Source: Dani Friedland, MEATINGPLACE, 12/30/11

The largest U.S. foodservice distribution companies have continued to grow and solidify their positions, according to a recent report by Chicago-based food consultancy Technomic.

The report defines “power distributors” as those with annual calendar-year sales of $150 million or more, and says that these distribution companies control almost half of all distributor sales.

Houston-based Sysco Corp. leads the list of the top 15 distributors, with 2010 sales of $38,430,000,000, up 7.4 percent from 2009. Rosemont, Ill.-based U.S. Foodservice follows with 2010 sales of 18,900,000,000, down slightly from 2009’s figures.

“Most of the top 35 companies are broadline distributors, and their growth has come at the expense of other broadliners and specialists,” Gary Karp, Technomic executive vice president, said in a statement.
The top 15 power distributors, according to Technomic’s 2011 Power Distributor Report, are as follows:

 
Rank Company            2010 Sales (000,000)       2009 Sales (000,000)                   Percent change
1 Sysco Corp.                   $38,430                            $35,776                                     7.4%
2 U.S. Foodservice             18,900                             19,000                                     -0.5%
3 Performance Food Group  10,300                              9,720                                         6%
4 Gordon Food Service          7,700                              7,200                                       6.9%
5 Reinhart Foodservice          4,547                              4,205                                       8.1%
6 Maines Paper & Food Service 3,050                          3,000                                        1.7%
7 Services Group of America      2,600                         2,600                                           0%
8 Ben E. Keith Foods                2,100                         1,979                                         6.1%
9 Shamrock Foods Co.              1,800                         1,650                                         9.1%
10 Labatt Food Service                 922                            909                                         1.4%
11 Cheney Brothers Inc.               921                            811                                        13.6%
12 IFH (Institution Food House)     575                            608                                         -5.4%
13 Agar Supply Co. Inc                569                            553                                           2.9%
14 Glazier Foods                         541                            531                                           1.9%
15 Merchants Foodservice            450                            409                                             1%

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