will be able to acquire American Acres at a discount to fair market value when permitted.Through this partnership, Fire & Flower achieved a key foothold in the lucrative U.S. cannabis market, placing our brand and technology in key U.S. growth centers and giving us the option to acquire American Acres at a discount to fair market value. We anticipate our first branded store to be open in Palm Springs, California in the coming weeks. We're also seeing an increasing demand from dispensaries to incorporate technologically advanced systems into their retail operations to streamline their operations and drive stronger margins and believe this is the first step in changing the landscape of cannabis retail operations in the U.S. Also, BDSA, the leading U.S. analytics company, recognized the value of our Hifyre technology platform. And in March, we signed a strategic agreement to incorporate Hifyre's Canadian digital retail and analytics into their existing online U.S.-based market research platform.As part of this agreement, Hifyre can now provide U.S. data from BDSA to its Canadian clients, allowing both companies to offer enhanced cross-border data to their respective consumer bases. To date, both BDSA and Hifyre have welcomed new clients to the cross-border data solution, and we are already beginning to see traction in this new revenue opportunity. With regards to our strategic partner and equity holder, Alimentation Couche-Tard, or ACT, they've recognized the significant value of our unique data-driven retail business model and have been a key investor in Fire & Flower for almost 3 years now. The building value of our data-driven retail operations, expansion of our product offerings through our acquisition of Friendly Stranger in December 2020 and entry into the U.S. have demonstrated the strength of our cannabis operations and opportunity to expand globally.Couche-Tard has taken their interest in Fire & Flower to the next level to the establishment of a pilot program, which allows us to co-locate with their Circle K locations in Canada, using existing Circle K real estate, providing Fire & Flower with an opportunity to leverage their extensive real estate portfolio to expand our geographic footprint.Let me start that point again. We are not seeking out new real estate options here for the pilot program. This pilot program uses existing Couche-Tard real estate inside existing Circle K leases by carving out 500 or 600 square feet that are operated as a transactional Fire & Flower service location. This partnership is a significant part of our business strategy as we look to ramp this program outside of Alberta.Also, Couche-Tard's position as an investor in Fire & Flower has been invaluable to our growth. In March 2021, we converted $53 million of debentures, including Couche-Tard's, bringing their equity stake to 19.9% in our company. And along with the $15 million at-the-market equity program we completed, we significantly strengthened our balance sheet and position Fire & Flower for future success.With our operational expansion, we've also expanded our executive team with key appointments made in the first quarter. Nadia Vattovaz, who has served as our CFO and Executive Vice President of Operations since joining the company in 2018, has been key to advancing our retail operations and executing upon our growth strategy to achieve our revenue generation goals. As we reach the next stage of our growth and further expand our retail footprint, Nadia has been appointed to Chief Operating Officer and will oversee the company's ongoing operations and successful execution of Fire & Flower's retail growth plan. In conjunction with Nadia's move to COO, we've appointed Judy Adam, whom I'll turn the call over to shortly to discuss our financial results, as the company's new CFO. Judy brings more than 25 years of public company experience, working with both TSX and New York Stock Exchange-listed companies. Her deep understanding of digital technology and consumer packaged goods, along with her extensive M&A and capital markets experience, strongly support our near-term efforts to scale our operations and execute on our aggressive growth plans.Our most recent appointment to the executive team was made last month with Matthew Hollingshead, President of the company's wholly owned and direct subsidiary Hifyre Inc., was appointed to the new role of Chief Innovation Officer. Since joining Fire & Flower in 2018, Matthew has played an integral role in building the company's position as today's most advanced technology-enabled cannabis retailer. As we know, Matthew will be responsible for implementing our near- and long-term business opportunities as we are rapidly moving ahead on multiple fronts to the growing demand of our Hifyre platform. Last, we continue to work towards listing on the NASDAQ Exchange with the aim of driving increased visibility, improved liquidity and the expansion of our investor base. This listing is aligned with our efforts to expand our U.S. retail footprint and build our leadership position in high-growth cannabis markets beyond Canada. This is a major step for Fire & Flower as we reach the next level of growth for our company. I'd now like to turn the call over to Judy to discuss our financials and provide a more detailed overview of the progress each of our key business segments has made in the first quarter of 2021. Judy?
Thank you, Trevor, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to provide a financial overview of Fire & Flower and our operations as released to the markets earlier this morning. To begin, I'll remind everyone that Fire & Flower follows a retail calendar, with every quarter consisting of 13 weeks. Today I will be speaking to the first quarter ending May 1, 2021. Once again, we are extremely pleased to report another quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA of $2.3 million for the first quarter of 2021 compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.4 million in the first quarter of 2020. As Trevor mentioned earlier, this marks our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. Our ability to produce another quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA is driven by revenue growth despite challenging macro headwinds, diligent product selection that drove growth in gross profit and prudent management of operating expenses.Total revenue for the first quarter of 2021 increased 91% to $44.1 million. compared to $23.1 million in Q1 2020. Fire & Flower's total revenue is derived from 3 primary business segments: the retail channel, which is our network of stores across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, British Columbia and the Yukon territory; the distribution channel through Open Fields Distribution that sells cannabis and cannabis-related accessories to both Fire & Flower stores as well as to external accounts in Saskatchewan; finally, our digital channel, operating through the Hifyre digital, retail and analytics platform, which is proprietary to Fire & Flower. It derives revenue from external clients at the Hifyre IQ data and analytics platform as well as industry-leading targeted digital advertising to the Hifyre reach offering. Of the total $44.1 million of revenue in the first quarter of 2021, retail operations generated $33.6 million, open Fields Distribution generated $7.6 million and $2.8 million came from our Hifyre digital platform. Total gross profit for the first quarter 2021 was $16.5 million or 37.5% of revenue compared to total gross profit of $7.5 million or 32.6% of revenue for the same period of the previous year ended May 2, 2020. All business segments individually contributed to the increase in gross profit dollars. Retail revenue of $33.6 billion for the 13 weeks ended May 1, 2021, increased significantly by 82.2% from $18.4 million in the comparable period of 2020. The increase in retail revenue is a result of Fire & Flower's expanded retail network of 79 operated stores at the end of Q1 2021 compared to 48 stores at the end of Q1 2020.Quarter-over-quarter, retail revenue was up 1.4% due to the prolonged COVID-19 lockdown conditions in Ontario and Alberta, which account for 68 of the 79 stores in our retail network. Q4 retail revenue was also positively impacted by December holiday promotional events, which did not occur in Q1.However, traditional products such as flower, particularly in large-format value options, as well as our cannabis 2.0 products, have continued to drive top line growth. On a same-store sales basis, comparing the 45 stores with operations throughout the 13 weeks of Q1 2021 and Q1 2020, sales increased by 18% year-over-year.This growth in same-store sales is attributable to improved merchandise planning and assortment, multiple purchase modalities such as in-store, curbside pickup, delivery and kiosks as well as increased customer engagement through the Spark Perks membership base. Wholesale distribution revenue of $7.6 million in the first quarter 2021 increased 97.3% from revenue of $3.9 million in the first quarter of 2020. Our wholesale distribution segment operates through our Open Fields business, which purchases cannabis products directly from licensed producers and distribute them directly to our retail stores and other third-party retailers in Saskatchewan.Revenue in this segment increased as Saskatchewan market continues to open up, with more retailers sourcing inventory from Open Fields. Improved supply from key distribution partners and continued growth of cannabis 2.0 products and legacy categories are key drivers of this improvement.Digital platform revenue increased 252% to $2.8 million in the first quarter of 2021 from $0.8 million in the first quarter 2020 as the company continues to monetize the Hifyre digital retail and analytics platform through recurring monthly subscription revenue and, more recently, targeted compliant cannabis advertising for clients. The company reported a net loss of $61.6 million or a net loss per share of $0.21 on a basic and fully diluted basis for the first quarter 2021 compared to a net loss of $12.7 million or a net loss per share of $0.08 on a basic and fully diluted basis in the comparable period of 2020. As discussed earlier, Fire & Flower significantly strengthened its balance sheet by converting approximately $53 million of convertible debentures and thereby substantially lowering our interest costs. As of May 1, 2021, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $32.7 million.Thank you. I'll turn it back to Trevor and look forward to questions from the participants on the call.
Thank you, Judy. We're pleased to have navigated through the COVID-19 pandemic with minimal disruption. While we did witness a slowdown in in-store purchasing in our retail stores, we saw an opportunity to evolve and expand our consumer reach through our tech-driven retail capabilities, such as our Spark Perks Fastlane, online payment, curbside pickup and Spark Rapid Delivery services.Our continued ability to drive deep engagement with our customers by leveraging our best-in-class technology to connect them with the right cannabis products continues to drive our growth and propels our entry into new cannabis markets, whether it's a critical need or data-driven retail to remain competitive and gain market share. As we continue to identify evolving customer preferences, we remain committed to building upon our multi-branded approach to retail. Our acquisition of Friendly Stranger has already proven to capture a wider audience of cannabis users as our Friendly Stranger, Happy Dayz and Hotbox brands have successfully generated interest from Gen X males and younger, smaller market consumers.Our Open Fields Distribution business remains a key testing ground for private wholesaling and distribution in Saskatchewan and continues to drive a significant and steady source of revenue for Fire & Flower. As the province opens up to the cannabis retail market, we can achieve additional revenue opportunities through sales to external accounts and can benefit strongly from opportunities for greater wholesale and retail margins. Finally, our Hifyre platform will continue to fuel our growth and remains the foundation of our success as it powerfully differentiates Fire & Flower from other cannabis retailers. We're seeing a heightened level of demand for usable cannabis data and analysis by producers, finance and market research groups and retailers in emerging markets. We're pleased to be leading the cannabis market that's valuable into the cannabis industry and look forward to further leveraging this best-in-class technology to enhance the delivery of omnichannel convenience-oriented retail as we move ahead in 2021.That concludes this part of our call, and I'd like to turn the call over to the operator for questions.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from David Kideckel from ATB Capital.
Congratulations on the quarter. Judy, congratulations on your recent appointment and Nadia and Matthew on your promotions.Okay. So my first question, probably, Trevor, directed to you, is on the Couche-Tard strategy. If I heard you correctly, of the initial 2 colocations you currently have in Alberta, is the major development here for the quarter moving forward to expand this throughout Canada? And if I heard that correctly, can you maybe elaborate a little bit about some of the metrics you're looking for between these existing colocations with Circle K? And any particular market that's more appealing to you than others?
Sure. Yes. Well, I think that it's certainly our intent now, having looked at the pilot program, to see if we can scale it both in Alberta and markets outside of Alberta. So that's sort of -- the experiment, I think, has been widely viewed as successful sort of internally here. So now it's about looking at how we could expand it.In terms of the metrics we're using, we need to -- we look at it in terms of sort of store -- traditional metrics like revenue per square foot but also in terms of connectivity to our broader network. So again, as I've always sort of maintained, Fire & Flower employed the hub, spoke and kind of delivery strategy, which is wrapped together in our digital platform.So connectivity to other nodes in our retail network is also important. It was part of that kind of evaluation. So stay tuned for announcements on that, but it certainly is our intention to expand the program.
Understood. Okay. And moving on here, just maybe as a read-through for the whole Canadian industry here, and maybe, Judy, this might be directed to you. Just wondering what the revenue mix was for the quarter.When you're looking at 2.0 versus 1.0 products, a big thesis for the whole sector that I think Fire & Flower would agree to, although I don't want to put words into your mouth, is that for the 2.0 type products, it's going to demand some sort of consumer -- or in-store consumer experience. So given the recent COVID lockdowns, I'm just trying to understand what, number one, the revenue mix was and if in moving forward as COVID restrictions ease, if we're expecting 2.0 product sales to increase.
You know what, David, what I might do is we've also got Nadia on the line as well from an operational perspective. That might be something she'd like to answer.
Sure. Thanks, Trevor. David, thank you for the question. So I think 2.0, even in the COVID environment, continues to see improvement. And we're pretty excited because we're also seeing a larger offering of 2.0 products, particularly this last quarter in the vape category.So we've seen a pretty strong move from half options to 1 milliliter options and which has really been meaningful for the customer. And I think it's a function of pricing from the LPs as well as a proliferation of option.So COVID hasn't really stopped that. And certainly, we're pretty targeted in our approach to how we send information about those products to our customers. And I think that we're going to see, as we move to open more stores, the ability to actually demonstrate the product to those customers certainly will help, David, but it hasn't stopped us.
Your next question comes from Justin Keywood from Stifel.
On the digital revenue growth in the quarter, it was quite high, 250% year-over-year. I'm just wondering what is driving that within Hifyre. I know there's a few components of that. And any indication of that revenue stream maturing? Or are you still seeing a lot of activity and opportunity for some greater growth?
Thanks for that question, actually. It's -- the way that we look at it and perhaps a way to look at it from the outside is that Hifyre is a wholly owned tech R&D subsidiary. So it's not a division. It's not sort of a grouping. It's a company that sort of stands on its own in some respect, and it's constantly involved in innovation.So the first product that it created for us was the Hifyre IQ data and analytics platform. And we saw sort of steady growth in that. But then we sort of added on another product. And finally, actually, recently, we launched the Hifyre Reach product, so -- which is the compliant advertising component to it, store as media.So I think the way to look at it is we're going to keep innovating because we have that built-in innovation capability. And so we don't see slowing of the growth there because, of course, as one product matures, so there's a limit to the number of sort of data subscriptions or people in Canada, certainly that would pay for that. We evolved and created another part to our tech platform.So we're going to continually be adding new products to this to keep the growth sustained. And so like I appreciate that question because I think some people think that it's a homogenous mix; it's not. It's a series of different products that create digital revenue for us.
And any long-term goals for this segment? I'm calculating an annual revenue run rate of around $11 million. I think that was up from $4 million from last year. But any broad term goals on what this segment could potentially reach to?
To be quite candid, actually, the digital part of the business is really not limited in any traditional way. Just like all kind of technology businesses, it's very, very scalable. So as we look into alternative markets like the U.S. market, as we look into different products that we have currently in development at Hifyre, we don't see the ceiling on this yet because, again, like any technology platform, it can evolve in so many different ways, right?
Okay. I appreciate that. And then for the Palms store -- Palm Spring store opening, just wondering if that's progressing as planned, if there's any unforeseen challenges. I know the original target was Q2 to have that open, and I think we're getting pretty close to that. And then also just beyond Palm Springs, do you have any other additional plans for new store openings this year in the U.S.?
Yes. So I mean on the Palm Springs front, I think we're still tracking to that. There's obviously always -- with any regulated environment, there's always sort of little hiccups here and there. And I think that the last that we heard from American Acres that the sort of signage was getting approved. So we're at that kind of stage in it. So we do expect that we're on track for the Q2 goal. In terms of other things, other opportunities, the whole purpose of high -- sorry, of the American Acres partnership here is for them to go out and start acquiring and rolling out different assets in the U.S. So I would expect people to stay tuned for different announcements there. So until they've completed them, we won't announce them. But we -- the whole goal is for them to go out and use this technology and use our brand to expand it in the key U.S. markets.
Your next question comes from Andrew Semple from Echelon Capital Markets.
Congrats also to Judy, Nadia and Matthew on your promotions. First question here. I just wanted to ask on the quarter, maybe could you elaborate on what kind of impacts you may have experienced from COVID-19 and the lockdown of stores in certain provinces and how we might expect that to change with lockdowns gradually easing across the nation.That's obviously -- that's a great question and something you've given a lot of thought to. So why don't I kind of answer this 60,000-foot level? And then we can get some other color from Nadia and Judy on this.But I think in general, what we see in the COVID is like people obviously remaining in their homes, so foot traffic slowing down, particularly in Ontario, which has had a very vigorous response and a prolonged response. So it's really been a question, a series of stop-start lockdowns in Ontario, which have delayed things like construction is an impact that we've seen. So if you can get a construction crew in for 2 weeks and then you can't for another 2 weeks and then it starts that, again, that's obviously a significant detriment.And again, just the general lack of foot traffic is something in a regulated industry, it's hard to get awareness of a store. So ramp-up of a new store is slower in COVID because, of course, you don't have foot traffic to drive awareness.And Nadia and Judy, would you have anything to add to that sort of assessment?
Sure. It's Nadia here. Thank you for the question. So I think it's really important to remember that in Ontario, there was 3 days where cannabis retailers were fully closed, which was the first time that, that had happened since the beginning of the pandemic. And then certainly it opened to delivery. The one thing that really provided us insight is we showed same-store sales increase over the prior year of 18%. And that was particularly interesting because you may recall that, last year, for this quarter, we saw the March surge of sales as we just started to go into lockdowns as the COVID pandemic hit. So that was a pretty big quarter to actually -- from a same-store perspective to actually surpass. And so what does that mean for us? Well, that really means that the ability to reach out to our customer base in a meaningful way to drive those -- to continue to drive those sales and to drive that same-store sales so significantly, Andrew, I think it's a great lesson learned in this. So I'm pretty pleased with that.
Oh, sorry. I would just -- it's Judy. I would just jump into that. Yes, despite the headwinds that we faced in Q1, we were able to deliver revenue growth. And on the OpEx side, we would have had increases there as a result of increased store count and investment in our corporate infrastructure to drive future growth. But overall, we're well positioned now with an expanded retail network to deliver a very strong back half and drive further adjusted EBITDA growth as we see COVID restrictions relax and consumers coming back into the stores.
My next question here, we've seen some notable acquisitions of some of the more craft-oriented brands by some of the largest cannabis producers here in Canada. Could you speak to what you're seeing on the ground today with regards to craft brands? Have you noticed any notable shift in consumer purchasing behavior towards craft brands? And how are you responding to that?
Actually, I think Nadia probably is the best to speak to that would be -- from an operational perspective.
Yes, certainly. So I think it's early days for that. We are excited about it because as we are -- we've been working with LPs to drive some pretty interesting options for our customers in terms of promotions, offerings, et cetera. So far, we haven't seen such a meaningful shift in that way, but I do anticipate us being able to see a little bit more of a proliferation of those craft brands because there is a market, particularly for Fire & Flower, for that type of product.
Great. And just a final question, if I may, before I turn the call over. Trevor, you're speaking to different aspects of the Hifyre platform and different ways to commercialize that. Could you potentially speak to what proportion of digital revenues in the current quarter were subscription-based, if you're able to disclose that?
With that sort of specifics, I could definitely say that a large portion of it was subscription based because, remember, as we layer on new products, it takes a while for them to ramp up. So sort of looking at it anecdotally, the most robust product offering we have is Hifyre IQ, which has existed almost since the beginning of legalization, right? That was the first product that we -- that Hifyre created in our ecosystem. And then we've only recently layered on Hifyre Reach.
Your next question comes from Endri Leno from National Bank.
Congrats to everybody as well on promotions. A couple, 2, 3 for me. But first question I want to ask, there was a reference on the MD&A about increased competition in Alberta and in Ontario. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about that? Like how -- why did it come about? I mean was it more stores, more aggressive pricing by your competitors? And how do you see it developing?
Yes. Well, maybe I'll sort of talk to it at a 60,000 foot view to this one as well and get some other commentary from Judy and Nadia.But at a high level, we have seen increased store count certainly in Ontario, a lot of mom-and-pops opening and developing into a kind of an Alberta-level saturation. In Alberta, there continued to be store openings even in COVID. And we've also seen the emergence of like value product segment retailers. So that's another form of competition. So there's price competition on one part. There's also increased store count competition.Nadia, would you have any additional color for that?
Yes. I think it's really a tale of 2 provinces. So I think that Trevor covered the -- what we're seeing in Alberta from the perspective of both the value offerings as well as new stores. However, in Ontario, I think it's a little bit like it was a couple of years ago for Alberta, whereby we're really seeing the proliferation of the cannabis retail environment in terms of the number of competitors, and new competitors are coming on each week as more licenses are being rolled out.And that's to be expected. We saw the same thing a couple of years ago in Alberta, but we continue to build our base as well. And I think that as we're able to open more stores, we'll see the same thing again happen as we did in Alberta, with us having a large footprint in Ontario.
Great. Just a quick follow-up. I mean would you expect it -- given the normalization more or less that you saw in Alberta or sort of some of that attrition in stores, would you expect a similar time line perhaps for the 6 quarters in Ontario? Or is it a bit of a different dynamic here than in Alberta?
Well, I mean -- yes, that's a tough one to opine on because, of course, it's a regulated rollout. So it really does depend on the ADC in Ontario, how quickly they roll out. I think it's reasonable to look at it and model it on Alberta. But again, the caveat there is don't -- it's difficult to predict what the government is going to do.What I would actually add to that, though, in sort of thinking about it is, just sort of remind everyone that we built the company to compete, like we built it with the end state in mind. So with Alberta, what we've seen is very strong performance in COVID and in the saturated market and with increased competition. But that's not really that surprising given that we started the company from scratch with the end goal in mind.We knew there was going to be competition. When there's money involved, there's going to be competition. And we've built it to withstand the apex predators of normal retail. We took best in breed from retail, which is a very aggressive marketplace and built cannabis -- a cannabis retailer with that model in mind. So we actually welcome competition.
Great. That's great color, Trevor. And actually, one more, perhaps for you. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about BC. How do you see expansion there? I mean given you have several kind of things on the go, the U.S. expansion and then the colocation with Couche-Tard, I mean is BC still kind of a growth target or a wait and see? Just any color there would be great.
Yes. I mean we've always liked BC as a market. I mean it's been, I would say, unusually and frustratingly difficult to enter. It's a multiyear process for us from a regulatory standpoint. But we are in there now, and we remain committed to the BC market.Its growth is sort of somewhat limited by 8-store caps at the moment, but BC consumers are good consumers. They're typically consumers that are prepared to pay a little bit more for cannabis. They're largely experienced. So it is a market that we do expect some growth in. We think it is a good market, but it will have to be balanced against the realities -- the regulatory reality to the province.
Great. And last one for me. G&A expenses, we saw a little bit of an increase this quarter, quarter-over-quarter. I mean do you expect this is a sort of a new permanent level? Or does it lower a little bit in coming quarters? Or it increased a bit, stable? Any color there?
Maybe I'll pass it to Judy for her view on that.
Yes. Thank you. Yes, definitely, we did see increase in OpEx, like I said. I mean that's really attributable to the increase in store count. But we also made some investments in corporate infrastructure to support future growth.So OpEx will -- as we continue to roll out stores, you should expect operating expense to increase with that as well with revenue. But I would say that -- yes, I would say that the corporate infrastructure is in a good place now and fairly stable. And so maybe not a significant increase there for the rest of the year.
Your next question comes from Aaron Grey from Alliance Global Partners.
Congrats on the promotions. So first question for me, I wanted to continue on with the question on competition. In February, you talked about how you expect competition within the marketplace. You see some saturation within Alberta as well as some parts of Ontario like Toronto.I would love to hear about how you think about how this kind of plays out over time, especially in terms of bringing some shakeout maybe of small mom-and-pops. There are a few larger players such as yourself. So I'd love to maybe hear about how you think about maybe the retail market for cannabis as it evolves over the next couple of years and how Fire & Flower is best positioned for that.
Sure. Yes. So we think that there is going to be sort of consolidation. Just say competition is going to impact, I think, mom-and-pops the most significantly because the things -- the advantages you have at scale with things like combined purchasing power, things like a better sort of assortment, planning department, all those kind of larger SG&A pieces are brought to bear and amortized over large numbers of stores. This kind of really will, I think, impact the mom-and-pops. I think they'll also be impacted by the value competitors who are coming into the space as well because mom-and-pops' ability to compete on that is going to be sort of a little bit of a hiccup. So I think we're going to see a very tough time for mom-and-pops in the -- I'll say, the immediate term, in the short term, particularly as we come out of COVID.This is particularly true in Ontario, where if they are not allowed to -- if we come out of COVID without the ability to do e-commerce, it's going to really impact mom-and-pops because the ability to kind of reach our consumer in a green grocer kind of way, like the more block radius of delivery is going to really be a significant service impairment for them.I think that we're going to see, over the next number of years, a barbell formation of strategies, where you have basically -- you have differentiated brand strategies on the one side and you have sort of strict value on the other side of the equation. I think it is probably likely to be a holiday out of the middle, but that's normal for any industry.So normal industry economics and business logic is going to apply even to the cannabis space. Whether that's in 1 year or 3 or 4 years, it's inevitable that there's sort of a differentiated brand, one hybrid, sort of your Starbucks and places that are committed to service models, and customers are expecting a premium there. And then, of course, you've got a value strategy on the other side, which is inevitable in any industry as well. And the middle kind of gets hollowed out. So for us, our early investment in technology is really about driving a brand-differentiated strategy. And it's not -- that was a very deliberate thing in our part to build this infrastructure by getting that engagement, and it's engagement with your customer that's key to driving that strategy. You have to know your customer better than your competitors do. You have to understand and be able to anticipate their needs and service them. And you have to provide sort of a superior selection in retail experience.So that's -- those are the key parts of that kind of strategy, and that's what the Hifyre platform has enabled us to do. So we're quite excited by the competition.
Okay. Great. That's very helpful. And talking about your program with Spark Perks, 270,000 members today. Could you give some color maybe in terms of how much of your retail revenues are derived from those members? And then maybe kind of target in terms of how much in revenue you like to be derived from that membership base over time?
Sure. Yes. I mean we would like to -- obviously, we'd like it to be 100%. That will be the best possible result because we know that Spark Perks members spend significantly more or have a higher lifetime value than a non-engaged customer. I believe that we're hovering somewhere around the 50% range in terms of engagement. But again, that's something that I think that we're going to continue to work on. And even with the COVID challenge, it's been unable to kind of reach customers in store, which is a primary way to at least sign up Spark Perks members has been a bit of a challenge. But we're going to continue to grow it. And again, the goal is 100%. I'm not sure we'll get there, but that's the goal.
We have a follow-up question from David Kideckel from ATB Capital.
Just a couple more quick ones for me. First, I just want to hop back to Spark Perks. So Trevor and team, you've noticed some steady increases here of the number of members you've been able to sign up, 270,000 up-to-date now. I'm just wondering what are the plans in general just to monetize -- further monetize the Spark members over and above the actual basket size that you're seeing them purchase.
Yes. I think part of that, though, is the basket size, but part of it is also unique product offerings, right? What we're able to do with Spark Perks. And you're going to definitely want Judy to weigh in on this -- sorry, Nadia to weigh on this as well from an operational perspective. But it's not just a basket side. It's about understanding your customer deeply. It's a deep engagement. So new product offerings that we could have that are tailored to our customer base; new service offerings, whether in-store or outside the store, that could be offered to that base because we understand them better, like educational, sort of experiential opportunities. All of those are ways that we can add value to our customers and also monetize them. So Nadia, I'm not sure if you want to add some additional color to that.
I think you covered it well, Trevor.
Okay. So the -- I guess my -- kind of that's great. And it's very much in line with what you've been saying since 1 year.My next question is about your competition, more on the Hifyre side, so with folks like -- just as an example, Headset, for example. In my many conversations with licensed producers, in particular, several maybe use Hifyre. Others use Headset.I'm just wondering in your conversations with them, is it mutually exclusive when one LP use, say, Headset or another competing data software for that matter versus Hifyre? And similarly, do you see folks, LPs in particular, using a combination of the 2? And do you think you can erode some of the business that LPs have given to some of the other competitors like Headset?
Yes. Okay. Well, I mean, I think fundamentally, Headset to us, Headset has a very different offering, right? So Headset and a lot of the data aggregators are taking sort of point-of-sale data and packaging it in this kind of delayed fashion. It's reporting on what happened at the till.The key thing to understand about Hifyre and the key part of our strategy there is it is necessary to connect it to the retail chain. The actual stores are important. To a next-gen retailer, the stores are an important source of data. And that connection is the laboratory. The insight is a laboratory between watching human interaction with products.So for us, it's not just what happened at the till, which we know. It's -- or like, for example, I use an example of an exclusive $100 a gram. Wouldn't that be a great idea? Just that, that sold would give you point-of-sale data. That would show up in Headset. But it's who bought that, and that we can tie that and attribute that. So we solve the data attribution problem with the Spark Perks program.So then when you marry those together, it's at that $100 gram was sold to this archetype of customer. And that archetype of customer, you may have been off in your estimation of kind of what they wanted, or you may be able to make a better product for them. That's part of the value of the Hifyre system, that sort of data aggregation systems or reporting systems.One, they're not dynamic; and two, they don't solve the data attribution problem. So we don't actually see Headset as a real head-on competitor. It's a data aggregation and analysis service, but it's backward-looking and not sort of proactive. And there's no ability to actually run an experiment in it, which you would be able to get with our Hifyre program.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn it back to Trevor for closing remarks.
I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today for our operational results and financial results for the quarter. And we hope you will come in next quarter for the next meeting. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.