The J. M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Tucker Marshall: Peter, good morning. We delivered our quarter in line with our expectations. And let me break this down for you. On a reported basis, we were down 4%. But as you isolate the impact of the pet food divestiture, on a comparable sales basis, we would be up 21%. Embedded in that 21% is 11 points of Jif growth or restoration primarily due to lapping the peanut butter recall. The second component would be the required co-manufacturing agreement or growth of 3 points. That leaves base business growth of 6.5 points for the quarter. And within that 6.5 points, we saw approximately 2.5 from a volume/mix standpoint and 4 points from net pricing.

Peter Galbo: Okay. And just on the 16%, sorry, that’s on slide 4, Tucker, just again between that versus the 21% that you printed, just trying to understand the delta.

Tucker Marshall: Yes. It’s the math associated with the divestiture impact on a reported basis year-over-year.

Peter Galbo: Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. And then, Mark, I think in your prepared comments, you spoke a bit about a reacceleration or planned reacceleration in Uncrustables growth from the quarter. Can you just kind of speak through the cadence of some of that over the course of the year and maybe just what we might be seeing from a track standpoint versus untracked as you push into some other channels like Canada?

Mark Smucker: Yes, sure, Peter. It’s — first of all, we’re really pleased with the Uncrustables growth. Keep in mind that we had — we’re lapping a really strong Q1 last year as well as we had a very strong prior quarter, which happened as a result of us really getting completely off allocation. So the momentum on Uncrustables is actually really strong, and we expect growth to continue to be around that 20-ish percent for the full year. And what’s driving it is, of course, some expansion into new channels. I mean, Canada is so far very — very relatively small but great customer acceptance there, some other expansion into Away From Home. But I think probably most notably is the fact that we have just a lot of runway on household penetration.

If you look in my prepared remarks, just talking about peanut butter and jams and jellies being 3x the household penetration of Uncrustables. So there’s plenty of runway there. And we’re turning on advertising and other in-store activations. They are really, for the first time, going to start driving demand and pulling through the network. So, just very positive on Uncrustables still and expect to hit around $800 million for the year in sales.

Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Ken Goldman from JP Morgan.

Ken Goldman: Just following up on your commentary that for the second quarter, like-for-like sales should be up mid single digits and EPS up low single. Just as we think about modeling the quarter, are there any unusual tailwinds or headwinds to consider? I guess, how do we think about the specific cadence of your contract sales on pet in the quarter? Are there any lingering benefits from lapping the Jif recall that may bleed into 2Q? Just wanted to get a sense of anything we should think about just as we’re modeling as precisely as we can.

Tucker Marshall: As you think about the second quarter, just reinforcing mid-single-digit top line, and that’s squarely in mid-single-digits, low-single-digit bottom line. The first component that I would just acknowledge is, is that we did have a $0.16 over-delivery in the first quarter, which was largely SD&A-driven. So, the predominance of those expenses will begin to come back in the second quarter and then throughout the remainder of the fiscal year. And then, as you think through the balance of the portfolio, continued momentum of spreads with some Jif recovery coming into the second quarter, momentum on Uncrustables. The coffee category will continue to perform. And then in the pet segment, there’s — the co-manufacturing sales, you probably could just make a little bit more equally across the second and third quarters with a slight slowdown in the fourth.