CANADA – Victoria headquartered alternative meat producer, The Very Good Food Company Inc., (VGF) has successful listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange, becoming the first publicly traded Canadian plant-based food company.
The Very Good Food Company completed its first day trading as a public company on June 19, after trading over two million shares on the initial debut, with a resulting significant increase in the share price.
The company had in mid-January filed and obtained a receipt for a preliminary prospectus with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada for a proposed initial public offering of 14,000,000 of its common shares at a price of $0.25 per share.
The Common Shares were listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange on June 16 and started trading three days after under the symbol ‘VERY’. VGF announced the issuance of 16,100,000 common shares at a price of $0.25 per share for gross proceeds of $4.025 million.
Mitchell Scott, the Chief Executive Officer of VGF said that the IPO provides the company with the capital needed to realize its vision of becoming a global leader in food technology.
“We were very pleased to see investors welcome our company to the public markets with open arms. After months of preparation for our public listing, we can all breathe a sigh of relief as the results of our first day truly exceeded our expectations,” Mitchell said.
“We are humbled to see customers become shareholders, as they look to align themselves with our vision. Yet, our work is far from done and we are focused on seizing on our momentum to grow the Very Good brand into a global leader in the plant-based food technology industry.”
At present the company said that it is working to expand distribution and increase sales across all channels. VGF revealed that it is optimizing its Victoria production facility to increase throughput and reach its maximum capacity and is further setting up a new facility in Vancouver.
The Very Good Food Company designs, develops, produces, distributes and sells a variety of plant-based meat and other food alternatives. To date the company has developed a core product line under The Very Good Butchers brand.
With the proceeds from the IPO and the plant-based food producer says that it is well-positioned to capitalize on the increasing demand for plant-based meat alternatives.
According to the Plant Based Foods Association, it is estimated that the global plant-based meat market will increase from US$10 billion annually to over US$30 billion annually by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 14.8% as consumers continue to show an increasing appetite for plant-based products.
VGF now becomes the second plant-based food company go public after California-based Beyond Meat became the first vegan meat brand to launch an IPO in June last year.
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