BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Food Distribution to Strategic / Industry buyers
Industry operators, larger competitors, and corporate buyers acquiring for synergies, geographic expansion, or capability fill. Typically pays a premium for clear strategic fit but discounts for integration cost and overlap.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 11.41x across 7 disclosed deals (P25: 8.48x, P75: 13.85x). Median EV/Revenue 0.66x across 15 deals. Median deal value: $968.87M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 15 deals total (15 from 2018+), filtered to Strategic / Industry acquirers of food distribution businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Sysco Corporation (3) · US Foods Holding Corp. (3) · Performance Food Group Company (2) · C&S Wholesale Grocers, LLC (1) · Performance Food Group (1) · Beta San Miguel, S.A. De C.V. (1)
Recent disclosed deals
Strategic / Industry acquisitions of food distribution businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Jetro Restaurant Depot | Sysco Corporation | $29100.0M | 13.9x | 1.82x |
| 2026 | Jetro Cash & Carry LLC | Sysco Corporation | $29084.7M | 13.8x | 1.82x |
| 2025 | Jake's Inc. | US Foods Holding Corp. | $92.0M | — | 0.58x |
| 2025 | SpartanNash Company | C&S Wholesale Grocers, LLC | $968.9M | 7.1x | 0.21x |
| 2024 | Cheney Brothers Inc. | Performance Food Group | $2100.0M | 9.9x | 0.66x |
| 2024 | Cheney Bros., Inc. | Performance Food Group Company | $2095.0M | 13.0x | 0.65x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Strategic buyers — operators in adjacent geographies, larger competitors, or corporate consolidators — price for synergies and capability fill. They tend to discount integration cost and overlap risk but pay above market when there's clear strategic fit (key customer relationship, license, geography, technician/professional team). Multiples are competitive with PE for fee-viable deals; below PE for sub-scale acquisitions.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to food distribution businesses acquired by strategic / industry buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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