ORRVILLE, OHIO — With a coffee portfolio that features such well-known brands as Dunkin’, Folgers and Café Bustelo, the J.M. Smucker Co. is a leader in the at-home category that long has been dominated by the morning ritual of waking up with a hot cup of Joe. But a challenge facing the company is to keep pace with rapidly changing consumer trends as coffee transitions from a morning staple to an all-day, customized, often cold, beverage that may, at times, be more akin to a snack or dessert rather than a pick-me-up.

Coffee is Smucker’s largest business. In fiscal 2023, ended April 30, 2023, the unit generated $2.7 billion in sales and led the company by a wide margin with $738 million in segment profit. Pet Food, in contrast, generated $495 million in segment profit during the year.

Maintaining the company’s coffee business will require meeting consumers where they are today, which is much different than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Tina Meyer-Hawkes, vice president of liquid coffee venture, is charged with shepherding the company through the transition while maintaining its leading spot in the at-home space.

“The good news is people like coffee, and we have brands that play well in the category, whether it’s a mainstream value brand like Folgers or our partnership with Dunkin’ that meets the needs of consumers,” she said in an interview with Food Business News. “Our whole focus is on at-home consumption and we’ve seen it change since COVID.

“With COVID, people were home and they started making their own cold coffees. In a way, they created a movement that changed the definition of coffee at home. The end experience is coffee is more of an ingredient in the finished product.”

For Smucker, that has meant its ready-to-pour business has accelerated.

“Our Dunkin’ concentrates product is a good example,” Meyer-Hawkes said. “It allows people to creatively use water or milk and customize what they want. It’s the ultimate in customization.”

Social media also has propelled the trend toward customization. Smucker saw its instant coffee business perk up when Dalgona coffee, a Vietnamese coffee preparation, began trending on Tik Tok. The beverage making process involves whipping instant coffee with cream, and sales of the company’s instant coffee varieties began to rise.

Meyer-Hawkes described Smucker’s process of serving all its coffee customers as a journey. Part of the journey involves meeting the needs of consumers in the baby boomer/Gen Z demographic who tend to prefer a traditional hot cup of coffee to younger consumers who are seeking cold products and customization.

The benefit of cold coffee is it opens consumption opportunities throughout the day.

“Cold coffee is more versatile,” Meyer-Hawkes said. “As we think about the cold coffee consumer, the young consumer who is only really drinking cold, they see themselves as almost an at-home barista creating these cold coffee cocktails. They are using different sweeteners, whipped cream and other ingredients that add to the flavor and mouthfeel.”

But Smucker’s coffee strategy does not stop at cold coffee innovations or coffee as an ingredient. The company is planning to expand its reach into liquid products.

“We have a venture team that is very engaged in the liquid coffee space, both with some of our smaller Bustelo single-serve options, but more recently with some multi-serve, shelf-stable Dunkin’ Cold Brew items that you can find in the normal coffee aisle,” said Mark T. Smucker, chairman, president and chief executive officer, during a Dec.5 conference call to discuss the company’s second-quarter financial results. “So, we’re at the early days of our liquid coffee journey, (and we) acknowledge that it is an important journey and that we will continue to expand our offerings.

“So, it is going to be modest contribution in the near to medium term, but we are committed to that journey, and we’ll continue to look to ways to expand our liquid coffee presence across the entire grocery space.”

Meyer-Hawkes said the company’s liquid coffee introductions are a part of meeting the consumer where they are.