The company is increasing full-year non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) guidance by $0.02 to a range of $2.45 to $2.51, while at the same time increasing its fiscal year advertising investment to a range of $43 million to $45 million. Advertising is being increased to provide support for distribution of new products, which gained widespread customer support in the past few months.
For the three months ended January 31, 2011, diluted EPS grew 67 percent to $0.87 compared to $0.52 for the prior year's comparable period. Excluding $0.9 million in integration costs related to the Kettle acquisition last March, non-GAAP EPS was up 90 percent to $0.91 compared to $0.48 for the prior year's quarter.
Retail sales grew 63 percent to $215.6 million and snack sales increased 133 percent over last year due to both the addition of Kettle and strong organic growth in snack revenues.
"We achieved double-digit organic sales growth in our snack portfolio due to securing key new distribution in the club, mass and drug channels,"said Michael J. Mendes, Chairman, President and CEO. "To support these new distribution gains, we plan to increase our advertising investment during the remainder of the year, which we believe will position our portfolio for continued growth in the future."
