Smoky Market Foods, Inc. (fka SMKY)

[Farrago]

The news was good today. Yes, there it is for all to see, publicly released info about the new management and distribution. Yes, there are hints that financing may be close. HOWEVER, due to what I consider intentional over-exaggeration of expectations, I'll just repeat myself in the name of expectation management. This is what we're expecting in terms of news:

- official announcement of new management team with possibly some retail distribution agreements
- finalization of first initial interim financing in the amount of $3.5M which will be used to fund production for distribution, to include sales people to target food service distributors (like Sysco)
- along with interim financing we may also at some point receive news, or just witness, an investor awareness campaign
- big scale financing of ~$25M which will fund the acquisition of the processor and possibly one or two other acquisitions. All of the details can be found in postings here somewhere

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79225952

My intent is not to pat myself on the back here but I hope this adds some validity to the points I've been trying to make here. Mostly, expectation management. I feel like a broken record trying to correct faulty information. So take it or leave it, but as late as two days ago I was having to explain AGAIN that the news we were expecting was NOT financing, but management/distribution update.

Some folks were saying a few weeks ago "financing PR by Friday" and some of us longs kindly informed them that there would be no PR on financing by Friday. Then it became "financing update early next week," which was once again corrected as highly unlikely (that was 2 weeks ago). Then it was repeatedly saying $1-3 fair valuation post-financing, which was corrected by pointing out any remote hope of being fairly valued at $1-3 is ONLY feasible after the big block of financing and multiple acquisitions, which we know are not coming anytime soon.

So let's keep it real and review what we know.
- The financing update, when it comes, will almost certainly be an announcement of up to $3.5M of interim financing. It will not be for $25M or $40M or anything else.
- SMKY is "partnered" with Sysco in the tiniest sense of the word imaginable. This has been debated ad nauseum and I have no desire to debate whether or not SMKY and Sysco are partners, but let's be clear about what their relationship is and means.
-- a) Sysco Iowa moves a few cases of product a week, that's it.
-- b) SMKY is not partnered with Sysco in any sense of being ready to launch distribution through Sysco's nationwide channels
-- c) Sysco just takes orders from food service, they are NOT acting as a broker (the distribution portions of the PR are about food service agreements through brokers that push product to foodservice, retailers, etc)
-- d) targeted promotion of products to other Sysco houses will NOT take place until interim financing is received, and then it is in no way going to be an instantaneous "nationwide rollout" with Sysco. It's going to be a dedicated sales force pitching products to individual Sysco houses and individual food service locations serviced by Sysco

So everybody's clear on this, right? Sysco isn't the big deal right now. Sysco's not going to be the big deal anytime soon. Are we all clear now? Good, let's continue with what we know.

- Financing is a game changer, but interim financing creates the ability to implement the business plan. It does not guarantee large scale financing, it does not trigger any acquisition agreements, and it does not cause the fair value of the company to sky rocket to the moon.

I know this is only my opinion, but we have a lot of new eyes coming to the board, and I feel compelled to make sure that new people asking for a quick nutshell of what's going on here get valid opinions and facts, not some hyped-up exaggerations. Things are going to take time to develop here, and to suggest otherwise is doing a disservice to those that read this board. And those that think SMKY is going to go to a billion dollar company by next month just have to reconcile themselves to the length of the process that implementing the business plan is going to require.

So, I guess I'll just keep repeating myself.

But to end on a positive note - today's news was great. It was EXACTLY what those of us who have taken the time to keep each other informed thru communication with the CEO were expecting. It's a huge move in the right direction. I don't want to misquote the CEO, but I'm confident that Eddie feels that the addition of qualified management coupled with their extensive networks and finalized agreements for distribution will add great leverage to their ability to close on this first round of financing. Time will tell. If financing was finalized, I'm pretty sure we would have seen a PR...but we can hope that it's not far off.

So let's celebrate a positive PPS response to the news today, positive forward steps with management and distribution contracts, and let's look with anticipation for news of financing, knowing that even though it won't trigger massive large-scale rollout with Sysco, nor a ridiculous valuation of $1-3/share, it will accelerate distribution, allow for extensive production to hit retail stores in January, and fund a salesforce that will increase demand in various markets.

Cheers to ending the week on another high note tomorrow.