CAGNY: Smucker Rides Uncrustables Rocket; Still Building Hostess Back Up

Likely not to the surprise of many, The J.M. Smucker Co. spent a significant portion of its presentation at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) discussing the high-flying, continued growth of its Uncrustables business and all the moves the company has in mind to keep that bird soaring.

Beyond the crust-free frozen sandwich products, however, Smucker told a compelling story around the growth of its well-known and established brands in at-home coffee and pet food and snacks — and offered an update on how the company is still working to get its Hostess brand on a better growth curve.

Mark Smucker, chair of the board, president and CEO of the company, started out with the at-home coffee category, which Smucker sees as a strong and resilient category, in that around 70% of all coffee-drinking occasions are at home and that 3 of 4 Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee. The Folgers and Dunkin’ brands have growth opportunities, but the company put a heavy emphasis on riding the Café Bustelo wave that appears to be building.

Smucker plans to double household penetration of the brand and has launched cold coffee multi-serve products to expand adoption of the brand. Also, new roast profiles, such as Dulce de Leche and Light Roast, for example, are on the way this summer — and the company plans to launch single-serve RTD cold coffee products in fiscal 2026. Overall, Smucker said the company is adapting and navigating the highly inflationary green coffee environment currently.

Moving to Uncrustables, Smucker pointed out that the company expects the brand to post more than $900 million in net sales in fiscal 2025, riding real momentum after adding four million new households in the marketplace in the last year. The company’s third (and largest) Uncrustables processing facility opened in November 2024 in McCalla, Ala. — a years-long capital expense that will help Smucker keep up with demand. Phase One is operational and can grow the brand to more than $1 billion in net sales, Smucker told the audience, and that Phase Two of the facility would double the plant’s capacity when it was finished. No doubt great news for any lovers of the brand.

All that growth, and the brand has yet to realize its full potential in the convenience store and K-12 schools channels. Since Smucker acquired Hostess, many speculated the latter’s c-store connections would be a natural path for Uncrustables, and Smucker is still working to expand the sandwich into that channel. Meanwhile, to entice more school programs into purchase, new flavors and varieties (a peanut butter-only variety that Smucker said was his personal favorite, for example), as well as limited-time offerings will start this summer. The company is also looking at more seasonal special varieties.

In the pet food and snacks category, continuing to win over new pet parents to purchase Milk Bone and Meow Mix brands for their pets is the key focus. One interesting point: According to Smucker, Milk Bone’s recently launched Milk Bone Peanut Buttery Bites, made with real Jif peanut butter (another Smucker brand), is the first dog treat to feature a human food brand. This as people continue to treat their dogs and cats more like humans and members of their families.

Meanwhile, on the sweet baked goods side of the business, Smucker said the company was confident in the Hostess brand and detailed the status of the roadmap it was following to build it back to growth. First, he highlighted a new marketing campaign coupled with a logo and packaging redesign aimed at refreshing to a more modern look.

Hostess was expanding distribution into away-from-home channels, and Smucker mentioned both travel and university channels as standouts here. Smucker has also opened the doors on product innovation, with more flavors, varieties and limited-time products. Donettes Fritter Rings and Hostess Cupcake Minis were two products cited as evidence of this new approach.

Smucker also happily announced the return of SuzyQ’s, which he said consumers have been asking the company for since the acquisition, and Smucker is happy to bring it back this September. In line with how Hostess’ c-store connections as helpful to Uncrustables and other brands, Smucker expects more cross-promotion to occur between Hostess and other brands in Smucker’s family moving forward.

He mentioned that the divestiture of the Voortman business in December 2024, as well as a Chicago manufacturing facility (part of the Cloverhill and Big Texas brands that were sold a couple weeks ago), both show the company’s commitment to investing appropriately to unlock costs and reduce complexity in its sweet baked goods business unit.