JM Smucker at Barclays Conference: Strategy for Growth

On Tuesday, 02 September 2025, J.M. Smucker Co. (NYSE:SJM) presented at the Barclays 18th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025, revealing a strategic focus on brand growth and financial discipline. The company highlighted its strong brand portfolio and plans to enhance shareholder value despite challenges such as commodity costs and tariffs.

Key Takeaways

• J.M. Smucker raised its full-year net sales guidance to 3% to 5% growth.
• The Uncrustables brand is anticipated to exceed $1 billion in sales this year.
• The company plans to reduce debt by $500 million annually for the next two fiscal years.
• A focus on brand-building and innovation aims to drive long-term growth.
• The Hostess brand is undergoing stabilization with cost-saving measures.

Financial Results

First Quarter Performance:

• Comparable growth of 3% in the first quarter.
• EPS exceeded expectations, though the full-year outlook remains unchanged due to tariff pressures.

Full Year Guidance:

• Net sales growth guidance increased to 3% to 5%.
• Adjusted EPS guidance remains at $8.50 to $9.50.
• The company aims for a total shareholder return of approximately 10% or greater.

Long-Term Financial Targets:

• Low single-digit net sales growth.
• Mid-single-digit operating income growth.
• High single-digit adjusted EPS growth.
• At least $1 billion in free cash flow annually.

Operational Updates

Coffee Segment:

• Café Bustelo remains a fast-growing brand, with new roast profiles and a ready-to-drink format launching soon.

Uncrustables Brand:

• Expected to surpass $1 billion in net sales this fiscal year.
• Expanded distribution into over 30,000 convenience stores.
• New product launches include a peanut butter and raspberry spread sandwich.

Pet Segment:

• Milk-Bone Peanut Buttery Bites and Meow Mix Gravy Bursts are driving growth.
• Strong momentum in the pet segment with continued innovation.

Hostess Brand:

• Focus on portfolio strengthening and cost savings, including closing a manufacturing facility for $30 million in annual savings.
• New marketing efforts are increasing brand awareness and purchase intent.

Future Outlook

• Sequential profit improvement expected throughout the year.
• U.S. retail coffee margins to improve by Q4.
• Elasticity assumptions for pricing are better than anticipated.

Q&A Highlights

• The company’s performance is attributed to a strong brand portfolio and strategic capital deployment.
• While the coffee segment is performing well, the company remains cautious due to inflation.
• Continued focus on expanding Uncrustables distribution and Meow Mix performance.

In conclusion, J.M. Smucker Co. remains committed to its growth strategy and financial targets. For a detailed review, please refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Barclays 18th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025:

Andrew, Host: I’d like to welcome back to our conference, The J.M. Smucker Co. With us today are CEO and Chairman of the Board, Mark Smucker, and CFO, Tucker Marshall. 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, and thanks for being here.

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. It’s always great to be back. It’s clearly great to see everyone. Thank you for being here today, whether you’re listening online or here in the room. We appreciate you guys taking the time to be with us. Tucker and I will provide some brief comments, and then we will reserve the remainder of the time for questions. Please note that certain information provided today is forward-looking, based on current views and assumptions. We use non-GAAP results for the purpose of evaluating performance internally. Details for both items can be found in the slides for today’s presentation, available on our Investor Relations website. With that, let’s get started. My commentary today will be centered around three key points.

First, we are confident in the long-term growth potential of the company, driven by the strength of our portfolio of leading brands and the attractive categories in which we operate. Second, our world-class brand-building model continues to be an advantage for us as consumers turn to brands they know and trust, and we continue to bring consumer-led innovation to market. Third, we are focused on delivering on our capital deployment model and our ambition to generate over $1 billion in free cash flow annually. Each of these reinforces the strong foundation we have established and demonstrates the benefits of our portfolio optimization over the last several years, through which we have fundamentally transformed the company. Our strategy is working. While we are navigating through a dynamic environment, our portfolio continues to deliver top-line growth, supported by strong consumer demand for our leading brands.

All of this leaves me with a high level of confidence in our ability to create long-term value for our shareholders. Let me share some examples of how we are prioritizing resources to our largest growth opportunities in each of our businesses through our key growth platforms: Café Bustelo, Uncrustables, Meow Mix, Milk-Bone, and Hostess. Starting with the coffee segment, our portfolio is performing well as we navigate record-high green coffee prices and continue to demonstrate the ability to recover increased commodity costs through responsible pricing. Overall, price elasticity of demand trends have been favorable to our initial expectations and historical averages. This demonstrates the resilience of the at-home coffee category, where we have a strong leadership position with three of the top eight brands, and reinforces the strength of our world-class brand-building model.

We are focusing resources on the Café Bustelo brand, which continues to be one of the fastest-growing brands in the at-home coffee category. Café Bustelo has tremendous momentum, which we continue to fuel through a national marketing campaign with creative that built upon the distinctive and unique "Estaque" campaign. We also launched innovation through new roast profiles now in market. This includes medium and dark roasts, expanding from the brand’s traditional espresso brew to blends that can be brewed more easily in traditional drip brewers, to appeal to younger, more diverse buyers while remaining authentic to its Latin roots. In cold coffee, we are providing consumers with convenient offerings to drive incremental occasions. We recently launched Café Bustelo Multiserve, and we are launching the Café Bustelo brand into a single-serve, ready-to-drink format later this month. Take a look at some of our new marketing.

Unidentified speaker: ¡Bache! Se enteró?

Unidentified speaker: Sí, salí.

Unidentified speaker: now what are you doing with the tea?

Unidentified speaker: Estamos ahí en la pista, nos vimos. Somos Suena Chelita.

Unidentified speaker: Only your favorites?

Café Bustelo is here.

Andrew, Host: Our proven brand-building model continues to give us confidence in our ambition for Café Bustelo to become a top-four brand in the at-home coffee category. Our actions will increase brand awareness and household penetration, and we are excited about the opportunities ahead. Next, our frozen handheld and spreads business and the Uncrustables brand. This fiscal year, we anticipate growing annual net sales for the Uncrustables brand to over $1 billion. Growth will be driven by our brand-building model through a national advertising campaign, distribution gains, and innovation. Let me touch on each of these. For marketing, we are still early in our journey, but the results are impressive. Since we turned on demand-generating activities, we have made significant strides in household penetration growth, adding over 4 million new households in the last year alone. The brand continues to infuse itself throughout pop culture and social media.

Let’s take a look at some recent influencer content at the Little League World Series.

Unidentified speaker: Fluid was said to be the ultimate one-handed snack. Today we’re going to put it to the ultimate test. Clutter with Uncrustables here at the Little League World Series to see what level of one-handed activities we can achieve. Level one, feeding Jackson Olsen.

Unidentified speaker: I got some good bites.

Unidentified speaker: Level two, eating another Uncrustables. This is a perfect snack on the go. Level three, sign an autograph for a fan. Thanks, dude. Level four, score on Encrusta Toss. First try. Level five, trading a pin. Level six, the backflip catch. All right, got that. The final level, this might be the most difficult one-handed activity in history, the Iron Lotus Statue. Ooh, that’s close. That’s so close. Oh, off the glove again. So close.

Unidentified speaker: The one before the one. You know what I mean?

Unidentified speaker: That’s true. That’s right. That was the one before the one. There you have it. The Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. They taste delicious, and we can confirm they are the ultimate one-handed snack.

Andrew, Host: From a distribution perspective, we continue to gain traditional freezer space and are also expanding into convenience stores. This new channel will not only provide more availability for the Uncrustables brand, but also unlocks the benefit of immediate consumption. Uncrustables sandwiches are now selling in over 30,000 convenience stores, and more than two-thirds of the top 100 chains are either selling Uncrustables sandwiches or have committed to distribution. We are also seeing the benefits of accelerating our innovation efforts. Take, for example, the new Uncrustables peanut butter and raspberry spread sandwich. We anticipate this innovation will generate over $50 million in net sales this fiscal year and is proving to be highly incremental. We also launched a new berry burst variety for the summer and are excited to launch a new peanut butter choco craze variety this fall, which we have in the back to taste.

This regular cadence of limited edition flavors continues to generate excitement for the brand experience, and we will continue to bring consumer-led innovation to market. To that end, we are excited to announce we are launching a new Uncrustables sandwich variety focused on higher protein. We have already received strong retailer acceptance, with distribution expected later this calendar year. Though our growth has been tremendous, we remain most excited about the future. The number one SKU in the total frozen category is an Uncrustables sandwich, with two SKUs in the top 10. The Uncrustables brand is leading the entire frozen category in new buyers for households with kids, Millennials, and Gen Z. We are creating a truly iconic brand with widespread multi-generational appeal, which will soon be a top three brand in the total freezer aisle.

For our pet segment, we have leading brands in Milk-Bone dog snacks and Meow Mix cat food. Pet population trends continue to be positive and are expected to grow over the long term. As the pet population has grown, so has the humanization of the category. We continue to drive this trend by launching the first dog treat featuring a human food brand with Milk-Bone Peanut Buttery Bites made with Jif peanut butter. This innovation exceeded our expectations and was the largest dog treat launch in the category last year. Given its success, we see a tremendous opportunity in this brand partnership as a platform for future growth. We will be extending the Jif and Milk-Bone brands’ collaboration with innovation launching early next calendar year. We continue to focus on the next generation of pet parents that are still forming their treating preferences.

The Milk-Bone brand is in a strong position as a trusted brand in the category to build deeper connections with these young consumers through culturally relevant and engaging marketing that matches their evolving media consumption. We are even partnering with superheroes. Take a look.

Unidentified speaker: Milk-Bone is there for every. Come here, boy. For every. You want a treat?

Crystal Beiting. For every good boy. For Superman’s best friend. Treat your dog like a superhero with Milk-Bone. Don’t miss Superman, now playing only in theaters. Rated PG-13.

Andrew, Host: Shifting to cat food, we have strong momentum with the Meow Mix brand, and the cat category is experiencing tailwinds in pet population growth, with U.S. cat households continuing to grow. Our innovation also continues to demonstrate strong results as we are elevating the mealtime experience through Milk-Bone Gravy Bursts. This innovation brings gravy indulgence to the dry aisle, providing excitement for cats and convenience for pet parents. Meow Mix Gravy Bursts is the top dry cat category innovation this year. Next, the Hostess brand, where we are executing on our three priorities to stabilize and position the brand for long-term growth by strengthening the portfolio, elevating our execution, and reigniting sustainable growth. We are advancing this strategy by continuing to take decisive actions, most recently by reducing our SKU count by 25% to simplify our offerings as we prioritize high velocity and margin of creative SKUs.

We are closing the Indianapolis manufacturing facility, which will deliver $30 million in annual cost savings. We continue to apply our proven brand-building model through culturally relevant marketing and refreshed packaging. Our Speaky Snacky advertising campaign is culturally relevant and speaks to the entire universe of sweet snackers. See for yourself.

Unidentified speaker: Shout out to Hostess for partnering with me on this one.

Andrew, Host: Don’t judge me. I needed this.

Unidentified speaker: You’re good. Carry on. Got a little heat chat. How do you screen record again?

Andrew, Host: Piece of Hostess cupcake.

Unidentified speaker: Did you walk Mike today?

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.0: How’s it? Pinkish weather.

Unidentified speaker: Oh, we’re making Zingers, aren’t we?

Andrew, Host: Ding dong.

Unidentified speaker: All right, this is snowballing out of control.

Andrew, Host: Hey, coffee cake if you make it.

Unidentified speaker: With Hostess, snack time goes from meh to the best part of your day.

Andrew, Host: Our new marketing campaign continues to deliver strong results with unaided awareness and purchase intent, both increasing double digits for our target market. The campaign has also successfully increased consumer sentiment attributes around both taste and loyalty. These actions support our strategy by driving share and velocity performance and aligning segment margins with the company average. We are already seeing results from our strategy as base velocities are improving. We have returned to share growth at several key customers, and segment profit improved sequentially in the first quarter. As we look to the future and reigniting sustainable growth, we are focusing on the unique areas of strength by evolving our demand creation strategy and shifting our innovation strategy to ensure we are strengthening the iconic parts of the Hostess portfolio. This includes Hostess Cupcake Minis and Churro Donuts, and we are bringing back the iconic Hostess Suzy Q’s this month.

We continue to apply our proven brand-building model to Hostess, which remains an iconic brand with strong awareness, category-leading household penetration, and beloved products. In closing, the investments in our brands, our portfolio optimization, and our focus on our key platforms are driving top-line growth and continue to give us confidence in sustaining momentum for the business. Our strategy is working, and we are well positioned to deliver long-term growth and increase shareholder value. I’ll now turn the discussion over to Tucker.

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.1: Thank you, Mark. Good afternoon, everyone. It’s great to join you for this year’s conference. As Mark highlighted, although we are navigating near-term dynamics, we continue to feel confident in the long-term growth potential of the company as we execute on our strategy and successfully manage those things that we can control. We did exactly this in our first quarter and are pleased with our start to our fiscal year. Our first quarter results and business momentum, primarily in our coffee portfolio, gave us confidence to raise our full-year net sales guidance to 3% to 5% growth compared to the prior year. Given the current external environment, we maintained our adjusted earnings per share guidance range of $8.50 to $9.50. The increase in our net sales guidance will be offset by what we anticipate to be a higher cost impact from U.S. tariffs.

We remain confident in our ability to deliver consistent execution toward our financial targets. Turning toward our longer-term expectations, which is comprised of the following: low single-digit net sales growth, mid-single-digit 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 see these objectives as steady, compelling, and compounding, including a commitment to a disciplined capital deployment model. Our company has consistently demonstrated the ability to generate strong cash flow that allows us to take a balanced approach to capital deployment in support of shareholder value creation, including investing in the growth of our business, paying down debt, and returning capital through quarterly dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. Our objective remains to generate at least $1 billion in free cash flow annually.

Business growth, working capital management, and a reduced level of capital expenditures are the key components to achieving this. Our long-term strategic target for capital expenditures continues to be approximately 3.5% of net sales. Capital expenditures have been elevated for the last five years, primarily driven by our efforts to support the rapid growth and required capacity expansion for Uncrustables sandwiches. This fiscal year, we expect to finish at approximately 3.6% of net sales at the midpoint of our guidance range. We plan to prioritize debt reduction by paying down $500 million of debt annually this fiscal year and next. With this anticipated debt reduction and overall business growth, we anticipate a leverage ratio at or below 3 times net debt to EBITDA by the end of our fiscal year 2027. This level of leverage provides the financial flexibility for a balanced approach to capital deployment.

Finally, we remain committed to our dividends, which has increased at a 6% compound annual growth rate over the past 10 fiscal years. In July, we announced that we increased the dividend for the 24th 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 EPS to shareholders, reflecting dividend growth consistent with future earnings growth. Our capital deployment model also enables us to reinvest in the business and fund our largest growth opportunities while delivering sustainable returns for shareholders. Looking forward, we remain committed to delivering total shareholder return of approximately 10% or greater over the long term. In closing, we remain confident in our strategy and our ability to deliver continued growth across our portfolio, and we are well positioned to deliver consistent and long-term sustainable growth for our shareholders.

Thank you for your time today. Andrew, I’ll hand it to you.

Andrew, Host: Thanks very much, Mark and Tucker. Maybe to jump in, Smucker just reported fiscal first quarter earnings last week. What are the couple of key takeaways that you want investors to come away with from recent results?

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: Andrew, first of all, I would say, obviously, in our prepared remarks, we really are focused on delivering our strategy. As you know, we’ve been on this journey for the last few years to really get our portfolio focused and where we think it needs to be to deliver that growth. We’re very pleased with the portfolio as it stands today. We’re delivering on our commitment and our own expectations in terms of what we put out there for guidance. We increased our guidance. We delivered in the quarter 3% comparable growth and then raised our top-line guidance by a point, based largely on the performance of coffee and supported by Uncrustables and our performance on Meow Mix.

Despite the fact that we’re in this very uncertain environment where costs are changing, we have highly elevated coffee costs, we have tariffs, we have other factors at play, the fact that we’ve been able to continue to deliver organic growth is one of the most important things that we really want to communicate to our investors and our confidence in our ability to sustain that over time.

Andrew, Host: Right. The company delivered comparable sales in fiscal 1Q, certainly well above your initial expectations. Results were a bit nuanced, as you mentioned, because obviously there was really good strength in U.S. retail coffee, which helped drive the upside. The other retail segments were a bit below track consumption data. I guess sticking with coffee for the minute, some of the upside was largely due to volume elasticity that so far has been more modest than initially forecast. What are you seeing in the coffee category overall right now in terms of consumer behavior in response to the industry pricing? Why is it, do you think, that elasticity has held up as well as it has so far?

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: Answering the last part first, you know, again, we have a great coffee portfolio. We play across the spectrum of value. We have premium brands. We have more affordable brands. Overall, our portfolio is performing. Part of the reason why we see consumption still reasonably solid is because it’s affordable to drink coffee at home. Despite the significant inflation, we continue to see about 70% or more of cups consumed are consumed at home. I mean, a cup of coffee that you brew in a regular drip brewer is about $0.10 to $0.15 a cup versus what you might, you know, if you go out for it or if you, you know, in other forms. It’s still very affordable.

You know, we’re pleased with the elasticity performance, but what we want to make sure that we remind our shareholders is that we are at a moment in time with the most significant coffee inflation that we’ve ever seen in history. Prices have never been at these levels for green coffee. As you know, we’ve taken multiple price increases. On top of that, you’ve got tariffs. Recently, you have new tariffs as it relates to Brazil specifically, where a third of the world’s coffee is grown. Because of the significant pricing, obviously the underlying costs, we feel that we just have got to take a very prudent approach. We are not projecting beyond sort of normalized elasticities going forward because we expect that inflation is going to continue. Eventually, and no one knows when, we may see some moderation.

Andrew, Host: Yeah, yeah, makes sense. You were able to, the company was able to deliver EPS certainly above expectations in the first quarter, but you maintained your full-year outlook. A lot of this had to do with what’s been obviously favorable coffee elasticity thus far, but being offset by some incremental tariff pressure. I guess moving forward, assuming tariffs stay where they are, if the company is able to continue to over-deliver on the fundamentals, perhaps elasticity assumptions continue to prove conservative, we’ll see. How do we think about the upside that could flow through to the bottom line? Obviously EPS is expected to be lower this year, year over year, again, because of inflation. Trying to get a sense, would the company try and recoup as much of earnings as it can, or would you lean further into reinvestment given the still dynamic consumer environment?

Trying to get a sense whether, as you mentioned, fiscal 2027 has the potential, depending on how things go, to be a well above kind of algorithm year.

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.1: Yeah, Andrew, we’re very pleased with our first quarter results, as Mark shared, largely driven by the performance of our coffee portfolio. That portfolio is really just demonstrating the resilience of not only the category, but also our brands within the category. Our outlook for coffee is a key driver to our full fiscal year. Elasticities for our summertime pricing have really come in better than anticipated. We’re sort of taking a historical view in our late summer pricing activities, and we’re taking a little bit of a greater than historical view on the price elasticity of assumption for the kind of the winter months in terms of pricing. As we think about delivering our fiscal year, we think that we have a prudent guidance out both at top line and bottom line.

The important thing is for us to take it by quarter by quarter to understand not only the performance within U.S. retail coffee, but also the balance of our portfolio. We will always balance return and reinvestments from a bottom line standpoint. We understand the importance of building back earnings over time, but we also understand the importance of investing in our brands and in our portfolio. We would also share that we should see sequential improvement not only from a bottom line standpoint throughout our portfolio as we go through the balance of the fiscal year, but we will also see the margin profile within our U.S. retail coffee business improve as we get to the fourth quarter as well.

We think all of this bodes well to not only set up the long-term success and health of the company, but really to begin then thinking about what the outlook could look like for next fiscal year.

Andrew, Host: Right. In Sweet Baked Snacks, you delivered sequential net sales and margin improvement in the first quarter. How are you thinking about the progress of Sweet Baked Snacks, stabilization throughout the course of the fiscal year, I guess from a top and bottom line perspective? What should we expect to see in terms of track data? Do you believe we can return the brand back to being stable year over year or even modest growth by year end?

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: First of all, really believe in this brand. It’s a great brand. It is iconic. Our degree of focus that we’re bringing back to the portfolio, both in terms of the actual products offered as well as our manufacturing footprint, are going to help us deliver both improvement or at least stabilization in the near term for both top and bottom line. We do expect to see sequential profit improvement over the course of the year. Although we are at very much the early innings of the stabilization work, we’re starting to see some green shoots. We talked about that last week on our call, things like improved share performance at two of our largest and most significant traditional customers. We’re starting to see improving trends in the convenience channel. With donuts, the number one donut offered in these channels, we’re actually seeing growth there.

The breakfast occasion continues to be a very strong occasion. Continuing to build on the strengths that we have, those green shoots are what continue to give us hope that we can continue down the stabilization journey and over time return the brand to growth.

Andrew, Host: Within the U.S. retail, frozen and handheld and spreads, how is Uncrustables performing? What are the company’s expectations going forward for the brand specifically? What are we seeing in sort of recent scanner or track Nielsen trends?

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: We’re seeing excellent performance at Uncrustables. The brand continues to have tons of runway. In the last, call it, year plus, we gained a lot of new distribution both in our existing channels where we got essentially more freezer space. You heard us talk a little bit about the convenience channel. Obviously, in the away from home area, we’ve seen some growth there. What we’re really excited about is the innovation. You heard about the raspberry, peanut butter and raspberry, peanut butter and mixed berry, which is a limited time offering. In the prepared remarks, talked about a higher protein offering, which is very welcome by consumers. There are basically two flavors: up and apple, which is in peanut butter and apple cinnamon jelly execution, and then another berry, Bright Eyed Berry is the name of the product.

We are targeting these products at the breakfast occasion, the morning occasion, because that is where consumers seem to gravitate to a higher protein content, although it will be, of course, available throughout the day. We’re really excited about that offering and the continued ability for us to offer new flavors and limited time offerings should continue to fuel growth.

Andrew, Host: Right. There’s been an increasing level of competition in the PB&J sort of sandwich space. How do you think about these newer entrants? How do you ensure that Uncrustables remains advantaged? Nothing attracts attention like growth. Obviously, we’ve been showing a lot of it within Uncrustables, so it should be expected there’d be more. What are your expectations in terms of what you’ll see competitively, and how do you manage that?

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: We knew that this moment was coming because obviously it’s a great product concept, and it’s done extremely well. It starts with our brand building support. We’ve obviously had this proven model. You saw some of the influencer work earlier, but also our traditional advertising and marketing campaign is going to continue to fuel growth, our partnerships with retailers. On the supply chain side, as you know, we’ve invested for two decades to build out the manufacturing footprint for this brand, and we feel that we have a ton of runway and capacity that give us a unique first mover advantage. We can leverage the entire ecosystem of brand building, customer relationships, and quite frankly, just brand love for this product that will continue to fuel growth.

Andrew, Host: Your away from home business continues to deliver net sales growth and margin expectation in an industry that’s been certainly challenged around the consumer environment. Can you help us understand what differentiates that business, and what are your aspirations for this business from a top and bottom line perspective?

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: First of all, we play in multiple segments, whether that’s office coffee, liquid coffee, obviously Uncrustables has multiple places that it can go. We have our tabletop Jif and Smucker’s portion control products. I think what gives us uniqueness is that about three quarters of our away from home portfolio is branded, right? We generally do not play in the back of house. The end user is always seeing our brand in almost every one of those consumption occasions, and that continues to be a virtuous cycle with the rest of our business. I am really excited about our away from home overall. I would say we have a great team that really understands both how to build relationships in these channels and really leverage the strength of our brands, building on what consumers are looking for. All of that gives us great optimism for that business.

Andrew, Host: U.S. retail pet foods experienced a bit of a shortfall in the recent quarter as well. You lowered the full-year revenue outlook for that business by about $10 million. You spoke about some weakness in secondary brands, but also spoke about some slight signs of improvement at the broader category level. Maybe you can provide a bit more detail on some of these dynamics.

Mark Smucker, CEO and Chairman of the Board, The J.M. Smucker Co.: Yeah, you know, Meow Mix has been performing very well. The innovation, the Gravy Burst, has helped support that. Of course, Meow Mix is a very affordable brand. Both the re-platforming of the brand and the innovation all support that, as well as the brand building efforts. We have spoken a bit about the softness in Milk-Bone and just acknowledge that in a discretionary category like pet snacks, consumers are being a bit more cautious. They are treating their pets less frequently than they may have, say, during the pandemic. What gives us optimism about Milk-Bone is its historical performance playing across the entire spectrum of value of the category.

Also, thinking about innovation where there’s so many different treating occasions, the performance of the Peanut Buttery Bites gives us optimism about how we can continue to expand the portfolio and innovate because news obviously helps drive this category as well. Again, a combination of brand building and focusing on where the consumer is going over time, we believe we can get that brand back to growth as well.

Andrew, Host: Okay. All right. I think we’ll have to cut it there for time, but please join us right next door in the breakout, and please join me in thanking Mark and Tucker.

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