Benson Hill Inc. (NYSE:BHIL) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call March 13, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Matt Crisp - CEO

Dean Freeman - CFO

Ruben Mella - IR

Conference Call Participants

Ben Theurer - Barclays

Kristen Owen - Oppenheimer

Cody Ross - UBS

Adam Samuelson - Goldman Sachs

Ben Klieve - Lake Street Capital Markets

Operator

Good morning. Thank you for attending Benson Hill’s Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2022 Earnings Call. My name is Harry, and I'll be your moderator. All lines are on mute for the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions-and-answers at the end. [Operator Instructions]

And I'd now like to pass the conference over to your host, Ruben Mella, Senior Director, Investor Relations, with Benson Hill. Ruben, please go ahead.

Ruben Mella

Thanks, Harry. and good morning. We appreciate you joining us to review our fourth quarter and full-year financial results and our outlook for this year. With me today are Matt Crisp, Benson Hill's Chief Executive Officer; and Dean Freeman, our Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we filled our earnings release and Form 8-K. These documents, as well as an investor presentation we will reference during the prepared remarks, are available on the investors section of the Benson Hill website.

Comments today from management will contain forward-looking statements, including Benson Hill's expectations of future financial and business performance, industry outlook, as well as current guidance for 2023 annual results, 2025 financial targets, and our plans and goals as we execute our strategy. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and are not guarantees of performance. We caution you to consider these risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such factors include those referenced in the cautionary note included in our press release and investor presentation, and that will be included in our Form 10-K, and other filings with the SEC. Also, during this presentation, we’ll be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to GAAP is available on our earnings release and presentation.

I will now turn the call over to Matt.

Matt Crisp

Thank you, Ruben, and good morning, everyone. 2022 was a remarkable year of progress for Benson Hill. We demonstrated the efficacy of our growth playbook to expand our reach in the human food and aquaculture markets, driven by consumer demand for better food choices. I continue to be impressed with our team and what they have accomplished as we leverage our technical capabilities through CropOS to partner with customers in a novel way. We continue to gain insights into which opportunities warrant the greatest focus to optimize the ingredient product mix for profitability, while maintaining operational excellence. As I look back on 2022, I want to highlight three important milestones among several that position us for future growth. First, we executed our closed-loop business model for our soybean-derived ingredient products from farmer partners to our integrated soy processing facilities to our customers, all within 12 months, which is a credit to the teams involved. This further demand for a proprietary soy portfolio, which led to nearly 100% year-over-year proprietary revenue growth to $73 million. And as a result of this demand, operational excellence, and an elevated commodity pricing environment, we raised our ingredient segment guidance twice from the original outlook we gave this time last year. Second, we introduced our ultra-high protein soy ingredients with differentiating value propositions of traceability, sustainability, accessibility, being domestically sourced, and having higher nutrient densities. And as a result, we established important commercial relationships, including a significant licensing partnership with market leader ADM, validating our technology and go-to-market capabilities that we have previously discussed. Third, at our Investor Day in 2022, we unveiled a robust product pipeline to demonstrate how we expect our CropOS technology platform to extend our leadership and delivering innovative product solutions to meet increasing demand for better food options. We will talk about recent advancements in the pipeline at our upcoming Investor Day on March 29th.