Conference Transcript - SJM 2026-09-08

Operator

I'd like to welcome back to our conference the J.M. Smucker Company. With us today are CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board, Mark Smucker, along with CFO Tucker Marshall, who now also serves as EVP of the Frozen Handheld and Spreads and Sweet Bait Snack Segments. Mark and Tucker are going to go through some brief prepared remarks, and then we'll sit down for some questions. Mark, over to you. Thanks for being here.

Mark Smucker, CEO

Thank you, Andrew. It's great to be back. I think this might be my 10th or 11th. And honestly, just appreciate the opportunity to be here with all of you today. Tucker and I, as Andrew said, will provide some brief comments and then we'll reserve the remainder of our time for questions. But as always, please note that certain information provided today is forward-looking based on current views and assumptions. Also, we use non-GAAP results for the purpose of evaluating performance internally. Finally, details for both items can be found in the slides for today's presentation, available on our Investor Relations website. So with that, let's get started. My commentary today will center on two key points. First, our focused strategy and differentiated portfolio continue to deliver results. We remain focused on our strategic priorities of driving organic volume growth across our key platforms, improving profitability, and accelerating earnings growth for the company, and maintaining a disciplined approach to capital deployment. Second, while our portfolio is performing well today, we see even greater potential ahead. we have built a truly differentiated and complementary portfolio of leading and higher growth brands across attractive categories. Supported by our proven brand building model and innovation capabilities, we are expanding into new occasions, reaching new consumers, and unlocking additional growth opportunities across our business. Our strong first quarter results reinforce both of these points and demonstrate progress across our strategic priorities. For example, each of our key growth platforms, Uncrustables, Cafe Bustelo, Meowmix, and Milkbone delivered volume growth. Profitability improved and we generated strong earnings growth and our free cash flow increased more than $430 million compared to the prior year, and we paid down approximately $230 million of debt. Given these results and our expectations for the balance of the year, we raised our full-year outlook for net sales, adjusted EPS, and free cash flow. The momentum across the business reflects the strength of our portfolio, the investments we have made in our brands, and the focused execution of our team. Let me share a few examples of how we are driving growth across the portfolio. Starting with the Uncrustables brand, which recently reached the milestone of $1 billion in annual net sales and achieved our long-standing ambition of becoming a top-three brand in the total freezer aisle. Over the past year alone, the brand added over 2 million new households. Importantly, the brand has significant runway ahead, supported by expanded capacity and our continued focus on brand building and consumer-led innovation, which we expect will drive further household penetration. We recently launched one of our most exciting innovations yet, fridge-friendly Uncrustable Sandwiches. In addition to being stored in the freezer, all uncrustable sandwiches can now stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to five days. This innovation creates even more convenience, flexibility, and everyday usage occasions for consumers. We are supporting the launch with a robust marketing campaign across social and digital channels, further strengthening the brand's cultural relevance and highlighting the unique attributes that differentiate Uncrustable sandwiches. Let's take a look at some recent content.

Speaker 4

All right, if you're wondering what's fueling up all the players here at the American Century Championship, it's one of my personal favorites and my kids. Uncrustables, 10 out of 10 recommend. So good. What I saw, which is really cool, is now it's fridge-friendly up to five days. So, you know, when you like take it out of the freezer and then you have to eat it within like a certain amount of time, I think it's like eight hours. Now you can put it in the fridge and it lasts up to five days. So this is going to make my life as a mom much easier. And we have a lot of great flavors. The fun part is when the guys open up this ice chest, then it gets them. Now you're on camera. So anyway, I'm going to take the chocolate one.

Speaker 8

You ever seen somebody eating Uncrustable in one bite? This is my dream. I just fall with Uncrustable. Uncrustable is the best. It's so good, dude. It's so good.

Speaker 2

Devante, what flavor do you want?

Speaker 8

I plan on winning because that's the mentality that I have.

Speaker 2

What's your preferred temperature?

Speaker 8

Both lot good.

Speaker 5

What's your favorite flavor?

Speaker 8

Grape and strawberry. I get one of each when I play. The purple one's the best. It's not even grape anymore. It's just purple. Fifty, maybe? I could brought you in the day. I'm trading you an Uncrustable for this right now, okay?

Speaker 2

We have honey, raspberry, grape, hazelnut, and we have strawberry.

Speaker 8

You have all the flavors today. Thank you, Taylor.

Speaker 2

You're welcome.

Mark Smucker, CEO

We have also expanded the Uncrustables brand into the growing protein snack space with varieties that deliver 12 grams of protein. These offerings meet consumers' increasing demand for convenient, protein-rich snacks while extending the brand's relevance across a broader range of eating occasions throughout the day. The platform has exceeded our expectations, delivering highly incremental growth for the brand. Building on that success, we've added two new flavors to the lineup, Beeman Berry Blend and Burstin Blueberry. We are incredibly excited about the future of the Incrustables brand as we continue to strengthen our leadership in the frozen category. Turning to Cafe Bustelo, it is one of the fastest-growing brands in the at-home coffee category and is now the sixth-largest. Over the past year alone, it has added more than 3 million new households, demonstrating our ability to attract consumers and expand the brand's reach. We continue to fuel this momentum through our Game Face campaign this summer. The campaign was rooted in a simple but powerful insight. Fandom is a ritual. We saw an opportunity for the Cafe Bustelo brand to become part of that ritual. The spot aired during the halftime commercial break of the world's biggest soccer tournament this summer, helping bring the brand to a broad and highly engaged audience. Take a look.

Speaker 6

As a brand with Latin roots, Café Bustelo knows that soccer is more than a game. It's a source of passion and cultural pride, the kind of spirit we exist to celebrate and share. So when the world's largest sporting event came to the United States, we seized the moment. Our goal was ambitious, to spark a jolt of awareness for the Café Bustelo brand, even without an official sponsorship. We started with a simple cultural truth. When you show support for your team, you represent who you are. So we invited fans to get their game face on. We produced more than one million collectible cans of Café Bustelo coffee with a special bonus. The cans came in four designs, each inspired by a different Latin country and created by an artist rooted there. And inside every can was a matching game face tattoo kit, so fans could literally wear their passion on their faces. We brought the excitement to fans at every touch point. From watch parties to retailer content, TV ads, creator channels, murals in tournament host cities, and more. And the response was a resounding victory. Café Bustelo Game Face was the number one campaign to win with U.S. fans, providing a major list in both brand awareness and consideration. But the real win was even bigger, because we didn't just buy our way into the tournament spotlight. Café Bustelo became a part of the experience, authentically. We did it by celebrating the passion, pride, and bold Latin identity that makes us who we are, and make Café Bustelo unstoppable.

Mark Smucker, CEO

Across June and July, the campaign generated more than 1.5 billion impressions, further amplifying the brand among existing and new consumers. This campaign is a great example of how we are building brands with cultural relevance while preserving what makes them unique. We continue to make progress toward our ambition of making Cafe Bustelo a top four brand in the at-home coffee category. For the Milk Bone brand, we are delivering products and experiences that reflect the needs of today's pet parents. This includes communication of quality, nutrition, and functional benefits, along with limited-time offerings tied to seasonal and special occasions. Let's take a look at some examples.

Speaker 7

Trick-or-treating isn't only for kids. And Milk Bone treats have the flavors to make tails wag all season long. Like flavor snacks with five flavors per box. Marrow snacks with real bone marrow. And soft and chewy treats made with real chicken. And don't forget limited edition goodies made just for spooky season. Treat a dog with Milk Bone this Halloween. Because when the treats come out, dogs should too.

Mark Smucker, CEO

Beyond biscuits, our Milk Bone soft and chewy dog treats continue to deliver strong results, highlighting the opportunity to bring premium and differentiated offerings to pet parents as demonstrated by the success of Milk Bone Peanut Buttery Bites. This innovation was the number one dog snacks launch over the last four years. Building on that success, we expanded the platform with Milk Bone Peanutbuttery Cups earlier this year and see continued opportunity to bring new experiences and premium offerings to the category. For the Meow Mix brand, we continue to build momentum in the attractive cat food category. Our growth is being driven by a combination of strong category fundamentals, strategic brand building, and consumer-led innovation. Meow Mix Gravy Bursts was the leading innovation in dry cat food last year, and we expanded the platform in early 2026 with a new salmon flavor, which is exceeding our expectations. Looking ahead, our ambition is to build on our leadership position in dry cat food while thoughtfully expanding the brand's presence into other attractive segments of the cat category, including wet food and treats. While these key growth platforms represent our largest opportunities for future growth, they are only one part of what makes our portfolio unique. Our higher growth brands are complemented by category-leading brands that generate strong cash flow, support continued reinvestment, and provide additional opportunities for innovation and growth. Together, they create a differentiated portfolio capable of delivering consistent and durable growth over time. The Folgers brand is a great example of this. Folgers remains the number one brand in total volume share, and we have evolved our media strategy in recent years to over-index with younger consumers. We launched a new national media campaign that reimagines our iconic jingle in a way that resonates across audiences of all ages, especially younger coffee drinkers. Our actions are driving results. The Folgers brand was the number one brand in total buyers among younger generations in the at-home coffee aisle. We are also excited to announce the launch of Folgers Functional, which will begin shipping this November. This platform is designed to make functional coffee more accessible to everyday shoppers through clear, benefit-led offerings including protein, focus, boost, and prebiotic. Functional coffee is the fastest-growing space in the category, and this launch is a clear example of our consumer-led strategy in action. We are taking a trusted, leading brand and leveraging its strong equity to participate in emerging consumer trends. JIF is another leading brand where we are applying this strategy. Recently, we launched JIF Simply, which combines the strong equity of the JIF brand with a simpler recipe and a taste consumers love. Early consumer response has been positive. We are also focused on increasing the relevance of JIF across more eating occasions throughout the day. Peanut butter is a tasty, versatile, protein-based solution that can play a role across breakfast, snacks, and other everyday moments. To bring this strategy to life, We are launching a new campaign that showcases modern, accessible ways to enjoy peanut butter and gives consumers inspiration for new occasions. Take a look.

Speaker 4

Time for Tina's pro tip of today. A little gif, a little strawberry. That is adorable.

Speaker 7

Peanut food.

Mark Smucker, CEO

Hostess Donets are another example. The Donets brand continues to outperform the broader sweet baked goods category as we focus on winning the growing AM snacking occasion where consumers are increasingly seeking quick, convenient, and satisfying options. We are building on this momentum through innovation early next calendar year, including offerings made with real fruit and other ingredients consumers value, while also ensuring simplified ingredient labels with no artificial sweeteners or dyes. The examples I have shared today reflect how we are leveraging our proven brand-building model and deep understanding of the consumer to identify emerging needs and rapidly bring relevant solutions to market across our portfolio. Consumer-led innovation is more than a pipeline of new products. It is a capability that allows us to strengthen our brands, expand into new occasions, and reach new consumers. In closing, our strategy is working. We are delivering results, strengthening our brands, and investing in capabilities that will drive future growth. Our portfolio is differentiated, our momentum is strong, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver sustainable growth and create long-term shareholder value. I will now turn the discussion over to Tucker.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Mark. Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to join you for this year's conference. As Mark highlighted, we are confident in our ability to drive long-term growth and shareholder value. We remain focused on advancing our fiscal 2027 priorities, and our strong first quarter results demonstrate the progress that we are making across the business. Our first quarter performance was broad-based. Net sales increased 5%, including a one percentage point contribution from volume mix. Importantly, we also delivered gross margin improvement and earnings growth. We generated approximately $337 million of free cash flow, an increase of more than $430 million compared to the prior year. This performance gave us the confidence to improve our full-year net sales outlook by approximately $180 million at the midpoint of our guidance range. We now expect net sales to decrease between 1% and 2%, primarily reflecting net price realization in coffee as anticipated green coffee cost deflation is passed through to consumers through lower prices. We also raised the midpoint of our adjusted earnings per share guidance by $0.75 to a range of $10.50 to $11, and increased our free cash flow outlook by $100 million to approximately $1.1 billion. The progress we are making across the business, combined with our focus on profitability and discipline execution, supports both our fiscal year 2027 outlook and our long-term financial objectives. Importantly, our financial foundation continues to strengthen. In the first quarter, trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA increased to approximately $2.3 billion. Adjusted EBITDA growth combined with debt paydown resulted in a leverage ratio of 2.9 times net debt to EBITDA. As a result, we achieved our three times leverage target ahead of our original expectation. We also expect to generate more than $1 billion in free cash flow for the second consecutive year. Free cash flow was $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2026 and is expected to be approximately $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2027, demonstrating the strong and consistent cash generation of the business. This leveraged position and strong cash generation provide enhanced financial flexibility and continues to support a disciplined and balanced approach to capital deployment. We remain focused on organic growth opportunities, debt paydown, and shareholder return in the form of dividends and share repurchases. We are committed to paying down at least $500 million of debt in this fiscal year, 2027, while maintaining the flexibility to evaluate share repurchases. Another key component of our capital deployment model is our dividend. We remain committed to our dividend, which has increased at a 5% compounded annual growth rate over the past 10 fiscal years. In July, we announced that we increased the dividend for the 25th consecutive fiscal year. We expect our board to maintain the company's current dividend policy, which is to return approximately 40% to 45% of our annual adjusted earnings per share to shareholders, reflecting dividend growth consistent with future earnings growth. This capital deployment model enables us to reinvest in the business and fund our largest growth opportunities while delivering sustainable returns for shareholders. Looking beyond fiscal 2027, we remain confident in our long-term financial algorithm, which consists of the following. Low single-digit net sales growth, mid-single-digit adjusted operating income growth, high single-digit adjusted earnings per share growth, and total shareholder return of approximately 10% or greater when considering our dividend policy. We view these objectives as steady, compelling, and compounding supported by our disciplined capital deployment model. The strength of our portfolio, continued margin expansion opportunities and strong cash generation give us confidence in our ability to deliver sustainable growth and increase shareholder value over time. Thank you for your time today. Andrew, I'll hand it to you.

Operator

Thanks very much, Mark and Tucker. Maybe to start off, Smucker reported a strong fiscal first quarter recently. Organic volume growth across each of your four growth platforms, meaningful underlying gross margin expansion. and an increase to full-year guidance. Of course, some of that had to do with the tariff refund you received in the quarter. But on an underlying basis, I guess, what are the key couple of takeaways you want investors to come away with? And I guess what in the quarter most increased your confidence in the earnings and cash flow outlook for the business?

Mark Smucker, CEO

Andrew, thanks for the question. You know, a lot of what I talked about in the prepared remarks really underscored the strength of the portfolio. And you know, as well as anyone, the work that we've done over the last five-plus years to reshape this portfolio, get it super focused, essentially removing things that would inhibit our aggregate growth. And so that, along with the capabilities that we've invested in, the brand building, which I mentioned in the prepared remarks, and just continuing to be disciplined about supporting this complementary combination of higher growth brands that are really helping to lift the whole company, and then continue to support these mainstream, cash-generating, leading brands like Folders and GIF have really been, that combination has been really unique. You know, and what it has enabled is not only consistently driving growth, but it's also allowed us to accelerate our debt pay down, obviously continue to support the dividend, deploy cash responsibly, and even to the point we're now considering at some point in the not-too-distant future, do we have the flexibility to potentially buy back shares?

Operator

If we take a step back, portfolio has changed considerably over the past several years. You've increasingly concentrated resources behind Uncrustables, Cafe Bustelo, Meow Mix, and Milkbone. How do you think about the role each of those platforms needs to play in delivering the long-term algorithm? And what gives you the confidence that the growth of those brands can sort of more than offset the slower growth elsewhere in the portfolio?

Mark Smucker, CEO

It pretty much goes back to what I just mentioned. You know, if we continue to support the growth of each of those brands, if you think about Uncrustables, We are now in an unconstrained capacity environment where we're pulling forward the turning on, if you will, of the second phase in our McCullough, Alabama plant, which is already built. It's a function of us staffing and really activating those assets, which will continue to support growth. But probably more importantly on Uncrustables, if you just think about the expansion of the offerings, the flavors, the fridge-friendly, the protein has given us additional space at retail. So we've expanded distribution just in terms of the sheer freezer space. We have great opportunities in away-from-home channels as well, which would include convenience. So that's just a great example. And then you look at milk bone, having returned milk bone to growth, at least in this quarter, and continuing to focus there on innovation and taking advantage of, you know, premiumization, humanization trends, as well as building out core biscuits in some functional ways. So those are just a couple examples, but I really think it goes back to, again, that combination, that complementary combination of leading and growth brands.

Operator

You reached your leverage target, as you mentioned, of at or below three times earlier than expected, raised the free cash flow outlook to approximately $1.1 billion, and have begun speaking more directly about flexibility to consider share of purchases down the line. I guess how should investors think about the threshold for moving from debt reduction towards buybacks? And would repurchase be opportunistic based on valuation, or do you think a more recurring component of capital allocation?

Speaker 5

Yeah, Andrew, we remain committed to generating strong free cash flow so that we have the ability to have a balanced capital deployment model where we can reinvest in the business and return capital to shareholders. And in this fiscal year, the priority is we need to achieve $500 million of debt paydown. We've made a good start to that in our first quarter. We also need to continue to support our quarterly dividend, which we did in July by announcing the September increase. And we also need to ensure that the momentum of the portfolio continues. But as you move beyond that, now that we have sort of reached that three times leverage profile, it enables us to consider share repurchases when and where appropriate. And the form and the format and sort of the approach to it is still under consideration. But the great thing is, is that over the last several years, we've strengthened the balance sheet and we've gotten to more of a balanced opportunistic approach to deploying capital.

Operator

At the start of the fiscal year, I think you'd contemplated a list price reduction as lower green coffee costs flowed through the P&L. Recent commodity volatility has obviously led you to pause that action, rely more heavily on trade investment. How do you determine when the commodities move far enough and for long enough to justify a list price reduction rather than additional promotion? And how do you balance the obligation to pass through lower costs with the opportunity to recover margins in coffee?

Mark Smucker, CEO

So on the latter point, I think we can do both. But what I would say, Andrew, most importantly, when we think about list price declines, we internally think about certain thresholds that have to be crossed. Yes, there's been a lot of volatility, which has allowed us, or not allowed us, rather, to cross some of those key thresholds. But because we have seen enough deflation in the commodity, it has allowed us to use the other levers available to us to be able to pass some of those decreases along to the consumer. So it is a balance in the sense of making sure that we're protecting our profitability, but also doing the responsible thing and judiciously passing those along to the consumer, whether it's increases or decrease. In this market, obviously, we're seeing decreases. What I would highlight about the commodity is there are indicators that this crop is healthy. And, you know, as the harvest is finished, and although we have seen some volatility, we did see some relief in the last week, particularly on Arabica and futures prices. So to the extent that that can be sustained, that could allow us to contemplate either additional trade actions or potentially a list price decline if we can cross those deciles in a sustained manner.

Operator

Uncrustables reached a billion dollars in annual sales last year and saw sales re-accelerate to double-digit growth in the fiscal first quarter such that you raised the full year outlook for the brand from mid-single-digit to high-single-digit growth this fiscal year. I know you're probably not ready to necessarily put another sort of multi-year target out there yet on the brand, but maybe you can talk a bit more in terms of roughly what inning maybe of Uncrustables growth we're in and where you feel the brand still has the largest opportunities to expand in terms of distribution and innovation.

Mark Smucker, CEO

Yeah, I spoke to a lot of this already. I guess what I might add is just the continued brand building support. You may recall that because we were in a capacity-constrained environment for so long, a couple years ago we had the ability to obviously come out of that, which allowed us to start to invest in the brand. So we had never really marketed. Obviously, we've got a couple different campaigns that we've run since, and that has continued to support awareness. There's been tons of organic support for the brands that has been unpaid celebrity endorsements. Some, of course, we've linked up with and paid for. So across the media spectrum and just the cultural landscape, I think, has given us confidence that there's plenty of runway. and ultimately with household penetration at 27%, that is less than most of our brands. So we do think there's continued runway just in traditional households, let alone the away-from-home channels I mentioned earlier.

Operator

You've reshaped your pet portfolio to position yourself within cat food and dog snacks. Perhaps you could spend a few minutes talking about your view of these categories, the future growth drivers, as well as maybe where you see the opportunities for Smucker in support of future growth.

Mark Smucker, CEO

Sure. The good news on pet is that we made a conscious choice to exit dog food and really doubled down on dog snacks and cat food. There are structural tailwinds in the categories which are supportive of growth, not least of which would be pet population growth, and then the trends of humanization, the way we humanize our pets, And the premiumization of those categories is also supportive to both segments. I spoke a little bit earlier about Milk Bone, but maybe just on Meow Mix. Again, the brand-building engine that has continued to fuel Meow Mix, along with innovation, we've had some really good wins with these gravy bursts and so forth. And in the other segments where we have a smaller participation, we believe that, again, in those segments, there's runway for us as well. So a lot of structural headwinds coupled with our capabilities.

Operator

Maybe what we'll do is we'll take one more in here, but then we're going to go to the breakout after and plenty of time for more questions. Maybe a good way to close. There appears to be, I think, a fairly clear investment debate right around the company today. Whether Smucker's entering a period of more durable volume growth and structural margin recovery or whether recent strength is being held by unusually favorable coffee dynamics and maybe one or two standout growth brands, what do you think investors maybe are most underappreciating about the earnings power and quality of the portfolio over the next, call it, three to five years?

Mark Smucker, CEO

I guess what I would like to remind folks is that, as we've said, we have done a lot of hard work to reshape this portfolio. And that's all in service of getting to a suite of brands that meet consumer needs, that play across the value spectrum, that provide consumers with products and brands for all types of eating occasions. Obviously, that goes for pets as well. And so we like to believe that and really convince our investors, our shareholders, that that work has all worked and it has demonstrated that our strategy is working and that it enables top-line growth, it enables us to continue to expand our profitability, and then ultimately continuing to serve our shareholders with a solid capital deployment model. Okay.

Operator

Good. All right. Why don't we cut it there? Let's go to the breakout. Please join me in thanking Smucker for being here and enjoy your Uncrustables. Thank you.