Mark Smucker, Co President and CEO of JM Smucker Co, discusses the strong performance of coffee, frozen PB and J sandwiches, pet snacks, and cat food in their portfolio. They also explore inflation, pricing decisions, changes in consumer behavior during the pandemic, and plans to reduce debt following an acquisition.
Coffee, encrustables, and pet snacks categories have shown strong performance in Smucker's portfolio with almost 80% of brands growing or maintaining share.
Smucker plans to reduce leverage over the next two to three years and expresses confidence in the portfolio's ability to generate cash and shareholder value.
Deep dives
Mark Smucker discusses strong performance and consumer trends
Mark Smucker, CEO of Smucker, discusses the strong performance of the company's portfolio, with almost 80% of brands growing or maintaining share. The coffee, encrustables, and pet snacks categories have shown particularly great performance. Despite taking price increases over the past 18 months, Smucker has seen little movement in pricing recently, except for coffee pricing coming down. Smucker emphasizes the importance of offering options from value to premium in order to meet the evolving needs of consumers.
Mark Smucker addresses debt level and integration of Hostess acquisition
Mark Smucker addresses concerns about the increased debt level resulting from the Hostess acquisition and outlines plans to reduce leverage over the next two to three years. He expresses confidence in the portfolio's ability to generate cash and shareholder value. Smucker mentions that there has been minimal cannibalization between the peanut butter and jelly products and the Hostess products. He also highlights previous divestitures as part of the company's portfolio optimization strategy, which has contributed to consistent growth.
JM Smucker Co President and CEO Mark Smucker speaks on his company's portfolio outlook and retail expectations with Bloomberg's Guy Johnson and Alix Steel.