SJM - NYSE

Good morning, this is Crystal Beiting, Vice President, Investor Relations and Financial Planning and Analysis for The J.M. Smucker Company. Thank you for listening to our prepared remarks on our fiscal 2025 fourth quarter earnings. After this brief introduction, Mark Smucker, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board, will provide a business and strategy update. Tucker Marshall, Chief Financial Officer, will then provide a detailed analysis of the financial results and our fiscal 2026 outlook. Later this morning, we will hold a separate, live question-and-answer webcast. During today’s discussion, we will make forward-looking statements that reflect our current expectations about future plans and performance. These statements rely on assumptions and estimates, and actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Additionally, please note we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures management uses to evaluate performance internally. I encourage you to read the full disclosure concerning forward-looking statements and details on our non-GAAP measures in this morning's press release. Today's press release, a supplementary slide deck, management's prepared remarks, and the Q&A webcast can all be accessed on our Investor Relations website at jmsmucker.com. We invite all interested parties to join us at 9:00 am Eastern Time today for a live question-and-answer session with management to further discuss our fourth quarter results and next year's outlook for fiscal year 2026. I will now turn the discussion over to Mark Smucker.

Thank you, Crystal, and good morning, everyone. I will begin today's call with a summary of our full year performance and then provide highlights on our fourth quarter results. I will also share the strategic priorities that will enable us to achieve our fiscal 2026 guidance in what continues to be a dynamic operating environment while positioning the Company for future growth through investments to support our key platforms and strengthen our brands. Tucker will then provide additional details on our fourth quarter results and outlook for next fiscal year. Fiscal year 2025 was a year of significant progress as we delivered positive results in a challenging environment. Our performance reflects top-line growth supported by strong consumer demand for our portfolio of leading brands, and bottom-line growth driven by disciplined cost management and execution. We demonstrated agility throughout the organization by successfully managing what we could control, and we navigated with excellence those factors beyond our control. As a result, the business remained resilient amidst macroeconomic pressures. Our results in fiscal year 2025 reflect the success of our focused strategy and portfolio optimization, which has fundamentally transformed the company. Of note, we reignited innovation that is resonating with our consumers, with over $100 million in net sales coming from new products in their first year of launch, resulting in one of our most successful years of innovation in recent history. We launched Jif peanut butter and Chocolate Flavored Spread, new varieties of Uncrustables sandwiches, Café Bustelo multi-serve coffee and Milk-Bone peanut buttery bites, just to name a few, all of which are exceeding expectations. Our investments in brand building continued to be effective and drove consumer demand, with brands growing or maintaining dollar share accounting for 74% of our measured retail dollar sales in the fourth quarter as we ended the fiscal year. Our Transformation Office delivered cost and productivity benefits, including synergies from the Hostess Brands acquisition of approximately $75 million, which exceeded our original expectations. And we continued to prioritize resources to our largest growth opportunities in our key platforms, the Uncrustables, Café Bustelo, Meow Mix, Milk-Bone and Hostess brands. I'll dive deeper into each of these. Starting with the Uncrustables brand, which continued its strong momentum throughout the year including realizing its 11th consecutive fiscal year of double-digit growth in total company net sales. In fiscal year 2025, we grew the brand by over $125 million to approximately $920 million in net sales. This tremendous growth was driven by our national advertising campaign, distribution gains, and new merchandising investments to drive trial and awareness. We also accelerated our innovation efforts with new sandwich varieties and have begun launching a regular cadence of limited-edition flavors starting this summer with a new Peanut Butter and Mixed Berry Spread variety, which is now in stores. These actions continue to increase household penetration and fuel our ambition to have Uncrustables sandwiches everywhere. The #1 SKU in the total frozen category is an Uncrustables sandwich, with 2 SKUs in the top 10. The Uncrustables brand is leading the entire frozen category in new buyers for households with kids, millennials, and Gen