Inside the Top 10

For the most part, with a bit of jostling for position over the years and a couple of notable exceptions, membership in the Top 10 has remained consistent. Since 2015, only three Top 10 companies have been replaced, and those due to acquisitions. 

Hockenbergs Equipment & Supply was purchased by TriMark USA and Hubert Co. was paired with its sibling dealership Central Restaurant Products by parent company TAKKT Foodservice. And e-commerce platform Supplies on the Fly, which teetered at the edge of the Top 10 for several years and made an appearance as No. 10 in 2018, 2019 and 2021, no longer appears as a separate entity. Owned by Sysco since 2009, Supplies on the Fly’s volume estimate, which its latest listing in 2023 was $247 million, is now folded in with Edward Don & Co’s. Sysco acquired Edward Don & Co. in 2023.

Headliner Shifts

Change has happened at the very top, as well. TriMark USA, for example, held the No. 1 position until 2020. In the FE&S 2015 report, TriMark reported 2014 sales of $1.072 billion, becoming the first dealer to break the $1 billion mark. Clark Associates, which in the 2016 study ranked the fourth largest dealer in the country, with 2015 sales of $632.45 million, by 2017 had leapfrogged over Edward Don & Co. and Wasserstrom Co. to claim the No. 2 spot, reporting 2016 sales of $906 million. 

Certainly fueled by the success and growth of its WebstaurantStore division, Clark’s rapid rise was multidimensional. Since the 1990s, it added a cash-and-carry division, The Restaurant Store, which also has a strong online component; a c-store products division; the light contracting-focused Turnkey Solutions Group; and, in 2017, a national accounts division. It also has an arm known as 11400. Formed in 2004, it focuses on public money jobs like school, hospital and military foodservice projects. Clark Service Group, an installation, maintenance and repair company, does not factor into Clark Associates’ numbers as of 2017. That year Glenn Clark Jr. purchased the Service and Parts Division of Clark Associates and started Clark Service Group as an independent corporation.

2021: Clark Secures No.1

By 2021, Clark secured the No. 1 position with reported 2020 sales of $1.75 billion. It has since held onto that position, and by a significant margin. Despite the fact that Clark’s growth slowed to slightly more than 3% last year, it’s a margin that seems increasingly untouchable. No. 2 TriMark’s sales, already lower than Clark’s by a solid $1.4 billion, declined by 4.38% last year. In early 2024, TriMark announced it had received a $350 million cash equity investment to “substantially deleverage” its balance sheet and improve its financial position. In October of last year, the company appointed new leadership. Terry O’Brien, an industry veteran who has led turnarounds at CTI Foods, CP Foods North America and Brach’s Confections, came on board as CEO and Jim Clough, a 35-year retail and foodservice industry veteran with extensive private equity operating experience, is TriMark’s new chairman of the board.

No. 4 Singer Equipment Co., meanwhile, saw its 2024 sales volume grow to $865.4 million, up 28.58% over estimated 2023 sales. That’s thanks to organic growth as well as the April 2024 acquisition of Mississippi-based Hotel & Restaurant Supply Co., which at $126.64 million in sales for 2023 was the country’s 20th largest foodservice equipment and supplies dealer. This April Singer announced another acquisition, that of the business of Joseph Flihan Company in Utica, New York. Despite its dramatic growth, Singer would need to nearly double its volume to reach that estimated for No. 3 Edward Don & Co. And from there, the gulf between the biggest of the big and the merely big continues to expand exponentially. 

As the big have gotten bigger, of course, it’s no surprise that the share of the market they hold has also grown consistently. Today, the combined volume of the Top 10 dealers accounts for more than 70% of total sales among Distribution Giants. Zooming in a bit tighter, just 5 companies — Clark, TriMark, Edward Don, Singer, and Wasserstrom — together generated well over half of the total volume of foodservice equipment and supplies sold last year by all 100 Distribution Giants. 

Newest to Join Top 10

Company names change very little among the Top 10 FE&S Distribution Giants. Here are two that have moved up and earned a spot in recent years:

1. KaTom Restaurant Supply

• 2020 FE&S Distribution Giants: Ranked No. 10 and marked the company’s first appearance in the Top 10
• 2025 FE&S Distribution Giants: Ranked No. 6

Tennessee-based juggernaut KaTom, like Clark Associates an early adopter of e-commerce, rose from No. 23 in 2015 with sales of $70.79 million to enter the Top 10 in 2020 with 2019 sales of $200 million. Now, five years later, the dealership ranks sixth largest among Distribution Giants, with 2024 sales of $483.79 million.

2. Johnson-Lancaster and Associates

• 2022 FE&S Distribution Giants: Ranked No. 10 and marked the company’s first appearance in the Top 10
• 2025 FE&S Distribution Giants: Ranked No. 7

Florida-based Johnson-Lancaster made its debut in the Top 10 in 2022 with 2021 sales of $268.9 million. It has since moved up to No. 7, reporting 2024 sales of $420 million. Some of Johnson-Lancaster’s growth came organically while some of it is due to acquisition. In April of 2024, the Florida-based dealership purchased IFE Group/SCRDG, which had reported revenue of $37.82 million in 2023, making it the 54th largest dealer in the country.

Top 10 Share of Market

Companies that rank among the Top 10 in FE&S Distribution Giants studies have consistently grown their share of the market, going from just more than half to inching toward three-quarters.

Top 5 Share of Market

Five companies in the FE&S Distribution Giants 2025 study control more than half of the market share: Clark, TriMark, Edward Don, Singer and Wasserstrom.