Let me start by sharing some of the significant accomplishments since our last quarterly earnings call. Net sales increased 7.7% versus the prior year, with all three business units delivering growth. In fact, in our Home & Garden business, we delivered a record-setting quarter with net sales of $225 million, surpassing even the elevated demand levels we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, on a year-to-date basis, our company has returned to organic growth, a meaningful achievement against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop.
Our Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses benefited from solid underlying demand. First, with respect to financial stewardship, our core objective is delivering growth while maintaining a very healthy balance sheet and strong margin structures. Year to date, we've delivered $136 million of adjusted free cash flow through disciplined working capital and CapEx management, including approximately $3 million from tariff refunds. This reinforces the fact that we can deliver for our customers without sacrificing working capital discipline.
Our key brands in both the Global Pet Care and Home & Garden businesses continue to deliver above-market growth, driven by consumer-led insights and bolder new product development. If everybody could turn now to slide eight, and I'll cover the high-level fiscal 2026 earnings framework. In light of our year-to-date performance, however, we are updating and increasing our EBITDA expectations. Excluding the impact from tariff refunds, we now expect adjusted EBITDA to increase mid-single digits versus the prior year, reflecting the underlying strength of our core businesses and our continued discipline around expense management.