The companies on the Global 500 employ 70.2 million people, and their revenue represents more than one-third of the world’s GDP.

Fortune Global 500

With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.5 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $24 billion.

America's Most Innovative Companies

The corporations on our annual list of the world's 500 largest companies combined to generate $41.7 trillion in revenue over the past year.

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.6 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $22 billion.

The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

Industries included in the sector are diversified, electronics, and food and grocery.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Wholesalers

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

F500-2023-056-Sysco

Sysco, a food marketer and distributor, jumped up 14 spots on the Fortune 500 and posted a 34% increase in revenue in 2022, as restaurant demand—abnormally low during the height of the pandemic—rebounded. 
<ul> 
 	<li>The majority of Sysco's sales come from operations in the U.S., but international growth outstripped domestic in 2022, partly due to the reversal of more stringent pandemic restrictions abroad.</li> 
 	<li>The company sued a slew of meat companies in 2022, alleging that they violated antitrust regulations through price fixing. Although Sysco moved to settle the lawsuits, it is now mired in a legal battle with Burford Capital, which financed Sysco’s litigation.</li> 
 	<li>The workforce for the food marketer and distributor grew 22% in size from 2021, the third largest increase among the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500.</li> 
</ul>

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

F500-2022-070-Sysco

Food product marketer and distributor Sysco continued its slide down the Fortune 500 this year as the pandemic kept restaurant demand largely depressed. The company dropped 10 spots on this list, its revenue decreasing 3% to $51 billion. However, it managed to more than double its profits year over year, to $524 million—a fact that reflects the gradual loosening of COVID-related restrictions throughout the year. In its fourth quarter, the company’s sales finally surpassed 2019 quarterly volume levels—another encouraging sign.

Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

G500-2021-199-Sysco

<span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The coronavirus chewed through Sysco’s core grub-supplying business as restaurants around the world shuttered last year. Revenues for Sysco, America’s biggest wholesale food distributor, fell 12% year on year to $52.9 billion, a decline that caused it to slide four places in the Fortune 500 rankings. COVID-19 took a bite out of profits, too, causing a stomach-churning 87% drop to $215 million. The Houston-based company pivoted amid pandemic-related closures to help its eatery customers offer alternative options, like takeout-meal kits and contactless menus. But Sysco’s financial prospects are mostly tied to people’s desire to dine out again as the economy reopens.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:12673,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri, Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}" data-sheets-textstyleruns="{&quot;1&quot;:0}{&quot;1&quot;:280,&quot;2&quot;:{&quot;6&quot;:1}}{&quot;1&quot;:287}">The coronavirus chewed through Sysco’s core grub-supplying business as restaurants around the world shuttered last year. Revenues for Sysco, America’s biggest wholesale food distributor, fell 12% year on year to $52.9 billion, a decline that caused it to slide 20 places in the Global 500 rankings. COVID-19 took a bite out of profits, too, causing a stomach-churning 87% drop to $215 million. The Houston, Texas-based company pivoted amid pandemic-related closures to help its eatery customers offer alternative options, like takeout-meal kits and contactless menus. But Sysco’s financial prospects are mostly tied to people’s desire to dine out again as the economy reopens.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-60-Sysco

<span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The coronavirus chewed through Sysco’s core grub-supplying business as restaurants around the world shuttered last year. Revenues for Sysco, America’s biggest wholesale food distributor, fell 12% year on year to $52.9 billion, a decline that caused it to slide four places in the Fortune 500 rankings. COVID-19 took a bite out of profits, too, causing a stomach-churning 87% drop to $215 million. The Houston-based company pivoted amid pandemic-related closures to help its eatery customers offer alternative options, like takeout-meal kits and contactless menus. But Sysco’s financial prospects are mostly tied to people’s desire to dine out again as the economy reopens.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:12673,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri, Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}" data-sheets-textstyleruns="{&quot;1&quot;:0}{&quot;1&quot;:280,&quot;2&quot;:{&quot;6&quot;:1}}{&quot;1&quot;:287}">The coronavirus chewed through Sysco’s core grub-supplying business as restaurants around the world shuttered last year. Revenues for Sysco, America’s biggest wholesale food distributor, fell 12% year on year to $52.9 billion, a decline that caused it to slide four places in the Fortune 500 rankings. COVID-19 took a bite out of profits, too, causing a stomach-churning 87% drop to $215 million. The Houston-based company pivoted amid pandemic-related closures to help its eatery customers offer alternative options, like takeout-meal kits and contactless menus. But Sysco’s financial prospects are mostly tied to people’s desire to dine out again as the economy reopens.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

G500-2020-179-Sysco

Sysco is America’s biggest and most profitable wholesale food distributor. While the Houston company took in $60.1 billion in 2019, up 2.4% from the year prior, it slid seven places in the Global 500 rankings. Rising food costs, due to inflation and international tariffs, plus higher labor expenses, exacerbated by a shortage of commercial truck drivers, gnawed at the bottom line. Regardless, Sysco grew profits by 17% to $1.6 billion, partly through layoffs, subsidiary consolidation in France, and facility closures in Canada and Europe. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic shutters restaurants around the world, Sysco’s new CEO, Kevin Hourican, formerly of CVS Health, will have to figure out how to keep the business cooking.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-056-Sysco

Sysco is America’s biggest and most profitable wholesale food distributor. While the Houston company took in $60.1 billion in 2019, up 2.4% from the year prior, it slid two places in the Fortune 500 rankings. Rising food costs, due to inflation and international tariffs, plus higher labor expenses, exacerbated by a shortage of commercial truck drivers, gnawed at the bottom line. Regardless, Sysco grew profits by 17% to $1.6 billion, partly through layoffs, subsidiary consolidation in France, and facility closures in Canada and Europe. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic shutters restaurants around the world, Sysco’s new CEO, Kevin Hourican, formerly of CVS Health, will have to figure out how to keep the business cooking.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.6 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $31.2 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in profits in 2014. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 employ 65 million people worldwide and are represented by 36 countries.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Sector

Strongest Dimension

Years on list

Previous rank

State

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Sysco is a marketer and distributor of food and related products to the food service or food-away-from-home industries in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, and elsewhere. The company serves restaurants, hospitals and nursing facilities, schools and colleges, hotels and motels, industrial caterers, and other food service venues. Sysco was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in Houston.

Q4 2026

Q3 2026

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Sysco (SYY): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

Sysco

sysco

Welcome to Sysco's Third Quarter Finance Fiscal Year twenty twenty five Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. We will begin with opening remarks and introductions. I would like to now turn the call over to Kevin Kim, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Sysco's third quarter fiscal year twenty twenty five earnings call. On today's call, we have Kevin Herkin, our Chair of the Board and CEO and Kenny Chung, our CFO. Before we begin, please note that statements made during this presentation that state the company's or management's intentions, beliefs, expectations or predictions of the future are forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, and actual results could differ in a material manner. Additional information about factors that could cause results to differ from those in the forward looking statements is contained in the company's SEC filings. This includes, but is not limited to, risk factors contained in our annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended 06/29/2024, subsequent SEC filings and in the news release issued earlier this morning.

A copy of these materials can be found in the Investors section at cisco.com. Non GAAP financial measures are included in our comments today and in our presentation slides. The reconciliation of these non GAAP measures to the corresponding GAAP measures is included at the end of the presentation slides and can also be found in the Investors section of our website. During the discussion today, unless otherwise stated, all results are compared to the same period in the prior year. To ensure we have sufficient time to answer all questions, we'd like to ask each participant to limit their time today to one question.

If you have a follow-up question, we ask that you reenter the queue. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Kevin Herkin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Q3 was a difficult quarter for the industry that began with wildfires in California, which significantly impacted our important Southern California region and included historic winter storms throughout the country in January and February. We size these events as having an approximately 150 basis points negative impact on sales trends for food distributors in the quarter. Foot traffic to restaurants during the quarter reflected these challenges, with January down 1.3%, February down 5.7% and March down 2.3. The quarter overall was down 3.1%, which represented a 150 basis points deceleration versus Q2's traffic level of down 1.6%.

In addition to the effects of adverse weather in the quarter, consumer confidence has been shaken by the recent trade policy and tariff negotiations. As you are aware, the closely followed Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey recently highlighted that consumers are expressing one of the lowest levels of confidence in approximately twenty years. The decline in confidence levels gives us concern for the full year ahead. I'll speak more about tariffs and their impact on the industry in a few moments. As a reminder, Kenny and I communicated on our Q2 call that we had anticipated nominal improvement in the business macro environment going from the first half into the second half of our fiscal year.

Unfortunately, at this time, we have experienced the opposite macro effect and Sysco's business performance for Q3 reflects the industry traffic deceleration. We are disappointed with the quarter, but it is important to note two things. Cisco's USFS volume trends for the quarter trended in line with the industry traffic deceleration and more importantly, business performance in March strengthened over the course of the month. And while it is unusual for us to comment about the first month of a quarter, given the uncertainties in the macro backdrop and given our softer than expected Q3, we felt it was important to highlight our April performance was stronger than March. For the month of April, industry traffic adjusted for calendar shifts has trended slightly better than March.

The Easter shift in the period complicates year over year comparisons. However, even when adjusting for the Easter calendar shift, April has produced stronger volume growth rates versus March and versus Q3. We are pleased to see the relatively stronger start to our Q4, but we are cautiously planning our business for the remainder of 2025 given the aforementioned tariff uncertainties and consumer confidence data. Given that macro backdrop, I will now pivot to Sysco's results for the quarter where, as you can see on Slide number four, we delivered sales results of $19,600,000,000 up 1.1% on a reported basis and up 1.8% to last year when excluding the divestiture of Mexico. We delivered adjusted operating income of $773,000,000 down 3.3% to last year and adjusted EPS of $0.96 flat to last year.

We converted negative 3.1% foot traffic to restaurants into positive sales by winning new business and successfully passing through approximately 2.1% inflation for the quarter. Importantly, we are making solid progress on our $100,000,000 profit improvement efforts that Kenny discussed last quarter, with a positive contribution in the period from our strategic sourcing and inbound logistics efficiency improvements. Those efforts will have an increased positive impact on our Q4. Our International segment posted another compelling quarter with profit growth of double digits. This is the sixth consecutive quarter of double digit profit growth from our International segment.

Within USFS, our national sales business delivered flat volume growth for the quarter and sales growth of 2.3%. Both figures were below our expectations, driven by softness in the national restaurant sector. Within national sales, our non commercial business continues to perform with strength in foodservice management, education and travel and leisure. Our Local business delivered negative 3.5% volume growth for the quarter. This was a step down versus our Q2 performance, but the step down was consistent with the traffic change to the industry on a quarter over quarter basis.

Lastly, our Sigma segment delivered sales growth of 9.5% for the quarter, driven by strong customer wins versus prior year. The sales and volume growth in Sigma will begin to reduce in coming quarters as we begin to lap large customer wins within the last year. Sigma is having a very strong year, growing top line 9% and bottom line 17% year to date. We are disappointed with the overall financial performance in the quarter as we had expected a stronger macro backdrop. With that said, important initiatives to improve our local business are beginning to deliver results.

It is unfortunate that our self help improvement is coming at the same time that the industry backdrop softened. However, we remain 100% focused on accelerating our progress. We anticipate that we will increase our progress on these important initiatives in the coming quarters. Now that I have covered the general backdrop of the industry in Sysco sales, volume and profit performance, I would like to provide an update on specific initiatives we are driving to improve our performance results. First, I'd like to discuss the state of our sales consultant workforce.

I am pleased to report that our twenty twenty five hiring cohorts are progressing nicely up their productivity curve. Each of our hiring classes are on target to achieve their sales and volume targets. Importantly, I can also report today that our sales consultant retention has significantly improved versus the first half of the year. SC turnover was a headwind for Sysco in the first half of fiscal twenty twenty five and we expect it will become a tailwind in 2026 as we lap those colleague departures and our new hires increase their productivity. Regarding colleague retention, we just completed our annual employment engagement survey and our sales colleague job satisfaction was up solidly year over year.

Colleague engagement drives retention and colleague retention drives positive customer engagement. Given questions we have received on recent investor calls, I would like to explain the net net impact of colleague turnover in a bit more detail, so that you have clarity on what we are experiencing. During the first half of twenty twenty five, we experienced elevated colleague turnover that peaked in September. The negative impact of SC departures is immediate as we need to reassign customer locations to other Cisco colleagues. During that customer realignment, select customer attrition occurs.

As such, a departing colleague has an immediate negative headwind impact on our business and that headwind can persist for a full twelve months until you lap the customer departure. In contrast to the immediate impact of a departure, a colleague hiring has the opposite time horizon. New colleague hiring has a slow and gradual positive impact on the business. New colleagues start with a small book of business and grow that business over time as they expand their territory. The length of time to become productive for a new sales consultant is approximately twelve to eighteen months on average, as it can be quicker or slower depending upon the level of sales experience of the new hire.

Putting it all together, as a result of these two factors, fiscal twenty twenty five has experienced a net headwind from our colleague population. Given that we have stabilized our retention figures and that our new hires are performing, we expect the scales of this equation to tip from negative to positive as we enter fiscal twenty twenty six. The second local topic I would like to highlight today is colleague compensation and performance management. Our sales consultants are embracing our compensation model. They are driving the right selling behaviors and they are on average making more money than prior year.

These actions are most notable in the winning of new business, where we have opened more new accounts in March than any prior period outside of COVID snapback. We have work to do in order to improve customer retention as industry churn across distributors is currently above the historical average. As a result, we have a company wide effort on improving local customer retention to complement the success we are having with new account wins. The hyper focus on service and retention will be a stronger positive vector in fiscal twenty twenty six versus 2025. The third topic for today is our fulfillment capacity expansion.

We previously spoke to opening a new facility in Allentown, PA earlier this year. That new DC is focused on winning new business in the population dense Northeast Corridor. I recently visited our next new site just outside Tampa that will support the growing Florida market. The new facility in Tampa will open this summer and will increase our ability to win net new business in the Florida region by expanding our storage and throughput capacity, especially to support the peak winter months. Internationally, we are on track to open new facilities in Sweden and Ireland in the summer.

Each of these projects will support expanded storage and throughput capacity that we believe will enable us to profitably grow our business in target rich international geographies. Lastly, I would like to speak to our work to improve our pricing agility. At the CAGNY Conference in February, Cisco introduced a new local sales initiative that is currently in pilot mode in select regions. As I said at CAGNY, we are pleased with our margin discipline in overall price competitiveness utilizing our current pricing system and architecture. With that said, it is a competitive marketplace and competition will occasionally offer our customers savings on select items.

Today, our sales reps need to seek approval in order to match a given competitor price on a given item. The time delay of that approval process can sometimes result in a lost sale or even a lost customer. We're working to speed up this process and provide our frontline colleagues with decision making authority, leveraging our pricing tools. Our sales professionals will be able to respond to the customer in the spot moment, enabling incremental opportunities to potentially save a sale, all while maintaining strong margin discipline. This increased speed to action will improve case volume and customer retention.

Most importantly, our underlying pricing technology will be leveraged to underpin the agility process. We will roll out the new model once the pilot results are matching our intended outcomes and as we prepare and train our colleagues, new and experienced to sell in this model. As I wrap up the update on local sales, I want to congratulate our international team for another outstanding quarter. International local volume increased 4.5%. Even more impressively, adjusted operating income increased 17.4.

Particular strength was delivered from our Canada, Great Britain and Ireland businesses. We expect the continuation of these strong results from our International segment in Q4 and into fiscal twenty twenty six. As I wrap up the business review section of my prepared remarks, I would like to make a few comments on some additional important topics. First off, I would like to address what we are seeing with tariffs and their potential impact on the food distributor landscape. It is important to note that Sysco purchases greater than 90% of our products within country in each country that we operate.

Food is inherently local and our sourcing teams greatly leverage local food suppliers. As a result, our tariff exposure is much less than most industries. For those products that we cannot source locally, like avocados from Mexico, we are working efficiently to understand the impact of tariffs on our costs. At this time, produce from Mexico and Canada is exempt through USMCA. With that said, we recently learned that tomatoes will in fact be taxed and tariffed when imported.

To manage these complexities, we have stood up a tariff management task force that meets daily. The focus of the task force work is the following: number one, ensure we have products in stock and available for our customers number two, defend against price increases from suppliers and do everything possible to minimize their impact on potential cost increases for our customers. Number three, find alternative sources of product if and when a cost increase is excessive. Number four, work with our customers to find menu alternatives and product choice alternatives that can reduce the potential negative cost increase impact. All told, Sysco is in a better position than anyone in the foodservice distribution space to manage this dynamic situation, given our size, scale and global procurement division.

Our global leadership gives us a strategic advantage to understand the supplier community in hundreds of countries and have the ability to leverage that knowledge and those relationships in our procurement efforts. As you have heard from other company CEOs, our main concern with tariffs is not product cost inflation. Our main concern is the negative impact that tariff noise and volatility is clearly having on end consumer confidence and sentiment. The Michigan consumer confidence survey data I referenced earlier presents a clear reflection of that concern. We are hopeful that the uncertainty and volatility stabilizes and that the economy doesn't dip into a recession.

With that said, we are making preparations for a more challenging environment and we will be appropriately cautious in our outlook. To help offset softness that may be created by the macro economy, Kenny and our entire leadership team are focused on disciplined cost management and contingency planning. Cisco's industry leading balance sheet is a major source of strength in times like these, as we are able to continue investing in our business when others will need to pull back. This can take the form of winning new customers, building inventory to support new business and even pursuing M and A if we find the right target opportunity at the right price. Sysco is in a position of strength in times of greatest uncertainty.

My last topic for today is the introduction of a pilot program at Sysco, whereby we will open two cash and carry store locations within the Houston community. As you can see on Slide seven, the store concept is called Sysco To Go. We are interested in cash and carry for the following reasons. It is the fastest growing part of the food away from home space and a business where we have 0% market share today. Cash and carry customers are looking for: A, value B, convenience and C, oftentimes the ability to pay cash.

This is a customer that Sysco is not adequately serving today through our delivery model. By having the customer pick up the product themselves at our store location, we eliminate the most expensive part of the supply chain, final mile delivery. That cost elimination enables Sysco to offer our world class products at lower prices than when we deliver to the restaurant. This enables us to meet the needs of the value seeking customer more effectively. I want to be very clear, this is a two store pilot.

The future of the initiative will be determined by the outcomes we produce in these test locations. It is important to note that these two stores are supported from Sysco's existing supply chain, leveraging our own product assortment. As a result, we have a strong command of the projected cost to run the stores. Leveraging our existing supply chain is a major strength of the format, given both stores are in close proximity to our Houston DC. We are excited to open the two stores in Houston soon and welcome value seeking restaurant customers into this compelling shopping environment.

I'll now turn it over to Kenny, who will provide a detailed review of Q3 performance and select fiscal year 2025 guidance commentary. Kenny, over to you. Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. I'm going

to start with high level thoughts on our performance, detail our Q3 financials and then dive into full year 2025 guidance. To start, financial results this quarter included sales growth with stable adjusted EPS performance. In the context of all of the challenging macro headlines over the past few months, growing sales as the industry leader while retaining best in class profit margins and rewarding our shareholders with our balanced capital allocation is noteworthy. However, this quarter missed expectations. As Kevin highlighted, the challenging macro and continuation of negative industry traffic directly impacted results.

In this dynamic backdrop, we will remain agile in our management of the business as we also heighten our focus on the controllables. Our strong business fundamentals, industry leading balance sheet and strong cash flow generation are competitive advantages, especially in a challenging macro environment. As part of our balanced approach to capital allocation, we remain positioned to generate robust free cash flow that enables us to both invest in long term growth, while also rewarding our shareholders. Specific to this last point, we have repurchased $700,000,000 in shares and paid out $752,000,000 in dividends year to date, including repurchasing $400,000,000 in shares this quarter. Further, we recently increased our planned quarterly cash dividend by $03 to $0.54 per share.

This represents a 6% increase year over year and sets FY 2026 up to be our fifty sixth year of delivering dividend growth. Looking ahead, we expect our dividend to continue growing commensurate with our adjusted EPS growth. Now, let's discuss our performance and financial driver for the quarter, starting on Slide 11. For the third quarter, our enterprise sales grew 1.1% on an as reported basis driven by U. S.

Foodservice and Sigma. Excluding the impact of our now divested Mexico business, sales grew 1.8%. With respect to volume, stable volumes across the enterprise included total U. S. Foodservice volume decreasing 2% and local volume decreasing 3.5%.

Our national business remains stable, highlighting the strength of the recession resilient sectors in which we operate such as Foodservice Management, travel and leisure and education. The local volume performance compares to down 1.9 in Q2 twenty twenty five. The sequential deceleration was consistent with the industry traffic deceleration, but also included headwinds from the carryover impact of sales colleague turnover from earlier in the year. Going forward, we expect stronger contributions from newer sales professionals that continue to work up the productivity curve and benefits from the stabilization of colleague retention that Kevin mentioned earlier. International segment results, excluding Mexico, this quarter demonstrated steady top line momentum and double digit operating income growth.

This reflects continued momentum from successfully applying the Cisco playbook. The ongoing success is highlighted by local volumes growing 4.5% and broad based operating income growth across our international portfolio. We produced $3,600,000,000 in gross profit, down 0.8% and gross margin of 18.3% with improved gross profit per case performance. The decline in gross profit dollars for the quarter was primarily driven by negative volumes as well as mix. Volume was impacted by the macro and negative traffic, partially offset by continued growth in our more recession resilient businesses.

Second, mix remained pressured from the continued impact of our national business outpacing our local performance as well as negative mix from lower Sysco brand penetration rates. In addition, the industry challenging traffic backdrop drove delays as compared to our expected timelines, which resulted in fewer than expected strategic sourcing deals being finalized this quarter. That said, we remain confident around the overarching opportunity and our line of sight on benefits to Q4 from recently completed deals. Going forward, we expect improving gross margins driven by incremental benefits from strategic sourcing initiatives as part of our cost savings program and an improvement from mix. Product inflation came in at 2.1% for the total enterprise, consistent with our expectations.

This is the average across all of our major product categories with our teams regularly managing through pockets of fluctuation. Overall, adjusted operating expenses were $2,800,000,000 for the quarter or 14.3% of sales, a 17 basis point improvement from the prior year. We continue to experience improved retention rates and productivity with our supply chain colleagues. This is resulting in strong NPS anchor by our highest service levels of the year for on time deliveries, offset elevated supply chain labor rate and funding long term growth consistent with our ROIC framework. This includes investment in higher growth areas of the business with fleet, building expansion and sales headcount.

Lower annual bonus incentive compensation in our U. S. FS segment and Global Support Center also impacted expenses for Q3. We remain disciplined with our corporate expenses, down 16.8 from the prior year on adjusted basis, which also included accretive productivity cost out along with efficiency work that we deployed in FY '20 '20 '4. These benefits are included in our $100,000,000 cost savings program.

Building off Kevin's point around tariffs, we are focused on leveraging our size and scale advantages by buying better to sell better. Our customer mix is a strategic advantage. We have efficient pass through with national customers and spot pricing from existing and growing local customer base. Our inventory turnover of approximately 14 times per year also enables us to work through inflation and deflation quickly relative to other industries. Overall, adjusted operating income was $773,000,000 for the quarter, reflecting strong growth in our International segment and expense management and Global Support Center offset by declines in our U.

S. FS segment. For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA of $969,000,000 was down 0.8% versus the prior year. Let's now turn to our balance sheet and cash flow, a compelling competitive advantage. As I have explained before, our balance sheet affords us the financial tools and flexibility to make the right decision both for the short and long term as we seek to grow our business while driving industry leading returns on invested capital.

Our balance sheet remains robust and reflects a healthy financial profile. This includes flexibility and optionality from approximately $4,400,000,000 in total liquidity, well above our minimum threshold. We ended the quarter at a 2.8 times net debt leverage ratio. Turning to our cash flow, we generated approximately $1,300,000,000 in operating cash flow and $954,000,000 in free cash flow year to date. Free cash flow was driven by strong quality of earnings and prudent management of working capital.

This quarter marked our strongest conversion rate of the year. For the full year, we continue to expect strong conversion rates from adjusted EBITDA to operating cash flow at approximately 70% and free cash flow at approximately 50%. As noted earlier, our strong financial position enabled us to return approximately $649,000,000 to shareholders this quarter. Now I would like to share with you our updated expectations for Q4 and FY 2025. Given the uncertain environment and general concerns regarding consumer confidence, we are lowering our full year guidance for FY 2025 as seen on Slide 17.

During FY 2025, we now expect reported net sales growth of approximately 3%, slightly down from the prior target of 4% to 5%. This is largely driven by lower than expected volume growth driven by the market. Our assumptions for inflation of approximately 2% and contributions from M and A remain unchanged. We now expect full year 2025 adjusted EPS growth of at least 1%. For Q4, this implies adjusted EPS to be at least flat.

The revision to guidance reflects that the current uncertain macro environment and its outsized impact to the second half of the year, which historically is more profitable. This upcoming quarter also includes our planned strategic investments related to refreshing our fleet and building capacity coming online. This updated guidance assumes no further degradation of the restaurant trapping environment and a slight improvement to our volume performance. Importantly, we believe this guide is achievable based on our strong exit velocity for March and continued momentum into April and Q4, including higher contributions from cost out. We remain confident in delivering our run rate cost savings target of approximately $100,000,000 which we expect to benefit Q4 and the first half of twenty twenty six, helping offset the current macro environment.

We plan to remain focused on operational discipline, tightening the belt as necessary and investing for long term growth. We remain target to reward our shareholders through the distribution of essentially all of our annual free cash flow with over $1,000,000,000 in dividends and $1,250,000,000 in share repurchases. This assumes fourth quarter share repurchase of $550,000,000 and dividends of $250,000,000 For the year, we expect to operate within our stated target of 2.5 times to 2.75 times net leverage ratio and maintain our investment grade balance sheet. Now turning to a few other modeling items. For Q4, we expect a tax rate of approximately 24% and adjusted depreciation and amortization of approximately $200,000,000 Interest expense is now expected at approximately $170,000,000 Looking ahead and as we have proven over time, we will leverage our position as the market leader to drive disciplined growth as we remain focused on unlocking value that will reward our shareholders.

With that, I will turn the call back to Kevin for closing remarks.

Thank you, Kenny. Q3 did not live up to our expectations on the top or bottom line. The macro softness directly impacted our volume trends within the important local and national restaurant business sectors. Our trade down in volume during the quarter is directly linear with the widely communicated traffic decline experienced by the industry over the same period. With that said, we can see progress that we are making on activities within our local business.

Colleague retention has stabilized. New customer win rate is accelerating. As I mentioned, we are still working through the headwind of prior quarter's colleague resignations, but that impact will reduce in magnitude each quarter. As we head into fiscal twenty twenty six, the net net of colleague retention and new colleague hiring will become a tailwind. Why?

Our new hires are performing and they are responding to the updated compensation model. They are opening new business. They are hitting their sales targets. Additionally, our new distribution centers will increase our ability to win profitable new business in important geographies, both domestically and globally. The most compelling proof point to highlight the self help progress we are making in our local business is the percentage of new business we are opening weekly.

March was a very strong month for opening new business and the progress has continued into April. Combined with our efforts to improve customer retention through pricing agility and improved service levels from our supply chain, we are confident we can grow our customer count in 2026. From a business perspective, March local volume improved two seventy basis points versus February and local volume during the April improved further versus March. We are pleased to see the stronger April and we are cautiously planning our coming months due to the tariff uncertainty. I am confident Sysco will make progress on our improvement initiatives in the coming periods.

External environment may throw us some curveballs in the year to go and we are prepared to margins, rock solid balance sheet and fiscal responsibility will be strength points as we navigate this volatile environment. I am confident in our ability to win versus the overall marketplace in challenging conditions, just like we successfully grew our business during the COVID disruptions. At times like these, our higher than industry profit margins and strong balance sheet cannot be overstated. We also expect our international division, which has been less impacted by volatility to continue to be a strong point for the company. Having the diversified business will be a strength point ahead.

With that operator, we're now ready for questions.

Thank Our first question will come from Alex Lagell with Jefferies.

Thanks for the question. Good morning. I had a question on the local business. If you could kind of talk about the sales headcount investments you've been making, where we are with that? And I guess any evidence these investments are really moving the needle?

You provided a couple interesting tidbits on the acceleration in the March and April, but any other sort of pockets of your business where you can point out where you're seeing the initiatives deliver positive organic case growth or clear market share gain, something that really gives you confidence that the drivers are in place and working as hoped?

Good morning, Alex. It's Kevin. Thank you for the question. I'll start with your first part of your question, which is sales consultant headcount. We expect to end the year at approximately 4% growth in our headcount, excuse me, covering from a head cold, approximately 4% growth year over year at the conclusion of Q4.

It's an estimate. It will be at least 4% growth. So that's the answer to that question. As it relates to signals of progress, as I said in my prepared remarks, we have several proof points that we can share. March being stronger than Q3 in total, April being stronger than Q3, nose up, if you will, on the controllables, evidenced by new customer win rate.

In the month of March, we opened more new customers than at any point in time other than the snapback recovery from COVID. Proof point number two is the quality and productivity of the training cohorts. As you know, we hire people in classes, those classes graduate and we track them every single month on their performance versus where we expect them to be. And I can definitively communicate that our hiring cohorts are producing, they're growing their productivity at the rate we expect and anticipate. And as I said in my prepared remarks, why that's not evident and visible in market share gainsvolume growth that we're proud of in year to date is the offset to these things, which was the increased colleague turnover that experienced during the first half of the year.

As I said in my prepared remarks, that peaked in September, it improved in Q2, but we're still carrying that headwind of the colleague separation because when they depart, there's some customer loss that goes along with that. We anticipate the scales of that equation, as I mentioned in prepared remarks, to tip to positive in Q1 of fiscal twenty twenty six because of the confidence in the new hires and that we'll be lapping that increased separation.

So Kenny, anything to add? Yes. Hey, Alex. Kenny here. I'll add a couple of things here.

One piece is we are encouraged by seeing select geographies already hitting our growth expectations driven by the SC adds, improved retention as well as the new comp model that we talked about. And then that's carrying into Q4 as well. So that's one proof point to answer your question. The second thing I would say is that as you think about our book of SEs right now, the ones that are in our books, literally, most of are higher in the back half of FY 2024 and the first half of FY 2025. With each passing month, the SEs become more productive, and we're seeing that with our cohorts that Kevin just referred to.

The improvement is not binary, meaning each month, each day, each quarter, they're becoming more productive. And the interesting fact here is that we are we will be experiencing a significant amount of folks entering that twelve to eighteen months time frame now. And based on our own internal tracking data, there is a step level function change up to the good once we hit that. So you'll see some of that in Q4 and that's the reason why we do expect Q4 local volume to improve versus Q3. The last thing I would say around your question around sales headcount investment, I agree with Kevin, will be around over 4% increase year on year.

We are committed on growing our local sales professional headcount and we'll be disciplined on pacing the volume to expectations and market conditions. We'll be very deliberate on when and where we add.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Mark Carden with UBS.

Great. Good morning and thanks so much for taking the question. So I wanted to ask another one on local, more from an industry wide perspective. How has the local restaurant industry backdrop held up relative to national restaurants? And then within that, are you seeing any regional challenges?

And how has that fluctuated over the past few months?

Good morning, Mark. It's Kevin. Thank you for the question. National restaurants had a really tough quarter.

That's the headline. That's the punchline. It was soft consistent with the local numbers that obviously we disclose and report. When you look at our national case volume number, have to keep in mind, yes, there are national restaurants in that mix, but it's offset by real strong strength in food service management, travel and entertainment, education has held up strong and we have a very stable healthcare business. So national for us was stronger than local.

But if you unpack within national and look at this national restaurants, it was a tough, tough quarter for national restaurants. Obviously, there are individual select names that are doing incredibly well. You know who they are, but in aggregate, really tough quarter for National. And it was exacerbated in February, which kind of going back to one of Alex's questions. We're seeing strength where we're adding headcount.

Kenny hit that point very, very well. But the pain in Q3, the weather was everywhere. I happen to live in the South. We had four inches of snow in Houston. That never happens.

Really adverse weather in the mid parts of the country, the temperate zone and obviously the North at the February had back to back to back weeks of really adverse weather. So, the headwind was pretty much geographically throughout The United States. Interestingly, our international division, one of the reasons it's continuing to perform, we're not experiencing some of these headwinds from an external factor perspective. The tariff and tax thing is not negatively at this time impacting our International division. And it's one of the reasons along with our strong business performance that we're doing well in that regard.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Jeff Bernstein with Barclays.

Great. Thank you very much. I had one clarification on a comment you made earlier and then a question. The clarification is just on that local case growth. I know you said you're directionally similar to the industry in terms of easing.

I'm just wondering whether you think any of it is self inflicted, whether you see industry data that gives you confidence you're not underperforming peers? That was my clarification. Otherwise, the question is just on the fiscal twenty twenty five guidance. I feel like the past couple of quarters you were confident that even if the macro would have pressure the top line, you had levers to accelerate cost and efficiency savings to still hit that 6% to 7% EPS growth. So it does look like you lowered the top line by 1% or so, one to 2% actually, but you took down the EPS guidance by 5% plus.

Just wondering how you see that playing out, whether or not there's less low hanging fruit or you just decide you don't want to damage the long term infrastructure for short term earnings. Any thoughts on that between top and bottom line? Thank you.

Yes, very fair questions. It's Kevin. I'll start and Kenny will back clean up as it relates to your appropriate question regarding the full year guide. Back to local, we are confident that in Q3, our performance relative to the market was consistent. In fact, it's almost to the penny.

If you track the traffic change from Q2 to Q3 to our local case growth performance Q2 to Q3, we were consistent with the industry. We are confident we did not erode in our performance relative to the overall market. We are pleased with the start of Q4. As I said, April was stronger than March. March was stronger than Q3.

We're beginning to see some positive separation in our performance relative to the market as we begin Q4. And it's this timing thing that I'm talking about relative to colleague separation, the new cohorts that are hitting their twelve month anniversary date in Q4, as Kenny already communicated, and even more of them will hit that twelve month anniversary as we roll into fiscal twenty twenty six. We need to display separation in our performance versus the market in a positive way, and we are seeing the green shoots of progress, Jeff, that are going to enable that outcome. We'll talk about that more in August, obviously, as we provide guidance for fiscal twenty twenty six. As it relates to Q3, we understand your question.

One thing I would point to is just the steepness of the drop off in February was meaningfully unanticipated. I said in my prepared remarks, the traffic down 5.7%. It was like a light switch. When that happens, it's really difficult to get that type of cost out of your system that fast, especially when March rebounded quite solidly versus February. We don't want to furlough drivers.

We don't want to cut costs that you end up having to reverse later. That is really painful. The other thing relative to adverse weather of that nature is it drives operating expenses up. So think about the number of facilities we have, snow removal at our large parking lots. And then when you're doing deliveries in that type of environment, a lot of those trucks are coming back half full, meaning we load the truck for 20 stops, it comes back three hours into the route and you have to put all that inventory back to stock.

Some of that inventory has to be disposed because perishable. So these things add cost. So yes, it's a volume headwind when traffic drops like that, but it's also a cost headwind because of some of the examples that I just provided. So why don't we transition from that into how we're thinking about our guide for Q4 our general outlook in general, and I'll pass that to Kenny. Over to you, Kenny.

Yes. Hey, Jeff. Thanks, Kevin. Just one comment on Q3 before we head into the full year guide and the confidence around that number. If you take a step back on Q3, we did miss EPS consensus by $06 Now if you unpack that in simple fashion, roughly $05 is driven by volumes.

As Kevin talked about in his prepared remarks, we assume nominal improvement in foot traffic, while foot traffic actually fell quarter over quarter by 150 bps, right? So again, that's a $00 or 85% of the miss and the other 15%, or call it a zero is driven by timing shifts from strategic sourcing deals, given the backdrop in which we operate in. And the good news is we had deals closed between post quarter and today. Therefore, that's the vote of confidence for our $100,000,000 impact, the annualized $100,000,000 impact in Q4. In terms of the guidance, Jeff, I think the question behind your question is how confident are you in the number and any context there.

So I'll answer it with two points here. Just to recap, you're correct. The full year is 3% sales growth and then EPS at least 1% growth. The two reasons why we are confident, first, Kevin just talked about, momentum. We have momentum.

We continue to see it, not just from market standpoint, but a lot of our self help initiatives are working as well, let alone, the momentum market, meaning our self professions are becoming more productive, climbing up to look the productivity curve as well as our expense productivity items in the $100,000,000 All of that is on pace and on target. Therefore, momentum is there across the P and L. And just to double click more on the self help, we have begun the realization of the savings in Q3. It's heavy weighted towards Q4. And again, it goes back to the leverage we have in our P and L.

Retention is the gift that keeps on giving. We're seeing retention in our SPs as well as in our supply chain colleagues. Fun fact here, supply chain has the highest productivity year to date right now. So again, with all of these combined, we are very confident with our current guide. Kevin?

Just we don't like to do three part answers, but this question is very, very important as we think about the full year guidance that we updated today. We're very pleased with the start of Q4 from a volume improvement perspective versus March. So you may be asking, well, so then why the Q4 guide? We're being very cautious is the point. Given the tariff uncertainty, the volatility in the market, the Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey results that I referenced, we're being very cautious.

We're being thoughtful about the management of expenses, the management of the discipline of the P and L. We're pleased with the self help activities that I referenced on today's call and therefore the prudence, if you will, of the guide that we put out for Q4.

Thank you. We'll move next to Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo.

Yes. Hi, good morning everybody. Kevin, I wanted to just zero in on sales force and the opportunity that you see ahead of you. I mean, talked about 4% growth in the sales force by the end of twenty twenty five. You've talked historically about adding about four fifty people annually.

So that growth, if you're still going to achieve that in 2026, should be higher. If you do the math on this normalizing turnover and the sales force growth, it's not hard to look at local case volumes and say that there is a 300, five hundred basis point opportunity for you to improve that business. But my question is, is it that simple? Meaning like are there other issues preventing that math from working? The pricing tool has been something that's been talked about that I think maybe is creating some friction.

There's maybe some lag on the customer loss, right? If salespeople are leaving, in a year, do they come off non competes and do you continue to have some issue there? I'm just curious as to how you see the magnitude of the self help opportunity and the cadence of the benefit that you may get in 2026? Because I think where the stock is trading today, the stock is saying that the market doesn't see that benefit coming. So if you could give us some color there, think it'd be helpful.

Yes. Good morning. Thank you for the question. Appreciate the question. We need to prove it through our outcomes, and that is what we will do.

Sysco (SYY) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Company Participants