Even though making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich isn’t hard, Americans are still taking the shortcut offered by JM Smucker Co. (SJM). Sales of Jif peanut butter and Smucker’s jelly fell last quarter from a year ago, while sales of Uncrustables sandwiches rose, CEO Mark Smucker said on a conference call Tuesday.
Uncrustables sales are set to grow 15% year-over-year to $920 million in fiscal 2025, according to company executives. The sandwich now accounts for more than a tenth of annual sales at JM Smucker, which also sells pet food, Folgers coffee and Café Bustelo coffee.
Achieving $1 billion in annual sales of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches has been one of the company’s goals since at least 2021, when Uncrustables was doing about half that. Now, that goal is within reach. Mark Smucker said at a conference in March that the company hopes to continue its growth momentum with new variations of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, aggressive marketing and wider distribution channels.
“We are convinced that there is room for more than … $1 billion of growth in the future,” Smucker said, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense. “We also talked about how long it took to find a high-quality product that is both profitable and scalable. Now we can finally go all in and drive growth.”
Demand for Uncrustables has been so strong that JM Smucker opened a $1.1 billion plant in Alabama last year to increase production. Company executives said they expect demand for Uncrustables sandwiches to withstand price increases: JM Smucker said on an earnings call that it recently raised Uncrustables pricing for the first time in three years. (Chief Financial Officer Tucker Marshall said the company’s 2026 forecast is based on low-single-digit percentage price increases.)
The product has long been a favorite among a host of high-profile fans, from musicians like Drake to sports icons like Travis Kelsey, according to news reports. Athletes say the snack packs enough calories and protein to boost their performance. Love for the sandwich has spread from sports fields and school cafeterias to corporate break rooms, according to a 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal.
The Ohio-based company is looking to create more hits with limited-time Uncrustables fillings, Mark Smucker said on an earnings call. “We’ve started rolling out limited-edition flavors regularly this summer, including new peanut butter and mixed berry jam flavors,” he said.
JM Smucker’s shares fell nearly 16% on Tuesday after it missed fourth-quarter sales estimates and issued a more cautious outlook than analysts had expected.
