Uncrustables and Café Bustelo did the work. Then Smucker raised the year.

The J.M. Smucker Co. does not live in a filing table. It lives in a freezer-door Uncrustables box, a can of Café Bustelo, a bag of Meow Mix, and, when the quarter is less kind, a Hostess display that did not move.

The brands that showed up

Coffee was the loudest print. U.S. retail coffee sales were $808 million, up 13 percent. Price did most of that — 10 points — after last year’s increases. Volume added 2 points, and management named Dunkin’ packaged coffee and Café Bustelo.

Café Bustelo is the one they want you to remember. In prepared remarks, Mark Smucker said the brand’s company-wide sales rose 23 percent, with 8 points from volume. He called it one of the fastest-growing names in at-home coffee and the sixth-largest in the category, with an ambition to crack the top four. That rank is the company’s claim. The 13 percent coffee-segment increase is in the earnings release.

Uncrustables did the other half of the consumer work. Company-wide sales for the brand rose 12 percent, Mark Smucker said, on a double-digit volume increase. He called it a record quarter for volume, sales, and household penetration, and put penetration at 27 percent.

A second phase of the McCalla, Alabama, plant is being pulled forward toward the end of this fiscal year. Fridge-friendly sandwiches are already in stores. Two new morning-protein flavors, Beamin’ Berry Blend and Burstin’ Blueberry, are on the shelf.

In the Frozen Handheld and Spreads segment, that showed up as a quieter 3 percent sales increase, to $499 million. Uncrustables carried it. Jif peanut butter and Smucker’s fruit spreads did not. The company is trying to modernize Jif — a first major identity update in more than 30 years, a snacking campaign, and a simpler-recipe line called Jif Simply — which is a polite way of saying the core spread is not the growth engine right now.

Pet food inched up 1 percent, to $372 million. Meow Mix had volume growth and, in the remarks, 4 percent sales growth in dry cat food. Milk-Bone returned to volume growth, with a push into softer, pricier snacks. Dog snacks overall were still soft. Segment profit slipped 2 percent.

Away-from-home sales rose 3 percent, again on Uncrustables, this time in convenience stores and other immediate-consumption channels.

The brand that did not

Sweet baked snacks fell 7 percent, to $237 million. Volume was worse than that, down 8 points. Snack cakes and breakfast items were the drag. Profit in the segment fell 13 percent.

Mark Smucker’s better news inside that mess is retail-only: U.S. grocery sales for the business rose a low-single-digit amount, he said, on double-digit growth for Hostess Donettes. Convenience-store traffic is still weak. The company is still talking about a “stabilization plan” and a better segment margin this year. It is not talking about a rebound.

The refund, without mixing it into the grocery cart

Gross profit included about $115 million of tariff refunds received in the quarter. Net interest expense included $4 million of related interest income. Adjusted earnings of $3.24 a share included an $0.84 benefit from those refunds. The company does not map the $0.84 to the $115 million, and this article does not either. The refunds are not labeled as IEEPA or any other statute in the release or the remarks.

Strip the refunds out and the quarter is still better than last year. Tucker Marshall, the chief financial officer, said adjusted gross profit rose $207 million, or 28 percent, and $92 million, or 12 percent, without the refunds. Mark Smucker said adjusted gross margin was up 760 basis points, or 240 basis points excluding refunds. Coffee’s segment margin printed at 37.1 percent. Excluding refunds, Marshall put it at 25.6 percent. The company still expects coffee margin in the high 20s for the year, excluding refunds.

That is the honest split: the brands moved sales. The refunds fattened the margin. Both things can be true.

The raise

The prior full-year outlook, from June, had sales down 3 to 4 percent, adjusted earnings of $9.75 to $10.25, and free cash flow of about $1.0 billion. The new range is sales down 1 to 2 percent, adjusted earnings $10.50 to $11.00, and free cash flow of about $1.1 billion. Capital spending stays at $325 million.

Mark Smucker put the sales raise at about 2 points, or roughly $180 million, at the midpoint — mostly coffee and Uncrustables. Marshall broke that $180 million into $100 million better volume and $80 million better price than the company had been planning. For the year, he now expects coffee sales down a mid-single-digit amount (better than the last forecast) as lower green-coffee costs get handed back to shoppers. Frozen handheld and spreads are now expected up a low-single-digit amount.

The adjusted-earnings raise is $0.75 at the midpoint. About $0.60 of the new range is a net refund benefit: the $0.84 first-quarter piece, minus planned extra selling, distribution, and administrative spending. Guidance “does not assume any impacts from new tariffs, changes to existing tariffs, or changes to the tariff refunds received in the first quarter.”

The company is also telling you the next quarter gets harder. Marshall said second-quarter sales are expected down 3 to 4 percent, with price and volume both down a low-single-digit amount as coffee deflation shows up in the aisle. Adjusted earnings in that quarter are expected up in the low-20-percent range.

Cash and the balance sheet

Operating cash flow was $426 million, against an $11 million use of cash a year earlier. Free cash flow was $337 million, against a $95 million outflow. The company paid down about $231 million of short-term debt. Cash on the July 31 balance sheet was $43 million.

Marshall put net debt at about $6.7 billion and leverage at 2.9 times EBITDA, ahead of the company’s target of at or below 3.0 times by the end of fiscal 2027. The company still plans to pay down at least $500 million of debt this year. The dividend went up for a 25th straight fiscal year. This is a cash-generative packaged-foods company, not a fortress of idle cash.

What to watch

Coffee pricing is now a two-way street. The company raised prices last year when green coffee was expensive. It is already using trade spending to pass lower costs back, and it says it will do more if deflation lasts. That is good for the person buying Folgers. It is why full-year sales can still fall even after a 5 percent first quarter.

Uncrustables has to keep growing without the plant tripping. McCalla’s second phase is a real capacity bet.

Hostess is still a turnaround, not a victory lap. Convenience traffic does not care about Donettes innovation until people walk in the store.

The refund is already in the year. The guide does not bake in another one.