A giant U.S. food distributor has struck a deal to acquire Jetro, the cash-and-carry wholesale operator behind the Restaurant Depot chain, in a transaction valued at $29 billion, TheStreet reports.

The price tag makes the transaction one of the largest ever recorded in foodservice distribution, an industry where scale increasingly determines who survives thin gross margins, freight cost volatility and the steady encroachment of online channels. At $29 billion, the deal values the target at a premium consistent with recent consolidations in broadline distribution, where acquirers have paid for density of delivery routes, purchasing leverage with manufacturers, and the customer relationships that keep independent restaurants from drifting to competing suppliers.

Jetro Holdings, through its Restaurant Depot warehouse format, serves one of the most defensible niches in food wholesale: independent restaurant operators who buy in bulk, pay on the spot and pick up their own goods. That model carries structurally better economics than traditional drop-ship broadline distribution. The cash-and-carry format eliminates last-mile delivery costs, shifts inventory risk to the customer at the point of sale, and produces inventory turns that delivered-food distributors struggle to match. For an acquirer, those warehouse-format economics translate directly into gross margin that does not depend on negotiating delivery fees into every order.

The reported $29 billion consideration signals how much strategic weight the buyer is placing on that channel position. Independent restaurants — the core customer base for warehouse-format wholesale — represent a fragmented demand pool that national chains lock up through contract distribution. Consolidators in foodservice have spent the past decade chasing that fragmented segment because it prices less on contract and more on convenience, and convenience-driven pricing supports margin.

For the acquiring distributor, the transaction creates three measurable levers. First, purchasing scale: combining order volumes across delivery-based and warehouse-based formats strengthens negotiating position with packaged food manufacturers and protein suppliers, which should compress cost of goods sold. Second, route and facility density: overlapping service areas allow consolidation of distribution assets, a direct play on fixed-cost absorption. Third, customer cross-selling: restaurant operators who buy dry goods at a warehouse become candidates for delivered categories — fresh protein, beverages, disposables — where margins run higher and switching costs build over time.

What the headline figure does not yet disclose is the deal's structure — the split between cash and assumed debt, any contingent consideration, and the multiple of EBITDA the $29 billion represents. Foodservice distribution acquisitions in recent years have cleared low-double-digit EBITDA multiples when the target owns defensible format economics, and investors will parse the announcement for whether this transaction prices Jetro in line with that band or above it. The financing structure matters for the combined entity's leverage, and leverage in food distribution constrains exactly the investments — automation, route optimization, private label development — that consolidators promise to deliver.

The competitive readout is equally direct. Rival broadliners and regional cash-and-carry operators now face a competitor with expanded purchasing power across both formats, and independent restaurant operators may see the deal's promised synergies show up first as sharper shelf pricing — or, if integration stalls, as service disruption at the warehouse level. Regulators will also examine concentration in restaurant supply, since a $29 billion combination touches a wholesale channel on which a large share of independent U.S. foodservice operators depend.

The transaction, once closed, would mark the most significant redistribution of channel power in foodservice distribution since the last wave of broadline consolidation, and its success will be measured not in the headline number but in whether combined purchasing scale and dual-format coverage convert into sustained margin expansion over the next several reporting cycles.