Analysts expected Smucker to earn 80 cents a share on revenue of $1 billion.

The company noted the peanut butter business was much stronger this quarter than a year earlier, when a widespread peanut butter recall cut into sales.

“Most of our categories that we’re in — and the brands that we’re in — are pretty good values for the consumer, so people aren’t spending a lot of excess money on these categories or brands,” co-chief executive Richard Smucker said. “So I think they do provide a value even in a tough economy. So it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to be competitive — and we will be — but I think we’re pretty well positioned.”

Smucker executives told investors on a conference call that tendency helps protect its margins even as ingredient costs fluctuate.

Graves boosted his earnings for 2011 earnings to $4.45 from $4.25 and maintained his target for the share price of $66.

NEW YORK – As its costs fell and shoppers bought more jams,Ed hardy silk scarves, jellies and Jif peanut butter, J.M. Smucker Co.’s fourth-quarter net income rose 28 percent, although sales of its Folgers coffee fell, the company said Thursday.

Smucker benefited from the recession as shoppers stretched food budgets by buying more food to eat at home. The company bought Folgers for $3 billion in November 2008 from consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co.

The company has many top brands, which analysts say hold up better in a recession because people tend to keep buying top sellers even if they are largely trading down to cheaper store brands.

Smucker said it will cut peanut butter prices 5 percent next month to pass along savings from lower ingredient costs. But it will raise prices for cake mixes and other baking products by 4 percent to 5 percent because their ingredients have become more expensive.

Standard & Poor’s analyst Tom Graves reiterated his “Buy” rating on the stock and said the results beat estimates because of lower-than-expected taxes and the gain from selling the potato business.

Smucker’s size nearly doubled after it bought Folgers from Procter & Gamble Co., and co-CEO Tim Smucker said Wednesday Smucker is now realizing its potential as a larger company. Smucker also bought Jif and Crisco from P&G, based in Cincinnati, in a $1 billion stock deal in 2002.

Excluding one-time items related to restructuring and other factors such as the sale of its potato business, the company earned $1.07.

For the full year, net income rose 86 percent to $494.1 million or $4.15 a share, compared with $266 million or $3.11 a share. Revenue rose 23 percent to $4.6 billion.

Smucker expects fiscal 2011 net income between $4.50 and $4.60 per share, excluding restructuring and merger costs of 55 cents to 60 cents per share. Net sales are expected to rise 3 percent from 2010, excluding acquisitions. According to Thomson Reuters, analysts expect earnings of $4.42 a share on revenue of $4.75 billion.

In the three months that ended April 30, Smucker earned $120.6 million, or $1.01 a share. In the same period last year the company earned $94.3 million,Juicy Couture belts, or 80 cents a share.

Smucker, based in Orrville, Ohio, also issued a 2011 outlook that topped analysts’ expectations, and its shares rose more than 5 percent.

Revenue rose less than 1 percent to $1.07 billion.

Shares rose $3.54 or 6.1 percent, to $61.28 in midday trading Thursday.