Unusual products companies rely on to boost the bottom line

You could do all the normal things to boost your bottom line, like adjusting pricing or cutting down on expenses. Or, you could sell hot dogs at a loss.

We’re all for the unpredictable here at CFO Brew, and for that reason (and that reason alone), we rounded up some unexpected items that companies are saying are single-handedly boosting bottom lines—or otherwise lifting sales and defining brands.

Not too crumb-y. Demand for Uncrustables—yes, the gooey folded sandwich in seemingly every lunchbox in America—is boosting the bottom line for the J.M. Smucker Co., according to CFO Tucker Marshall.

It’s easy to overlook a PB&J sandwich, but in an increasingly tough food and retail environment, Smucker customers are actually buying more Uncrustables right now, Marshall told the Wall Street Journal. After acquiring Uncrustables in 1998, the squishy sandwiches have consistently been a big seller for Smucker. In 2001, one year after Smucker started officially selling Uncrustables in stores, the PB&J sandwiches brought in $12 million in sales. By fiscal year 2022, they generated $511 million in net sales, with the company producing an average of 3 million Uncrustables per day. That same year, Smucker’s then-vice president Tina Floyd said the company expects Uncrustables to become a $1 billion brand in the next five years.

In the company’s most recent earnings call, CEO Mark T. Smucker said Uncrustables grew 34% for the full fiscal year, becoming the “the No. 1 brand in the frozen snacks and sandwiches category.”

Part of that lasting endurance and continued faith rests in Uncrustables’s universal appeal, according to Marshall. While Uncrustables might initially enter your home through a lunchbox, that’s usually just the start. “All of a sudden you realize that it’s in a briefcase, it’s in a handbag, it’s in a golf bag, it’s in the car for the road trip,” he explained. From there, it doesn’t take long before “you’re finding them everywhere,” Marshall added.

Cheap meat. Not every bottom-line booster sells like hot cakes, or PB&J sandwiches. Sometimes a single product can bring people in the door. That’s been the case for some mainstay items at Costco and BJ’s Wholesale Club in recent years. Rather than exclusively prioritizing bestsellers, the two retailers have clung to beloved products with compelling price points for their emotional resonance as much as for their popularity. (But, to be clear, they’re still exceedingly popular.)

In an earnings call last year, BJ’s CEO Bob Eddy said that, despite rampant inflation, the store has kept its rotisserie chicken at its well-known $4.99 price point “just because it’s such a meaningful thing to our members.”

And then there’s Costco’s famously affordable $1.50 hot dog combo, which the company’s CFO has said will stay that price “forever.” Even after raising prices on some food court linchpins, Costco CEO Craig Jelinek had a one-word answer when asked if hot dog prices would ever be raised: “No.”

This kind of steadfast pricing is likely an example of loss leader pricing, Ernest Baskin, associate professor of food marketing at Saint Joseph’s University, told NPR. That’s when a company sells a product below its market price to bring in new customers, or move additional products. And there’s another benefit. “It’s also in the store an aura of saying, ‘Look, our prices are generally very low. We don’t raise them unless we absolutely have to,’” Baskin added.

Old standbys. On the flip side, sometimes new iterations on long-lasting items can become just as invaluable. We all know Ford Motors makes cars—and has for quite some time—but tweaks to existing popular products, like two new truck models, can be enough to boost sales. At Ford, which has long depended on truck sales as a key driver of profits, sales jumped 9.9% from the year-ago period, per the company’s most recent earnings report.

The main reason? Big sales gains for F-Series trucks, which has been the best-selling truck in the US for 46 years in a row, according to the carmaker. Ford said in the report that the F-Series’ total industry share hit nearly 36% this quarter.

It’s less of a shocker, but it’s still single handedly boosting sales. Sales of the model jumped 34% in the second fiscal quarter compared to the same time last year. In total, the company’s overall truck sales climbed 23.1% in the first half of 2023.