When Fortune magazine announced its list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” the winner was jelly-maker J.M. Smucker — the perfect choice in an era when so many businesses are in ethical jams.

The irony doesn’t get any more delicious than that.

“Employees don’t get any razzle-dazzle perks — no pet insurance, no subsidized feng-shui consulting, none of that,” Fortune writes in its Jan. 12 issue. “It’s a 107-year-old, family-controlled business that is run by two brothers who tend to quote the New Testament and Ben Franklin. It’s a throwback to a simpler time.”

Smucker, from Orrville, Ohio, has a history of preserving sweet things, and Fortune points to the company’s simple code of conduct, created by former Chief Executive Officer Paul Smucker, the father of the current co-CEOs: “Listen with your full attention, look for the good in others, have a sense of humor, and say thank you for a job well done.”

In the overall survey, workers were less concerned this year with fringe benefits or even salaries, focusing instead on how their companies handled — or avoided — layoffs, said Robert Levering, co-founder of the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco, which compiles the annual list.

In our interview, Levering said that as his institute gathered comments from more than 20,000 employees this year, workers placed far more emphasis on corporate ethics than they had in previous years.

There were 304 finalists this year, the most ever. Random employee surveys count for two-thirds of a company’s score, with the rest based on the institute’s evaluation of the company’s benefits and practices.

Following Smucker, the other members of Fortune’s top 10, in order, are Alston & Bird, Atlanta; the Container Store, Dallas; Edward Jones, St. Louis; Republic Bancorp, Owosso, Mich.; Adobe Systems, San Jose; TDIndustries, Dallas; SAS Institute, Cary, N.C.; Wegmans Food Markets, Rochester, N.Y.; and Xilinx, San Jose.

Even though California’s economy has slumped, it still had the most companies of any state, with 15. Texas was next with 13.

Tech companies in generally are dropping off the list; there are 16 this year, compared with 22 five years ago. “A lot of that has to do with stock options and job stability,” Levering said.

On the other hand, seven hospitals made the top 100, compared with only two in 1998, when Fortune started printing its top 100. “They have to compete more for workers,” Levering said. “Hospitals used to be just about as unlikely a candidate for a list like this as you could imagine.”

Levering said it’s not so much that technology companies have gone downhill; it’s just that companies in other industries have done more to attract top employees.

And then there’s Smucker, which has been on the list all seven years that Fortune has published it, and finally made it to No. 1. “It wasn’t so much that they have changed,” Levering said. “It’s that people value that sort of high ethics and stability.”

That sort of consistency isn’t all that unusual for the list. Levering said that besides Smucker, 23 other companies have been on the list all seven years. That means to me that their treatment of employees is part of their values, not some management flavor of the month.

Those companies are A.G. Edwards, American Cast Iron Pipe, Cisco Systems, FedEx, First Tennessee National Corp., Four Seasons Hotels, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Marriott International, MBNA, Merck, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Publix Super Markets, REI, SAS Institute, Synovus, TDIndustries, Timberland, Valassis, W.L. Gore, Wegmans and Whole Foods Markets.

My two cents to employers: Take the time to look at what these companies do. They cut across a wide range of industries, and have managed to stand out — in good economies and bad, and often in not-so-glamorous industries.

And read that Smucker code of conduct again. It’s not exactly rocket science; it’s just a recipe to make things jell.

Your potential benefits are huge. Fortune reports that one 26-year Smucker employee spent his own money to build a monument to the company: a boulder with a plaque that expresses his gratitude to the Smucker family.