Performance Food Group Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator

Good day, and welcome to PFG's Fiscal Year Q3 twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Bill Marshall, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations for PFG.

Operator

Please go ahead, sir.

Bill Marshall
Bill Marshall
SVP - IR at Performance Food Group Company

Thank you, and good morning. We're here with George Holm, PFG's CEO Patrick Hatcher, PFG's CFO and Scott McPherson, PFG's COO. We issued a press release this morning regarding our twenty twenty five fiscal third quarter results, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at pfgc.com. During our call today, unless otherwise stated, we are comparing results to results in the same period in fiscal twenty twenty four. The results discussed on this call will include GAAP and non GAAP results adjusted for certain items.

Bill Marshall
Bill Marshall
SVP - IR at Performance Food Group Company

The reconciliation of these non GAAP measures to the corresponding GAAP measures can be found in the back of the earnings release. Our remarks on this call and in the earnings release contain forward looking statements and projections of future results. Please review the cautionary forward looking statements section in today's earnings release and our SEC filings for various factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements and projections. Now I'd like to turn the call over to George.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Thanks, Bill. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. We have a good deal of material to cover this morning. I'm going to provide a high level overview of the current market conditions and the strategic measures we have prioritized during the volatile time. Scott McPherson will then provide some color around our segment's performance during the third quarter, and Patrick will follow with our financial performance and guidance.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

The fiscal third quarter provided some challenges to our industry, mainly due to difficult macroeconomic environment and adverse weather in January and February. We saw a decent recovery in March as the weather improved. Still, it appears that the underlying consumer performance remains muted. Interestingly, April results rebounded nicely and we grew our sales and profit through the month. The first week in May was stronger yet producing a record sales week for foodservice, convenience and total company.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

At PFG, we recognize that we cannot control the external macroeconomic environment. However, we do determine how we approach our markets, customers, associates and suppliers. We do not know the exact path the economy will take. However, we are prepared for a range of scenarios. First, it is worth reminding you that our company has experienced several difficult periods through our history, including the 'eight, 'nine Great Recession and the pandemic in 2020.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

These experiences provide a playbook for the actions we can take in more difficult times to not only protect our business but align our operations so we will come out strong on the other side. This is exactly what we have done in the past and what we intend to do now. Even in our soft February, our share gains were consistent with our usual performance. At our Investor Day on May 28, you will hear our detailed strategy that looks to capture both top and bottom line growth by being a diversified food away from home distributor. We have a powerful story and our momentum continues to build and get stronger.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

I'm excited for what the future holds for PFG and believe we are positioned to capture growth over the long term. Before turning it over to Scott, a few high level comments on recent trends. As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, the operating environment has been dynamic to say the least. When we last reported earnings, I believe we could achieve 6% organic independent case growth for fiscal twenty twenty five. Our run rate through January along with easier year over year comparisons for the balance of the fiscal year made that objective a reasonable target for our organization.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

However, the challenges we faced in February have made this target harder to reach. At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, we did see a rebound as we entered the fiscal fourth quarter with our organic independent restaurant case growth hitting 6% in April. Despite the market challenges, our broad based structure provides stability to our bottom line results during market challenges. We believe that gauging the health of the consumer is difficult at this time. However, I have the utmost confidence in our company's ability to execute at a high level, capture market share and deliver revenue and profit results that drive shareholder value.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

With that, I'll turn it over to Scott McPherson for more details on our segment results in the quarter. Scott?

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. As George mentioned, it's been a dynamic year from a trend perspective. We had a strong start to fiscal Q1, and we're progressing well through November. However, in December and through much of the third quarter, we faced disruption, including calendar shifts, adverse weather conditions in both the current year and last year period comparison and of course a dynamic macroeconomic and consumer backdrop. February posed challenges for our industry as we experienced significant weather disruptions and a consumer reacting to economic uncertainty.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

We've seen steady improvement through March. And in April, we finished the month with solid top and bottom line results. While April's outcome is certainly encouraging and shows signs consumer trends are improving, we remain hyper focused on what we can control. As George said, we have a broad and diverse business that has proven resilient in challenging operating environments. For us, we remain laser focused on our strategic priorities, starting with driving growth through our sales associates across all operating segments, continuing to leverage our proprietary brands and procurement synergies to expand gross margins and leverage technology to drive efficiency throughout our supply chain.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Now let's take a deeper look into our three operating segments, starting with our Foodservice business. Overall, Foodservice growth was strong, benefiting from the addition of Cheney Brothers and Jose Santiago in the period. As George mentioned, organic independent case growth took a step back in February growing 3.4% over the full third quarter. These results reflect steady market share gains with independent customer account growth increasing 3.9% year over year and lines growing at 4.3 as we continue to broaden our offerings to customers. Performance Brands sold to independent restaurants were 53% in the quarter, continuing our strong momentum and creating value for our customers with our company owned brand portfolio.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

As we emphasized last quarter, these metrics show that while we cannot control the industry backdrop, we can arm our organization with the products and resources to provide our customer base a differentiated value proposition. Shifting to our chain restaurant business, we grew cases by 1.5% in the quarter, an excellent result given the current backdrop. The growth for our chain business was boosted by the onboarding of new business, which has been ongoing since the second quarter and continues into the fourth quarter. We expect these new business wins to boost fourth quarter results providing incremental case growth and favorable profit profile versus our legacy chain business. Sales and margins were helped by pricing inflation in the quarter.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Current inflation rates in foodservice remain in a range that we consider very manageable. We are closely watching the broad commodities market and preparing for any increases driven by recent tariff considerations. We have not experienced any disruption from tariff actions to date. We continue to assess our exposure, which is currently not looked at as material. However, we are working closely with our suppliers and customers on contingency plans in the event inflation moves meaningfully higher.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

One inflation strategy we are focused on is positioning our high quality company owned brands as the best value proposition for our customers. Again, our sales force continues to win new accounts and gain share despite the difficult operating environment. We have steadily increased our sales force headcount through the year, attracting talent from across the foodservice landscape. Fiscal year to date, our foodservice sales force headcount increased by two fifty associates or 8% year over year. This is roughly the pace of hiring we anticipate for the balance of the year, assuming we continue to see positive signs from the consumer.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

From a profit perspective, the Foodservice segment continues to experience positive margin momentum, driven by favorable mix shift, profitable chain business growth and procurement synergies. These factors, in addition to the contributions of Cheney Brothers and Jose Santiago, drove 29% segment adjusted EBITDA growth in the quarter, translating to 25 basis points of margin expansion. Turning to our convenience segment. The narrative for the convenience industry has remained consistent throughout the fiscal year. Despite a challenging volume backdrop, Core Mark continues to win new business, take market share and expand within existing customers through new offerings, particularly in foodservice.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

In the third quarter, the convenience segment volume grew by approximately 1%, well above the industry performance. Through the full fiscal year, the convenience industry, key categories including snacks, candy and health and beauty have declined at a mid single digit rate, while most other key categories are down low single digits. Over the same timeframe, Core Mark has grown each of these areas by low single digits except candy, which is flat. More recently, we remain cautiously optimistic about sales performance in April, which was notably better than recent periods. While too early to call it a trend, it is certainly a positive indicator.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

We are very excited about our pipeline of new business in convenience. We have found that our proposition as a consolidated convenience and foodservice distributor provides a competitive advantage and has been one of the key reasons that we continue to add new accounts at a fast pace. We will expand more on this topic at our Investor Day. Finishing up our segment commentary with Specialty, formerly known as our Vistar segment, total net sales for Specialty were roughly flat in the third quarter on a low single digit volume decline in the period. As expected, the third quarter was difficult for both theater and value channels due to the lack of content and competitive activity in the theater and consumer challenges for the value segment.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

On the positive side, we've seen stabilization in our vending and office coffee business, benefiting from the return to office trend. Our small parcel business has improved as we build upon our small but rapidly growing e commerce business, something you'll hear more about at our Investor Day. In conclusion, total PFG operating companies weathered a difficult backdrop. From a competitive positioning standpoint, we grew share across all three segments. We have continued to make progress in our mix and margins and are performing well operationally.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

We feel good about our positioning to drive growth and deliver on our customer value proposition. I'll now turn the call over to Patrick, who will review our financial performance and outlook. Patrick?

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Thank you, Scott. This morning, I will review our financial results from our third quarter, provide some color on our financial position, a review of our guidance for the balance of the year. Before jumping into our results for the quarter, we have two housekeeping items to address. First, as noted in our press release, our Vistar segment has been renamed a specialty to align our naming conventions across the three operating segments. We did not add or remove any operations from this segment in our financial reporting.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

It is simply a name change. As we always do, we will continue to assess our segment reporting structure to align with how we operate the business. On that front, also noted in our earnings press release, during the fiscal third quarter, we moved a few small items from corporate and all other into the Foodservice segment. These changes are immaterial to our results and are reflected in both the current and year ago periods for comparability. As you've already heard from George and Scott, it is a dynamic time for our industry and the broad economic landscape.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

For this reason, we believe it is as important as ever to maintain a strong financial position. We believe that our balance sheet and cash flow not only insulate us from external shocks, but also allow us to take advantage of market dislocation. As George described, supporting our associates, customers and vendors through difficult times has allowed us to build upon the strong foundation of our business position. This was only possible because we had the financial resources to invest behind our organization. In the first three quarters of our fiscal year, we have used our balance sheet and cash flow to finance growth initiatives, including two attractive acquisitions, Cheney Brothers and Jose Santiago and over $300,000,000 in capital projects.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

We believe that these initiatives put us in a strong position to thrive in a range of operating environments. Let's review our third quarter business results. PFG total net sales grew 10.5% in the quarter due to the addition of Jose Santiago and Cheney Brothers as well as volume growth and net price realization. Our total independent restaurant cases grew 20% in the quarter or 3.4% on an organic basis. Organic independent case growth was lower than we had hoped entering the quarter.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

However, as Scott detailed, the underlying metrics including market share, new account growth and lines per account reflect strong execution. While it is still early, our April results improved noticeably. Total company cost inflation was about 4.9% for the third quarter, an uptick from our prior period, but steady year to date. Foodservice product cost inflation was 3.7% in the quarter, while specialty cost inflation was 2.8% year over year and convenience increased 6.7%. We are closely watching input cost inflation, particularly with the implementation of tariffs and have not yet seen an impact from tariffs.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Importantly, we source the majority of our inventory from domestic suppliers. At the same time, we believe we are well positioned in the event of an acceleration in inflation and are maintaining close communication with customers and suppliers. We have a proven track record of managing inflation and expect to navigate the current market using the similar playbook. Total company gross profit increased 16.2% in the fiscal third quarter, representing a gross profit per case increase of $0.39 in the quarter as compared to the prior year's period. Strong operating expense control and productivity efforts produced adjusted EBITDA growth for the Foodservice, Specialty and Convenience segments.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

In particular, our Specialty segment, despite a difficult top line environment, produced 6.9% adjusted EBITDA growth. In the third quarter of twenty twenty five, PFG reported net income of $58,300,000 Adjusted EBITDA increased 20.1% to $385,100,000 Diluted earnings per share in the fiscal third quarter was $0.37 while adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.79 Our effective tax rate was 25.8 in the third quarter. We anticipate a higher tax rate in the fourth quarter closer to our historical range. Turning to our financial position and cash flow performance. In the first nine months of fiscal twenty twenty five, PFG generated $827,100,000 of operating cash flow.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

After $332,700,000 of capital expenditures, PFG delivered free cash flow of about $494,000,000 Diligent working capital management and our operating results contributed to the strong cash flow result through the fiscal year. As we described last quarter, our capital spending levels for our legacy business have remained fairly steady over the first three quarters of the fiscal year at a run rate of approximately $100,000,000 per quarter. The increase we experienced in the third quarter was largely related to the addition of capital expense to support Cheney and Jose Santiago businesses as expected. We anticipate an increase to our capital expenditures in the fourth quarter, which is typical for our company. While we remain committed to capital investment in capacity and fleet to support our growth, we are closely following the external landscape and will take appropriate steps to adjust our spending if necessary.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

At this time, however, we feel good about the level of investment we are undertaking. During the third quarter, we began to pay down debt through reduction in the outstanding balance of our ABL facility, in line with our stated near term objective of reducing debt. During the quarter, we also repurchased about 138,000 shares of our stock at an average cost of $76.82 per share for a total of $10,600,000 While we are prioritizing debt reduction, we also take various marketplace conditions into account when determining our capital allocation strategy. This means that we have and expect to continue to opportunistically repurchase our shares during market downturns. This is supported by our financial position and cash flow.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

The M and A pipeline is robust, and we continue to evaluate strategic M and A. As always, we will apply our high standards and due diligence process in the evaluation of these acquisition opportunities. Turning to our guidance for fiscal twenty twenty five. Today, are narrowing our sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance, primarily flowing through the results from the third quarter. We now expect net sales to be in a 63,000,000,000 to $63,500,000,000 range, adjusting the top end of the range by $500,000,000 and leaving the bottom end unchanged.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the full year is now a range of $1,725,000,000 to $1,750,000,000 narrowing the upper end by $50,000,000 As we enter the final months of the fiscal year, we feel confident in these targets and each of these ranges suggest full year 2025 results in line or above the three year plan we set at our Investor Day in 2022. In a few weeks, we will provide more color around our successful execution of the long term plan and discuss our vision for the next three years. To summarize, PFG successfully navigated difficult environment in the third quarter and is prepared to maintain strong growth in a range of economic scenarios. Our financial position is strong, and we have a balanced capital allocation plan to generate long term shareholder returns. We're excited about what the future holds and are investing capital to sustain our growth.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Thank you for your time today. We appreciate your interest in Performance Food Group. And with that, George, Scott and I would be happy to take your questions.

Operator

Thank you. And your first question comes from the line of Mark with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Matthew Rothway
Matthew Rothway
Analyst at UBS Group

Hi. This is Matthew Rothway on for Mark Carden. Thanks for taking our question. Glad to hear that trends are improving a little bit of late, although it sounds like maybe still a little weak in the independent channel. I was curious if you could help us understand a little bit more what you're seeing with consumer demand and behavior.

Matthew Rothway
Matthew Rothway
Analyst at UBS Group

Are you seeing any trade down or trade out? Any shifts in cuisine types from consumers? Any additional color would be great.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Yes. I'll take that. This is Scott. So first off, talking about just independent demand and our independent case volume, as we talked about, if you think about the quarter, we had the beginning of the quarter was pretty strong. We were mid single digit in January.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Obviously, was the big setback for everybody in the quarter. And then March, kind of back to that mid single digit range. And as George mentioned, we were up to 6% in April. So feel really good about how that's progressing. When I think about any trade down, we really didn't see obviously, on a same store basis, restaurants were pretty flat.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

We performed well from a penetration and growing account standpoint, which really is what drove our independent volume. And I'd say the last piece is from a segment standpoint. Our Mexican segment did really well and also our Convenience segment did really well from a foodservice standpoint.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

And I know we've been repeating ourselves some, but I think it's important to stress that February was the month that really changed our quarter. But when we track our business, we track it closely by what our new business is and our lost business and our penetration. And virtually all of the difference in February was penetration. And it wasn't just in our independent, it was in the chain business, and also it was inconvenience. And it just showed that, you know, people weren't out there.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

We didn't see it in our in our specialty business or Vistar business, and a lot of that is kinda logical. People are at work, when these weather issues happened. If they were able to get to work, they didn't go out to lunch. They hit the micro market. They hit the vending, and it was actually a positive for that part of our business.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

But it was all about February.

Matthew Rothway
Matthew Rothway
Analyst at UBS Group

Great. And then as a follow-up question, just curious to get your outlook on food inflation as we go through the year here. It sounds like maybe a little early for any tariff related inflation. But would you see any opportunities for pre buys if you do start to see inflation, particularly with your Specialty and Convenience segment?

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Yes, Matthew, this is Patrick. I'll start with that and maybe Scott wants to add a little more detail. But when it comes to how we're looking at inflation, again, as we reported, very much in line for Q3, very similar to what we saw in Q2 with a little bit of an uptick in foodservice, but Vistar and Convenience Specialties staying pretty close to where they've been. And as we look into Q4, we'll expect we're at least modeling that that will be very similar that foodservice will be in that mid single digits and Vistar will be very similar to what they were in Q3 and convenience also around 7%. It's too early to really understand what's going on with tariffs, to be honest with you.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

And as far as the opportunity to pre buy, we'll just have to look at that. That's really going to be as more information becomes available.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Yeah. The only tag on to that I would have is when we think about tariffs, you know, I would say that first off, our biggest concern with tariffs is just the macro environment, you know, and and consumer share of wallet. And if, you know, if automotive or some of those industries have big impacts, how does that affect the food away from home space? When it comes to cost of goods and our actual cost of goods, very minor impact. We import less than 10% of our goods.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

And especially with Mexico and Canada with USMCA, it sounds like there's not going to be much of a tariff impact there. And that really minimizes what we think the impact will be to us domestically.

Matthew Rothway
Matthew Rothway
Analyst at UBS Group

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Edward Kelly
Edward Kelly
Managing Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Yes. Hi. Good morning. And thanks for all the color. I wanted to follow-up on organic independent case growth trends.

Edward Kelly
Edward Kelly
Managing Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

I mean, sounds like a pretty robust recovery in April, especially off probably what was a pretty rough February. And maybe even a better April, sort of like early May. Just curious, George, to the extent that you think that that's a good run rate for the business currently, are there things that we need to consider maybe around comparisons there? And then given that, the Q4 guidance at the midpoint did come down by $10,000,000 I guess despite the strong start. So is that just incremental conservatism on your part?

Edward Kelly
Edward Kelly
Managing Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Or is there anything else to consider there?

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Well, we're gonna be real cautious around the macro environment. What we are seeing now is a real positive, but there's been some calendar differences. These are two really good weeks for us all the time, the week before Cinco de Mayo and Mother's Day week. This week, so far, we are having a really strong week. And last week was our first week that we had ever done, exceeded a billion 300,000,000 in sales.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

And like I said, this this week is better. I I don't know that we can take a victory lap around it yet. We'll just have to see what comes up, in the month of June. And I I look at what is a good run rate. If if you go back and and you look at this quarter, we just ended our fiscal third quarter.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

If the market was down about 3%, which seems to be what people think, you know, we would have been well above our 6% target, I guess. I don't think that the market is necessarily any stronger today than it was just a matter of a few weeks ago because we don't see it in our national accounts. We've seen a nice uptick in our independent, but the national account looks a lot like April. The other thing I I would like to mention as far as total case with performance, you know, we are very, very large in the casual dining area. You know, we have one that's doing exceptional right now.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

We have another one that's doing okay. But for the most part, they are really struggling. And we've been able to overcome that with other business and and obviously with with some growth from independent. So from a top line standpoint, we feel real good going into next fiscal year. And then in our convenience business, which I'll have Scott comment, but we have had some real good wins there, and we are expecting to see much greater growth next fiscal year than we're seeing this fiscal year.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Now I'll turn it over to Scott for a minute.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Yes. Just to reflect a little more on the convenience piece that George mentioned. First off, as I said in the prepared remarks, the macro there has been tough. A lot of the center store categories have been down mid single digits and our convenience segment has outperformed that consistently quarter over quarter. And then we've talked a lot about pipeline opportunities and the selling cycle and convenience being a little slower, but have felt really good about our positioning.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

And over the last few weeks, we've had three or four big wins. Those are wins that will roll on over the course of the next well, through the balance of the calendar year. But as George said, I think Convenience is really well positioned. We'll see some more growth out of them into next year. And operationally, they've done a great job margin wise as well.

Edward Kelly
Edward Kelly
Managing Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Then maybe just a follow-up as it pertains to the middle part of the P and L. Gross profit dollar growth despite weaker case volumes were, I think, better than most for modeling. I mean, I don't know about you guys. And it seems like SG and A was maybe a little bit higher. But I'm just curious how SG and A played out relative to your expectations.

Edward Kelly
Edward Kelly
Managing Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Was there, you know, anything, you know, within that that, came in unexpectedly higher? And is there anything there that maybe translates into q four?

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Well, you know, February was our difficult sales month. It was also a difficult expense month. We shipped a lot of product out that turned around and came back. And, you know, that impacts your payroll, but it impacts your shrink. It's it's just really difficult to to go through a period like that, but that is behind us.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

And the other thing we've continued to do, Scott mentioned that we have 8% more salespeople, and we've just made the decision that, we're looking at that the way we always look at it. And even though it's a slow market for us to to back off from continuing to move forward there, it's just gonna hurt us in the future. So we're living with, you know, if you if you look at just from a percentage standpoint, when you're growing your people eight percent and you're growing your cases 3.4% looking backwards, that's going to cost you some money. And we're willing to spend that money, and we think we're making the right decision there.

Edward Kelly
Edward Kelly
Managing Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Makes sense. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Alex Slagle with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alexander Slagle
Stock Analyst at Jefferies LLC

All right. Thanks. Good morning. I think you talked about convenience trends in April, underlying trends maybe improving and maybe you can clarify that and whether that had to do with fuel costs moderating if that's starting to be any kind of tailwind. I know it's been challenging.

Alexander Slagle
Stock Analyst at Jefferies LLC

And then on convenience, I know the 4Q lap is is really tough. Maybe some color on how we should think about that dynamic as, you know, we we go through modeling and, you know, trying to see whether that can grow year over year.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Yeah. I wouldn't say, Alex, that we've seen any improvement in the industry itself. We just have a little better penetration, and we've got some nice new business coming on. So that's what gives us the confidence. We are certainly hopeful that the industry itself is is going to improve, but that's not, something that we've seen, you know, at this point.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Yeah. And Alex, I'll just add on on the q four convenience. Thanks for pointing that out. I think, you know, if if they didn't have that lap from prior year and have to comp, we'll be seeing, close to double digit or double digit EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter. So we're still very happy with the trends that convenience has been able to deliver on the bottom line, and that will continue into the fourth quarter except for comp that you brought up.

Alexander Slagle
Stock Analyst at Jefferies LLC

Okay. And then with the restaurants, were there any changes between kinda underlying volume dynamics and the chains versus independents worth calling out? I think you touched on it. I I didn't catch that.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Well, we're certainly seeing, you know, once again, this is just the last few weeks, but we're seeing the independent doing better. I don't know that that reflects on the industry or reflects on our customer base. Unfortunately, we haven't seen any real improvement in casual dining. We do have some QSR business that has been doing fairly well. Any comments beyond that, Scott?

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

I think that probably covers No. I think that covers it. Yeah.

Alexander Slagle
Stock Analyst at Jefferies LLC

Thanks for that.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel with Guggenheim. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

John Heinbockel
Senior MD & Equity Research Analyst at Guggenheim Securities

Hey, guys. Wanted to start with cases per account or cases per line rather, right? So if lines were up 4% or so, and I think you said comp location is flat. So is that right that cases per line down four, drop size kind of flattish? And are we seeing an inflection in drop size?

John Heinbockel
Senior MD & Equity Research Analyst at Guggenheim Securities

Right? Because I think you were down, but now it looks like April and go forward, you might actually be up.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Another one of those.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Yes. Another one of those, John, that it's February. And in the month of February, we didn't see that much of a decline in lines, but we saw a a big decline in cases per order.

John Heinbockel
Senior MD & Equity Research Analyst at Guggenheim Securities

Okay. But I mean, you know, point being, have we seen now a sort of an inflection in drop size, right? Because if drop size can now increase, right, because lines per lines per account are, you know, up whatever three or four cases per line or flat down slightly. Are we now seeing an inflection there in drop size?

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Yes, John. As you pointed out, clearly our lines are up per account, but our drop sizes remain relatively flat. So when you think about our growth, almost 100% of our independent growth is driven by new accounts and driven by lines per order. I mean that's really what's getting us there. It's really the new account growth.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

So the stops aren't getting bigger right now.

John Heinbockel
Senior MD & Equity Research Analyst at Guggenheim Securities

And one last thing for Scott, right? When you think about the opportunity on the convenience side, I'm curious what percent of your base has now adopted all of your prepared or most of your prepared food programs, right, pizza, chicken, etcetera? And then do you think you're getting a mid to high single digit lift on those accounts that do adopt those programs in prepared food?

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Yes, John. The way I'd answer that is I'd say we're still in the second or third inning as far as foodservice goes. The number of concepts that we place is growing significantly. Every month, every quarter, we add a lot of turnkey concepts into convenience. But when you think about 50,000 stores that we have, we've got a long runway ahead of us.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

I think we're getting better at it. Our convenience segment is doing really well there. And to your point, in foodservice, whether it be coming out of convenience or whether it be coming from PFS in the convenience, we're growing in that mid single to low double digit range on a pretty consistent basis.

John Heinbockel
Senior MD & Equity Research Analyst at Guggenheim Securities

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Kelly Bania with BMO Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Kelly Bania
Kelly Bania
MD - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. George, was just wondering how you are seeing, you know, smaller competitors and other competitors react to this environment. Obviously, February was was very tough, but it feels like it could remain volatile here. And so just is are you seeing others react more with respect to cost and service levels?

Kelly Bania
Kelly Bania
MD - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

And is that creating any areas where you can lean into, from a market share perspective?

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Well, I would say that the market is more competitive than it has been, really in quite a while, probably going back to to the, great recession. And I think that's normal when when you have volume harder to get. I think things are gonna get more competitive. As far as smaller competitors, if you consider the the information that's made as far as how the restaurant part of the industry is doing versus what we see on our Surcana report, I think it shows that the large distributors are continuing to get a bigger market share than than the smaller ones would be getting.

Kelly Bania
Kelly Bania
MD - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

And and I guess on that note, on competition, are you seeing any change in competition for the Salesforce in terms of the the talent you're able to hire, the cost of of hiring that talent? Any color on that front?

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

We're not seeing any change there at all. We are we have a a great pipeline of salespeople that are available that have experience, and that's why we're part of why we're continuing to grow our Salesforce at the rate we're growing it.

Kelly Bania
Kelly Bania
MD - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

That's very helpful. And and and last one for me, I know you have the the analyst day, coming up in a couple of weeks here, but, lots of questions on on, you know, what that guidance could look like. And just curious if you wanted to give us any bit of a teaser for, how to think about, your plans for for the next, several years.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Hey, Kelly. This is Patrick. I'll just jump in here. We're very excited to see all of you at Investor Day, and we'll be really happy to share the guidance at that time. Thank

Kelly Bania
Kelly Bania
MD - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

you.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Brian Harbour
Brian Harbour
Equity Analyst & Executive Director - Restaurants & Food Distribution at Morgan Stanley

Yes. Thanks. Good morning, guys. George, that comment about competition, I mean, is that is it sort of like changes in price at margin? Is that what you're referring to?

Brian Harbour
Brian Harbour
Equity Analyst & Executive Director - Restaurants & Food Distribution at Morgan Stanley

Or like how does that manifest itself?

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Well, you know, I think that we're an industry that's pretty rational, but we all wanna grow. And I think that when growth is hard to come by, I think people get more competitive. We're certainly looking closely at our pricing, looking closely at our cost structure all the time. And then I would say that the prepaying or, you know, upfront monies are certainly something that, has become more commonplace in our industry. Other than that, I really don't see changes.

Brian Harbour
Brian Harbour
Equity Analyst & Executive Director - Restaurants & Food Distribution at Morgan Stanley

Okay. Thanks. With Vistar, or I guess, Specialty now, did you sort of expect it to be a bit slower quarter there? I guess, and also just as I think about kind of the future growth rate, would 4Q look similar? Have you seen kind of recovery in that business too?

Brian Harbour
Brian Harbour
Equity Analyst & Executive Director - Restaurants & Food Distribution at Morgan Stanley

I know the comparison is a little bit different, but could you talk about your expectations there?

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Sure. I'll take that. This is Scott. We called out last quarter in our remarks that we knew we were going to have a pressured quarter for Vistar, particularly in the theater space. Q3 is traditionally not a great theater quarter.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Also, we had some pressure in the value channel as well, which we expected. As we've moved into March and into April, similar to the other segments, theaters had great content. Theatre looks like Q4 is going to be really strong content as well. But beyond theatre, Vistar is a very diverse business. We feel really good about the pipeline we have with our e commerce platform.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

And then also with return to work, we're starting to see some real signs there in our office coffee and our vending. So we're really optimistic about Vistar. They had a couple of tough quarters to start the year, obviously had a nice EBITDA quarter this quarter. And we'll start to see some growth out of that segment. So really, really feel good about where they're headed.

Brian Harbour
Brian Harbour
Equity Analyst & Executive Director - Restaurants & Food Distribution at Morgan Stanley

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Jake Bartlett with Truist Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jake Bartlett
Jake Bartlett
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

Great. Thanks for taking the question. I'm sorry to go back to some of the near term dynamics, but I just want to make sure I understood what's happening in April. And one question is whether spring break shift along with Easter seems like that could have had a pretty big impact. So I just want to make sure that that's not what's partially driving the better April.

Jake Bartlett
Jake Bartlett
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

And also just looking back at last year, I believe you started the quarter with a fairly solid April. And so the question is what your compares are like in the next couple of months? And then I have another question.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Well, that's part of why we're being cautious. As far as the change in Easter and Easter being later, we're past that. Easter from both years is gone. The week after Easter is always a light week for us. So our April, although a good month, was very choppy.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

And when we did have, we were up against the end of Easter. Those were tough comparisons. I don't think the shift mattered really. It it it just all washed out, and and I I don't think it mattered. And we're in a little different time here too.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

I mean, Cinco de Mayo is always a great week for us, and Mother's Day is always close to to Cinco de Mayo. And, we had a real good week last week, and we didn't expect this week to start out as big as it did, but I think a lot people didn't bring their product in for Cinco de Mayo until until Monday. And those are just all the reasons I I think you're bringing up is why we're cautious right now. There has been all year, really, there's been some calendar challenges. And even a small thing, having Valentine's Day on the weekend, had a big impact on our sales because you didn't get that extra really good night during that week.

Jake Bartlett
Jake Bartlett
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

Great. That's helpful. My next question is about your margin expectations in the fourth quarter. And if I'm doing the math right, it looks like you're expecting fairly minimal EBITDA margin expansion in the fourth quarter. The question is whether that's just due to the compare, the really strong expansion you had last fourth quarter.

Jake Bartlett
Jake Bartlett
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

But also if you can talk to some of your productivity measures, how you feel like you're doing in terms of your productivity inefficiencies? And just anything we should think about in terms of what you're proactively doing to protect your margins?

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Yes. First off, biggest call I'd have on EBITDA margins in the quarter, I think we've talked a little bit about convenience. They had a pretty sizable gain in Q4 of last year. So that's one call out. When I think about margins overall, really pleased with how all three segments are operating from a margin standpoint.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

It really comes down to a few things. One of it one of those is mix across all three segments. I think we've done a great job with mix, growing independent cases. We've done a really nice job with chain margins in foodservice as well. And that's really just as we've if we looked at that portfolio of customers, we've got some great customers that we've onboarded.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

So feel really good about how we're progressing margin wise in Foodservice. Convenience has done well. And a lot of that is just our growth in key categories. I think about Foodservice and some of those categories that drive higher margins. And similarly in Vistar as well in our specialty segment, some of the segments that are growing tend to be our higher margin segments.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

The last thing I'll call out around margins is just procurement strategies. We talked a little bit about it last quarter. For the last year, we've been bringing our three segments together, having them work together on common vendors. We've now got Cheney and Jose Santiago and obviously are able to look at the deals that they've negotiated as standalone and work through some of those opportunities. So we feel like our procurement opportunity is also a way to continue to keep our margins strong.

Jake Bartlett
Jake Bartlett
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Andrew Wolf with CLK. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Andrew Wolf
SVP & Senior Research Analyst at C.L. King & Associates

Thanks. Good morning. I also wanted to circle back with a follow-up on the implied the Q4 guide. So I understand you to be conservative in this environment, but it does back into a slowing, you take out the acquisitions or actually a kind of a maintenance of the Q3 organic EBITDA growth rate. So there's different explanations.

Andrew Wolf
SVP & Senior Research Analyst at C.L. King & Associates

One is conservative. And when you think about conservatism, are you thinking more in terms of can you stay at the 6% case growth organically? Or is it more I think you alluded to Georgia being very competitive now and maybe some impact in gross profit per case. You know, if you were to if it were to come in, you know, if you you know, somewhere in the middle of your range instead of, you know, what I think people expect might be a little better.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

I mean, our guidance is a reflection of how our people and CEO are looking at things, and they tend to be conservative. We want them to be conservative, but the competitive nature of the industry may have something to do that. They're the ones that are on the frontline dealing with that every day. But I think we feel with our guidance. We we would like to think that we'll be able to stay at at least the 6% independent growth.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

But as I mentioned earlier and Scott's mentioned too, you know, we're we that'll be cautious. We we really don't, at this point, know what June is gonna be. But right now, we feel good.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Andrew, I'll just

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

I was just gonna add real quick. You know, obviously, we've taken a variety of of scenarios, both economic and consumer and backdrop, as George has said. So we feel we're being prudent, but it like I had made in my comments, we feel that this range is appropriate. And and based on what we've seen to date, we, feel good about the guidance that we've given.

Andrew Wolf
SVP & Senior Research Analyst at C.L. King & Associates

Got it. Okay. I thought that was what you're saying. Just wanted to probe it a bit. And, Scott, on convenience, you know, going back to when Core Mark was public, you know, the a lot of the the attributes to win customers was on fresh, consolidated delivery, making their life easier to you know, from an operational perspective.

Andrew Wolf
SVP & Senior Research Analyst at C.L. King & Associates

Is that still the case? Or is it now you guys have sort of a third thing here with better capabilities in foodservice? Could you just sort of give us I know you'll probably touch on this quite a little more at the Investor Day, but a little bit of what you know, what's driving the new customer wins there in convenience side.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

No. It's a great question, Andy. And when I think about, you know, the evolution of convenience stores, you're right, and I know you used to cover the space. Fresh was the calling card ten years ago. And as fresh evolve, fresh really morphed into a broader offering outside of center stores.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

So that's really food away from home. And I think the consumer expectation got a lot higher. It wasn't packaged sandwiches and burritos anymore. It became high quality restaurant quality food and convenience stores. And I think that's the real driver behind our message to the independent and the chain.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

And I think that it's gone a long way for us to pick up new accounts and gain share.

Andrew Wolf
SVP & Senior Research Analyst at C.L. King & Associates

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Bernstein with Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jeffrey Bernstein
Jeffrey Bernstein
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays Capital

Great. Thank you very much. My first question is just on the next three year outlook and I recognize that's likely to come later this month. But George, just wondering conceptually, how do you get your arms around forecasting the top and bottom line in the next few years when you're battling through the current very cautious dynamic environment. Obviously, is limited.

Jeffrey Bernstein
Jeffrey Bernstein
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays Capital

You would think there's lots of opportunity for market share. But do you change your thought process in terms of how you guide for the next few years when you're in an environment like this? Or are you able to see through that and kind of see what the underlying opportunity is for the business? And then I have one follow-up.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

I think the current environment always affects you. Right? I mean, a lot of what we do as far as our projections come from our people in the field. And like I said a few minutes ago, they're the ones that are in the heat of the battle every day. But I will also tell you that they're very confident.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

I think February shook everybody. That's natural. You're trying to figure out how much of it is the consumer, how much of it's the weather, how much of it is just just all of the the change in rhetoric around tariffs and and where we're headed. But I think that, we're looking at it the same way we did three years ago. We're trying to gauge another thing that's difficult to gauge is some of these smaller acquisitions that that you can, can get, that can can help things.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

We have a nice m and a pipeline right now. Not the size of what we've done in the past at this point, but we have a nice a nice, group there. And we're just putting all those things together and in a in a oh, it's just a few weeks. Right? Yeah.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

A few weeks, we'll we'll have a real good presentation for everybody.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

Yeah. And Jeffrey, I'll just add a couple other comments. I mean, you know, as we close out this three year guidance, as as I mentioned, we're well within our sales range and we're exceeding the EBITDA range that we gave three years ago. So what you guys are all gonna hear in a few weeks is we're very consistent in our approach and our strategies. You'll hear some new things, but we feel like the last three years have executed very well.

Patrick Hatcher
Patrick Hatcher
Executive VP & CFO at Performance Food Group Company

And we've hit these numbers, and we'll provide you some new numbers and how we're gonna execute behind those. But again, we're looking very forward to seeing all of you in New York in a few weeks.

Jeffrey Bernstein
Jeffrey Bernstein
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays Capital

No. We appreciate you coming to New York. My follow-up is just on that M and A, George, that you just mentioned. Obviously, it's a difficult choppy environment for you. You would think it's way more challenged for smaller midsize foodservice distribution peers.

Jeffrey Bernstein
Jeffrey Bernstein
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays Capital

So I'm just wondering if you could talk about the opportunity. I think you mentioned a robust pipeline. And I think in your prepared remarks you mentioned taking advantage of market dislocation. I wasn't sure if that's what you were referring to, but any thoughts in terms of how the current environment helps or hurts the opportunity for you to be more aggressive with M and A versus less? Thank you.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Well, obviously, we're we've got some focus on paying down debt right now even though for us historically, the debt levels we're at today, if you take into account when we were private and when we were public, we're actually kind of a low level of debt. And we tend to be maybe a little fearless about the the amount of debt we have. But, paying down debt is important to us, and we feel that we can do some fairly sizable acquisitions and not have the concern around the debt. So if you look at since the purchase of Jose Santiago and of Cheney, had we not bought Cheney, which would have been a terrible thing. But had we not, we would have pretty much paid down the debt from Jose Santiago.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

So we paid down debt quickly, and we're gonna continue to be very opportunistic. And we have acquisitions available to us today that were in good shape from a negotiation standpoint, and they're not real significant. But they will help us, from a from a growth standpoint. And a couple of them will probably have in our three year plan, but probably only a couple. That's a long answer, but that's just kind of where we sit today.

Jeffrey Bernstein
Jeffrey Bernstein
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays Capital

Understood. But nothing that you see of significant size. These are more, good opportunities, but not significant to the business.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

That's correct.

Jeffrey Bernstein
Jeffrey Bernstein
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays Capital

You.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Peter Saleh with BTIG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Peter Saleh
MD - Restaurants at BTIG

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Just two questions. I guess the first one is, are you seeing any changes in independent restaurant formation given tariffs and rising construction costs? We've heard some concern about this.

Peter Saleh
MD - Restaurants at BTIG

Just curious what you guys are seeing out in the field.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

No. I think it's a little too early to tell. I mean, the the tariff activity really has just started over the last couple of months. We haven't haven't had any, you know, customers that have hit the pause button that I'm aware of. I think the independent pipeline and the independent restaurant is still very healthy and vibrant.

Scott Mcpherson
Scott Mcpherson
President & COO at Performance Food Group Company

Obviously, we look back over the last four months with the exception of February, it's been pretty strong growth for us. You know? Obviously, their same store sales are a little bit pressured right now, but, you know, that's a, you know, that's a vibrant industry, and I think you'll continue to see new restaurants pop up on a regular basis.

Peter Saleh
MD - Restaurants at BTIG

Great. And then just curious if you guys can comment a little bit on performance or sales performance by geography. We've heard some thoughts that some of the areas more heavily related to tourism have seen a bigger decline. Have you guys seen the same or is it more of a broad based and more confined to that February time frame? Thanks.

George Holm
George Holm
Chairman & CEO at Performance Food Group Company

Yeah. I would say that the Northeast, if if you if you take out, you know, when the bad weather times are, is is surprisingly doing the best as far as increases go. Florida has been a little bit challenged. Many closures there, not just, you know, hurricane related, but closures in general, you know, restaurants that just haven't been successful. I'd say most of the rest of the country is all fairly similar, but, you know, slight declines, but similar.

Operator

Thank you. And there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the program back to Bill Marshall for closing remarks.

Bill Marshall
Bill Marshall
SVP - IR at Performance Food Group Company

Thank you for joining our call today. If you have any follow-up questions, please contact us at Investor Relations.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

Executives
Analysts

Key Takeaways

  • The third quarter faced adverse weather in January–February and muted consumer demand, but March–April showed a strong rebound with record weekly foodservice, convenience, and total company sales and 6% organic independent case growth in April.
  • Foodservice delivered 3.4% organic independent case growth in Q3 and 1.5% chain case growth, while achieving 29% adjusted EBITDA growth and 25 bps of margin expansion through acquisitions, pricing and proprietary brands.
  • Core Mark’s Convenience segment outperformed the industry with roughly 1% volume growth versus mid-single-digit declines, winning new accounts via its unified convenience and foodservice proposition and driving steady margin gains.
  • Specialty (formerly Vistar) reported flat net sales amid theater and value‐channel pressure, but saw stabilizing office coffee and vending trends alongside rapid e-commerce growth, resulting in 6.9% adjusted EBITDA growth.
  • PFG generated $827 M in operating cash flow and $494 M in free cash flow year-to-date, paid down debt, repurchased $10.6 M of stock, and narrowed FY25 guidance to $63.0–63.5 B net sales and $1.725–1.75 B adjusted EBITDA.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Performance Food Group Q3 2025
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