NAICS 4131Industry group · 4-digitregional market1 market record

Food merchant wholesalers

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in wholesaling processed milk and other dairy products, poultry and eggs, fish and seafood products, fresh fruit and vegetables, red meat and meat products, bread and other bakery products, processed rice, flour, flour mixes, prepared cereal foods and spices. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 6,020
Under 10 employeesA: 63%

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–42,63244%

5–91,15519%

10–1995016%

20–4976613%

50–992805%

100–1991362%

200–499831%

500+180%

Of 6,020 Canadian establishments with employees, 63% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario2,23537%

Quebec1,60627%

British Columbia1,03417%

Alberta3796%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Wholesale Trade, US · opened 2020

82.8%

1 year

64.3%

3 years

51.2%

5 years

34.4%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 413, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

regional competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 413 Food, beverage and tobacco merchant wholesalers

Broadline is consolidated. Specialty and ethnic food distribution stays fragmented and regional, run on relationships and cold-chain reliability.

Who sets the price: Large distributors and the grocers they serve.
The software it runs on: Distribution ERP, route accounting, warehouse and lot traceability.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreened

Foodservice DistributionStructure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

Three listed companies hold roughly half of North American foodservice distribution, and they are still buying. Sysco turned $84.6B in fiscal 2026, up 3.9%, and its own 10-K puts it at about 18% of an approximately $377B US foodservice market [A]. Performance Food Group's Foodservice segment did $36.6B on $1.29B of adjusted EBITDA [A]. Neither number is the problem. The problem is the margin underneath them: Sysco's strongest segment, US Foodservice Operations, earned $3,518M of operating income on $58,803M of sales — 6.0 cents on the dollar, and flat year over year [A]. Entry means a refrigerated distribution centre, a delivery fleet and working capital for a restaurant that pays slowly, before a single case moves, to chase six points against buyers whose scale sets the cost of goods. And the consolidators reach downward now: Sysco agreed in March 2026 to pay about $29.1B for Jetro Restaurant Depot, 167 cash-and-carry warehouses serving more than 725,000 independent operators [A], while PFG paid $1,978.6M for Cheney Brothers in October 2024 [A]. Sysco's filing is candid that barriers to entry are low and switching costs are very low — which is exactly why the margin is thin. The reachable version is specialty distribution — ethnic, local-farm or allergen ranges the majors' assortment does not carry — and that is not screened here.

NAICS 41316 vendors named15 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Distribution ERP, route accounting, warehouse and lot traceability.

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 5

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
SyscoNYSE:SYY	Food merchant wholesalers4131	$84.6B	1/5
Gordon Food Service (GFS)Private	Food merchant wholesalers4131	—	2/5
Jetro Restaurant DepotPrivate	Food merchant wholesalers4131	—	3/5
Performance Food GroupNYSE:PFGC	Food merchant wholesalers4131	—	4/5
US FoodsNYSE:USFD	Food merchant wholesalers4131	—	5/5

Who works here

The occupations employed in Wholesale trade, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Retail and wholesale trade managers One industry 16.6%

Retail salespersons and non-technical wholesale trade sales and account representatives Mostly one sector 9.2%

Labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities Mostly one sector 8.7%

Managers in transportation and postal and courier services Mostly one sector 8.5%

Crane operators and water well drillers Mostly one sector 7.3%

Taxi, personal service and delivery service drivers Mostly one sector 6.8%

Supervisors, processing and manufacturing occupations Mostly one sector 6.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 5.8%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 5.5%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 5.3%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 10.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 7.9%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 6.7%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 6.2%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 6%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 5.1%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 3.3%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 2.8%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.5%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

7 rows sit directly beneath 4131, and 14 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
41311	General-line food merchant wholesalers	1,177	screened at 4131
41312	Dairy and milk products merchant wholesalers	324	screened at 4131
41313	Poultry and egg merchant wholesalers	113	screened at 4131
41314	Fish and seafood product merchant wholesalers	651	screened at 4131
41315	Fresh fruit and vegetable merchant wholesalers	755	screened at 4131
41316	Red meat and meat product merchant wholesalers	468	screened at 4131
41319	Other specialty-line food merchant wholesalers	2,532	screened at 4131

Alongside it, under 413 Food, beverage and tobacco merchant wholesalers

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
4132	Beverage merchant wholesalers	793	Wine & Spirits Import Agency
4133	Cigarette and tobacco product merchant wholesalers	195	Convenience & Tobacco Distributor
4134	Cannabis merchant wholesalers	27	Cannabis Dispensary POS & Inventory Software