• Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk is now available to cafés throughout Quebec through Distribution Bloom
• New York retail pioneer Pop Up Grocer is exclusively featuring Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk at its in-store café
• Planting Hope has reorganized its internal Sales and Marketing team to focus on both Foodservice growth and scaling profitable Retail distribution and increasing velocity

CHICAGO, IL and VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 4, 2023 / The Planting Hope Company Inc. (TSXV:MYLK) (OTCQB:MYLKF) (FRA:J94) ("Planting Hope" or the "Company"), a plant-based food and beverage company focused on producing the world's most nutritious and planet-friendly products, is proud to announce that Planting Hope's multi award-winning Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk continues to expand its presence by partnering with leading regional distributors to independent cafés and cafés in key markets. Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk is now available to wholesale customers across Quebec and Metro Montreal through Distribution Bloom, a leading direct-to-café distributor with 24-hour delivery service. Additionally, Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk has been selected as the featured alternative milk for the in-store café at retail pioneer Pop Up Grocer's flagship store, located in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood.

"The exceptional taste, performance, and sustainability profile of Hope and Sesame Sesamemilk continues to attract fans across the US and Canada," said Julia Stamberger, Co-founder and CEO of Planting Hope. "We're excited to continue this momentum across key metro markets like Montreal and New York City, and to watch the demand for sesamemilk rise as it becomes the next meaningful segment after oat milk in the rapidly growing Plant Milk market. As the only Upcycled certified plant milk, sesamemilk's sustainability grabs the attention of independent cafés and Gen Z consumers, but amazing taste and performance in hot and iced barista beverages is what keeps people coming back for more."

Distribution Bloom:
A full-service distributor to café and espresso bar establishments across Quebec and Metro Montreal, Distribution Bloom offers a full range of supplies including alternative milks and coffee beans, with no minimum delivery and 24-hour service throughout the province. Distribution Bloom takes a hands-on approach with their customers, providing in-depth knowledge of specialty coffee and partnering with quality companies to supply the best products to support specialty café needs. Information on Distribution Bloom can be found at https://www.distributionbloom.com/.

Pop Up Grocer:
Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk is now featured on the Summer Season menu at Pop Up Grocery's café in its flagship permanent retail location in New York City. A selection of top Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilks have been featured for retail sale in this location since March 2023. Along with purchasing Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk in 32 oz shelf-stable cartons for home use, shoppers can now enjoy sesamemilk lattes and other hot and iced barista beverages featuring sesamemilk at Pop Up Grocer.

Greenwich Village Pop Up Grocer is the first permanent retail location for the concept that the Miami New Times called "all of the buzziest brands on Instagram under one roof." Pop Up Grocer features a tightly curated assortment of 400 shelf-stable and refrigerated food and beverage items; this selection represents just 1% of the assortment size in the average grocery store, which typically contains more than 40,000 product SKUs.

"We are focused on curating the best new up-and-coming food and beverage products to feature in Pop Up Grocer's highly selective assortment," said Emily Schildt, founder of Pop-Up Grocer. "We seek out the most exciting new food and beverage items, enabling curious, conscious consumers to discover great new items to expand their kitchen pantries, deliciously! Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk fits with the qualities we look for in product selection, including on-trend taste, quality ingredients, great story, and excellent branding and packaging." Information on Pop-up Grocer is at https://popupgrocer.com/.

Planting Hope Sales and Marketing Reorganization
Planting Hope is continuing to scale in the profitable, highly visible Foodservice channel as well as to gain traction in Retail Grocery, focusing on transactionally profitable business and increased velocity. To best support this strategy, the Company reorganized its Sales and Marketing divisions in the first half of 2023.

Additions to the Sales & Marketing team:

• Becky Harrison - VP of Foodservice. Ms. Harrison most recently led Foodservice for Good Catch and Wicked Kitchen, and previous to that developed the full Foodservice channel for Coconut Bliss. Ms. Harrison is active in the Plant Based foods industry, including the Plant-Based Foods Association.
• Corinn Williams - Director of Marketing. Ms. Williams has deep experience in beverage marketing, most recently at leading beverage mixer company FeverTree. She joined Planting Hope in January 2023 to lead consumer and trade marketing development in addition to project management and execution. In her leadership roles in sales and marketing at Diageo, Anheuser-Busch and Fever-Tree, Ms. Williams created strategic programming for established and challenger brands, getting products into consumer's hands and building brand awareness, driving trial, and increasing sales. In her first 6 months at Planting Hope, she has become a valuable marketing leader bringing vision, creativity, and executional expertise to the team.

Changed responsibilities:

• James Curley, Co-founder / EVP Sales - Mr. Curley has 45 years of business development expertise in natural and specialty packaged food brands distributed in grocery retail and related channels. As both an executive and a consultant, he has led teams that grew brand sales from start-up phase to run rates of more than $50M in annual revenue. A recognized expert in consumer product development in the Natural/Specialty CPG arena, Mr. Curley is frequently a featured expert at industry events, focusing on start-up and scaling dynamics for early-stage brands and on successful execution with Grocery retailers and Food and Beverage distributors.
• Jeannie Andolena - SVP of Marketing + Ecommerce - Ms. Andolena joined Planting Hope in March 2022 as the company's Vice President of Ecommerce and has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Ecommerce and Marketing. Her responsibilities include the execution of the company's digital strategy, revenue, and profitability across online channels, as well as overseeing and managing the Company's trade, consumer, and social marketing efforts. Ms. Andolena's background includes extensive training in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry and senior leadership roles at Jet.com, Walmart.com, and online food distributor VEDGEco.

Transitions:

• Mara Ebert - Chief Sales Officer - Ms. Ebert has resigned from her position at Planting Hope effective June 30, 2023. She will be taking a trade marketing role at a natural foods company closer to her home in the Eastern United States.

Hired:

• Navigate CPG - Industry leaders in developing strategic alliances with Costco with hundreds of successful products launched in Costco regions and divisions, including Regional warehouses, Business Centers, International warehouses, and Costco.com.
• Allied Resources, inc. - A leading broker to the café Foodservice channel, including independent cafés, espresso bars, and tea shops, Allied is led by recognized café industry expert Tina Michaud who has over 20 years' experience in growing ‘allied' consumer brands in these arenas (including coffee and related beverage ingredients, inclusions, and enhancements).
• Focus Foodservice Associates - Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Focus services the Foodservice channel across Utah, Nevada, Idaho and the Intermountain Region with product sales, culinary / menu development services, and distribution support for category segments including QSR, Fast Casual, Education, B2B, Hotel, Lodging and Entertainment (including Las Vegas), Healthcare, and Catering.

"I'm excited about the evolution of our Sales and Marketing teams and the bench strength we are bringing to the table in key channels," said Ms. Stamberger. "Our team is executing on all cylinders, and has a pipeline of opportunities in both Foodservice and Grocery Retail in the works that will drive our next level growth and results."

Conversion of Interest on Outstanding Convertible Debentures
The Company also announces that it proposes to convert accrued and unpaid interest due up to and including June 30, 2023 on the Company's outstanding convertible debentures in the amount of $253,396.60 into 901,766 Shares at a price of $0.281 per Share in accordance with the terms of such convertible debentures. The proposed conversion of interest and issuance of Shares thereunder remains subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About The Planting Hope Company Inc.
Planting Hope develops, launches, and scales uniquely innovative plant-based and planet-friendly food and beverage brands. Planting Hope's award-winning and cutting-edge products fill key unmet needs in the skyrocketing plant-based food and beverage space. The Planting Hope brand family includes Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk, Barista Blend Sesamemilk, and Sesamilk™ creamers, RightRice® Veggie Rice, Mozaics™ Real Veggie Chips, and Veggicopia® Veggie Snacks. Planting Hope products are currently found in more than 15,000 retail doors and 70,000 total distribution points across North America. Founded by experienced food industry entrepreneurs, Planting Hope is a women-managed and women-led company focused on nutrition, sustainability, and representation.

For more information about Planting Hope please visit plantinghopecompany.com, sign up for Planting Hope news emails HERE and follow on LinkedIn.

An informational webinar on The Planting Hope Company from CEO and Co-Founder Julia Stamberger is available HERE.

To follow the brands on Instagram and Facebook, please visit: @hopeandsesameco, @rightrice, @mozaicschips, @veggicopia.

To find Planting Hope products at a store near you in the United States or Canada, please visit the store locator. Planting Hope products are also available at plantinghopebrands.com and ecommerce retailers including Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

The 2023 Planting Hope Product Catalog is available here. The Planting Hope Foodservice Catalog, including item codes to order Planting Hope products through DOT Foods, is available here.

Contacts
Company Contact:
Julia Stamberger
CEO and Co-Founder
(773) 492-2243
julia@plantinghopecompany.com

Investor Relations Contact:
Glen Akselrod, Bristol Capital
(905) 326-1888 ext. 1
glen@bristolir.com

Media Contact:
Alex Jessup, Jessup PR
(323) 529-3541
alex.jessup@jessuppr.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively referred to hereafter as "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements that address activities, events, or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will, or may, occur in the future, including statements about the Company's ability to execute on its goals, the timing pertaining to these goals the potential demand for the Company's products, the timing and success of anticipated product launches and distribution of the Company's products, and the Company's business prospects, future trends, plans and strategies. In some cases, forward-looking statements are preceded by, followed by, or include words such as "may", "will," "would", "could", "should", "believes", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "continues", or the negative of those words or other similar or comparable words. In preparing the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, the assumption that demand for the Company's product will be sustained or increase in accordance with management's projections, that the Company's internal research and analysis is indicative of broader market trends and the Company's anticipated future demand for its products, that changes in consumer preferences in the plant-based food industry will continue in accordance with the Company's expectations, that the Company's current business objectives can be achieved and that its other corporate activities will proceed as expected, and that general business and economic conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner. Although the management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any forward-looking statement herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. Risks and uncertainties applicable to the Company, as well as trends identified by the Company affecting its industry can be found in the Company's annual information form dated December 31, 2022 and the Company's continuous disclosure record available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Such cautionary statements qualify all forward-looking statements made in this news release. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Certain disclosure in this release, including the potential issuance of Shares upon conversion of accrued and unpaid interest (the "Interest Conversion"), constitutes forward-looking statements that are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors outside of the Company's control that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. In preparing the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, the assumption that all conditions precedent (including TSX Venture Exchange approval) to the Interest Conversion will be satisfied in a timely manner; that general economic and business conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner; and that the Company will be able to raise additional funds on reasonable terms. Although the management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any forward-looking statement herein will prove to be accurate. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE: The Planting Hope Company Inc.