J.M. Smucker Company (The)
Consumer Staples
54
out of 100. Number 178 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where J.M. Smucker Company (The) does well
- Renewals 1 of 20. Few problems found.
- The Terms include a genuine 30-day arbitration opt-out by physical mail (Attn: Legal Department – Arbitration Opt-Out, One Strawberry Lane, Orrville, OH
- — many companies offer no opt-out at all.
- The SMS/Text Messaging Terms state flatly: 'Mobile information will not be shared with third parties for marketing or promotional purposes.'
- The Privacy Policy states 'We do not process consumers' personal information for training large language models, or similar artificial intelligence.'
- 'We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of minors under 16 years of age.'
- The governing-law section explicitly bows to mandatory state consumer-protection laws (e.g., California Civil Code 1799.208), sending the venue/law back to the consumer's state where such statutes apply — a concession many ToS clauses omit.
- Broad privacy rights offered well beyond California: access, deletion, correction, and opt-outs for 14+ states, an appeals process (Appeal.Privacy.Policy@jmsmucker.com), authorized-agent requests, no discrimination for exercising rights, and Global Privacy Control recognition.
You give up the right to sue Smucker in court or join a class action.
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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You give up the right to sue Smucker in court or join a class action. Any dispute goes to private, confidential arbitration in Wayne County, Ohio — your side of the country doesn't matter.
YOU AGREE TO ARBITRATE IN YOUR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY ONLY – NOT AS A REPRESENTATIVE OR MEMBER OF A CLASS – AND YOU EXPRESSLY WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO FILE A CLASS ACTION OR SEEK RELIEF ON A CLASS ACTION BASIS. FURTHERMORE, UNLESS YOU AND SMUCKER AGREE IN WRITING, THE ARBITRATOR MAY NOT CONSOLIDATE MORE THAN ONE PERSON'S CLAIMS, AND MAY NOT OTHERWISE PRESIDE OVER ANY FORM OF A REPRESENTATIVE OR CLASS PROCEEDING.
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Before you can even start arbitration, you must run a 60-day gauntlet: hand over your full name, home address, account/order numbers, a legal-theory briefing of your claim, and a personally-signed sworn statement. Skip a step and the arbitrator can throw your demand out.
Before initiating arbitration, you and Smucker agree to first attempt to resolve any dispute... The party asserting the Dispute must provide written notice describing the Dispute and the relief requested... (a) the claimant's full legal name, residence address, and email address; (b) the claimant's account number or order number(s), if any; (c) a description of the specific facts giving rise to the Dispute, including the specific product(s) or transaction(s) at issue; (d) the legal theories asserted and the specific relief sought, including any dollar amount in controversy; and (e) a signed verification by the claimant individually (not solely by counsel) that the information provided is true and correct to the best of the claimant's knowledge. Compliance with this informal resolution process is an express condition precedent to commencing arbitration.
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No matter what happens — even personal injury, emotional distress, or lost revenue — the most you can ever recover from Smucker under these Terms is $100.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PROVIDED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL SMUCKER, ITS PARENTS, SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES... BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES... INCLUDING PERSONAL INJURY, PAIN AND SUFFERING, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, LOSS OF REVENUE... THE AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF THE SMUCKER PARTIES TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS AND DAMAGES... WILL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100.00).
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Smucker openly admits it sells/shares your name, contact info, browsing history, location, photos/videos, and even the inferences it draws about you, for targeted ads across other websites. Separately, it discloses personal info to 'business partners and marketing companies' who 'may use the information for their own marketing purposes or the marketing purposes of others' — i.e., for marketing that has nothing to do with Smucker.
We may "sell" or "share" (as such terms are defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act) the following categories of personal information, including for cross-context behavioral advertising: identifiers and contact information; personal records; personal characteristics or traits; commercial information; internet and other electronic network usage information; geolocation information; audiovisual and similar information; and inferences.
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Smucker can change the Terms any time with no email notice — just posting them on the site is enough — and simply visiting the site afterwards counts as you agreeing to the new terms. Same approach in the Privacy Policy: material changes get only 'a conspicuous posting to our website.'
From time to time we may update this Site and these Terms. We may give notice of updates by posting the updated Terms on the Site or by any other reasonable means. Your use of this Site after we post any changes to these Terms constitutes your agreement to those changes.
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Any photo, recipe, video, or post you submit can be used by Smucker forever, royalty-free, in its ads and marketing — and they can even sublicense it to third parties. You also waive your moral rights, so you can't object to how they use or alter your work.
By displaying, publishing, or otherwise posting any User Content on or through the Site, you hereby irrevocably grant to Smucker a non-exclusive, fully sublicensable, worldwide, fully paid, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, distribute, modify, adapt, create derivative works from, publicly perform, publicly display, broadcast, and publish such User Content in connection with the Site, Smucker's products and services, and Smucker's advertising, marketing, promotional, and other business purposes, in any media now known or later developed, without compensation to you or any third party. Further, you waive all moral rights in and to all User Content that you post on, upload or otherwise submit to or through, the Site in favor of Smucker.
How these were found
Read directly from jmsmucker.com on 2026-10-01; no mirrors used. Terms of Use: 'Last Updated: September 2026'. Privacy Policy: 'Effective Date: December 2013; Last updated: September 2026'. Company appears to have refreshed both documents within the last month (Sept 2026), including the binding arbitration section. No auto-renew/subscription products were found, so autorenew scored minimally. Sweepstakes-specific rules pages were not located on the current site (only decade-old contest rules on third-party press sites), so sweepstakes findings rest on the Privacy Policy's contest/winner-disclosure clauses. Smucker's vendor-facing Professional Services Agreement (found via search on jmsmucker.com) contains stricter processor terms than the consumer-facing policy, but consumer score is based only on consumer documents.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.