Largest food companies in the US: the 25 biggest food and beverage makers by revenue

This list is for anyone selling to food and beverage manufacturers (ingredients, packaging, equipment, automation, food safety, logistics, software and staffing) and for anyone who needs to know who the biggest food companies are. It ranks US-headquartered public food and beverage makers by total revenue for their latest fiscal year, as reported in their 10-K, with headquarters and headcount from the same filing. Food distributors and foreign giants are in separate tables below, because mixing them in hides who actually makes the food.

The 25 largest US food and beverage companies

Revenue is total revenue or net sales as reported in each company's latest 10-K. Molson Coors and Constellation report sales both before and after excise taxes; we use their net sales. Headquarters are each company's business address on its SEC filings. Employees are from the same filing; Smucker's 10-K gives union coverage but not a total headcount.

Flowers Foods ($5.26 billion) is next. Kellanova, the former Kellogg snacks business, reported $12.75 billion for 2024 in its last 10-K and would rank about 11th, but Mars, Incorporated completed its acquisition on December 11, 2025, and Kellanova stopped filing reports.

Food distributors

Broadline distributors buy from the companies above and sell to restaurants, schools, hospitals and hotels. They are buyers of food and sellers of logistics, and they're often the route to market for smaller food makers.

Large food companies headquartered outside the US

Two of the world's largest food companies file with the SEC but are headquartered abroad, and both run large US operations:

JBS beneficially owns about 82% of Pilgrim's Pride, which is listed on its own and appears in the main table.

Where the work happens: food manufacturing by segment

County Business Patterns counts manufacturing establishments (plants) with paid employees. These are all US food and beverage plants, not just the 25 companies above:

County Business Patterns 2023. Segments not shown (grain milling, seafood, animal food) make up the rest of the food total.

Meat is where the large plants are: 156 of the 214 food plants with 1,000 or more workers slaughter or process animals, and the segment employs 32.6% of food manufacturing workers. Bakeries are the opposite, with the most plants and few large ones. That shapes who buys: in meat, a single plant can be a six-figure account; in bakeries and beverages, sellers usually work through regional groups or distributors.

How this list is built

• What's counted: total revenue or net sales for the latest fiscal year in each company's 10-K, which includes non-food lines such as General Mills' and Smucker's pet food or ADM's animal nutrition.
• Who's counted: US-headquartered companies whose main business is making food or beverages, including agricultural processors (ADM, Ingredion, Darling) whose products are food ingredients. Restaurants, grocers and tobacco companies are left out; see the largest fast food companies and largest grocery companies.
• What's left out: privately held companies that don't publish full financial statements, and cooperatives. Food Processing magazine's Top 100 and Fortune's lists rank food companies in their own ways; we didn't use them.

Where the buying happens at a food company

General guidance, informed by the filings. A large food company is a set of plants, brands and channels, and each buys differently.

• Plants. Plant managers and engineering teams buy equipment, maintenance, sanitation, automation and safety services, often against a corporate approved-vendor list. Tyson says about 110,000 of its 116,000 US team members work at production facilities, warehouses, truck shops, hatcheries and feed mills.
• Procurement. Ingredients and packaging are bought centrally by category managers on annual or multi-year contracts. Getting on the approved list matters more than any single plant.
• Brands and marketing. Brand teams buy research, agencies and retail media. They sit at headquarters and are organized by category.
• Food safety and quality. A corporate food safety leader sets standards that every plant follows, so a food safety product often needs a corporate sponsor before a plant can buy it.

Worked example: food safety training for meat and poultry plants

Illustrative example. The vendor and its pricing are fictional; the workforce and plant figures come from the companies' 10-Ks and County Business Patterns 2023.

The seller: Linecheck (linecheck.example) sells food safety and sanitation training for production workers at an illustrative $40 per worker per year.

The market. Meat and poultry processing employs 556,205 people at 3,716 plants, and 156 of those plants have 1,000 or more workers. Four of the 25 companies above are meat processors: Tyson (about 110,000 US workers at production and support sites), Pilgrim's Pride (over 63,000 employees), Smithfield (about 32,000 in the US) and Hormel (about 20,000, over 90% in the US).

The arithmetic. Tyson's production workforce at $40 each is about $4.4 million a year (110,000 × $40). A single plant of 1,500 workers is $60,000 a year, which a plant manager may be able to approve as a pilot.

The plan.

1. Start with one large plant per company, where a plant manager and a plant food safety manager can run a pilot.
2. Bring in the corporate food safety leader early, since a company-wide standard needs their approval.
3. Use the pilot's results (audit findings, retraining time, turnover among new hires) to make the case for the next plants.

Finding the plant managers and food safety leads across dozens of plants is the slow part; Bebop researches each account in a list like this and writes a playbook for each.

Next step: for smaller food and beverage makers by state and product, see how to find manufacturing companies and filter by the food NAICS codes above.