One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$27.55 our estimate vs market $104.23
Wall Street consensus: $126.12 (357.8% higher than our fair-value estimate)
278% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.
CHEF · NMS · Consumer Defensive · Food Distribution
Current price
$104.23
52-week range
$56.46 - $118.51
Market cap
$4.53B
Balance sheet
Stretched
3.68x Stretched
Net debt $781.05M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 8.6% last year.
- Reward Returns 16.2% on equity, ahead of 60% of its peers.
- Risk Net debt grew 26.0% over 3 years.
- Risk Stock trades 16.6% above its 5-year average P/E.
What this company does
The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.
The Chefs' Warehouse sells fancy food ingredients like artisan meats, cheeses, and chocolates to restaurants and other food businesses, with most of its money coming from these sales. They also sell directly to people online, showing how their business model reaches different types of customers. Understanding where their sales come from helps us see how stable their income is.
How the company got here
The Chefs' Warehouse was founded in 1985, starting as a small food service distribution company in New York. Its origins trace back to the Veterans Butter & Egg Co., established in 1956, and Dairyland USA, founded in 1985. The company grew by focusing on supplying high-quality, specialty ingredients to chefs, a niche not traditionally served by broader food distributors. Through a series of strategic acquisitions, starting in the late 1990s and continuing through the 2010s, The Chefs' Warehouse expanded its geographic reach across the United States, into Canada, and the Middle East, and broadened its product portfolio. This growth strategy transformed it from a regional supplier into a publicly traded company serving a wide range of culinary professionals.
What it actually does
The Chefs' Warehouse is a wholesale distributor of specialty food products. Think of them as a high-end grocery store for restaurants and other food businesses, but instead of selling to individuals, they sell in bulk to professional kitchens. They offer a vast array of ingredients, from everyday staples like cooking oils and flour to more unique items such as artisan cheeses, truffles, caviar, and custom-cut meats and seafood. Their customers are typically chefs and food service operators who need specific, high-quality ingredients to create distinctive dishes for their menus.
Food Product Distribution
This is the core business of The Chefs' Warehouse, encompassing the vast majority of its operations. They source and distribute a wide range of specialty food items, including artisan charcuterie, specialty cheeses, unique oils and vinegars, truffles, caviar, chocolate, and pastry ingredients. They also provide 'center-of-the-plate' products like custom-cut beef, seafood, and poultry, as well as produce and broadline food items such as cooking oils, butter, eggs, milk, and flour. This segment serves a diverse customer base, including independent restaurants, fine dining establishments, hotels, caterers, culinary schools, bakeries, cruise lines, and casinos across the United States, the Middle East, and Canada.
Direct-to-Consumer (Allen Brothers)
While primarily a business-to-business distributor, The Chefs' Warehouse also sells certain 'center-of-the-plate' products directly to consumers through its e-commerce platform, notably via its subsidiary Allen Brothers. This allows home cooks and food enthusiasts to access the same high-quality, custom-prepared meats, seafood, and other premium ingredients that professional chefs use. This channel provides a smaller, but direct, revenue stream and allows the company to tap into the growing market for premium at-home dining experiences.
What management is betting on now
The company's management is focused on continued growth through a combination of expanding its market share and investing in operational efficiencies. They are looking to achieve this by enhancing their supply chain, including better forecasting and inventory management for fresh products, and by leveraging technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to improve pricing, sourcing, logistics, and inventory management. Management also anticipates growth from acquisitions and aims to increase revenue by 7% to 10% annually. They are also emphasizing sustainability, looking to reduce their environmental impact through fleet optimization and responsible sourcing.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q4
$64.63M
FY2025 Q1
$37.22M
FY2025 Q2
$4.52M
FY2025 Q3
$-19.73M
FY2025 Q4
$65.78M
FY2026 Q1
$30.56M
FY2026 Q2
$49.16M
FY2026 Q3
$36.00M
Revenue
$1.14B
Net income
$29.62M
Diluted EPS
0.67
Operating cash flow
$44.49M
Free cash flow
$36.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.17B
Net income
$33.77M
Diluted EPS
0.76
Operating cash flow
$58.39M
Free cash flow
$49.16M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.06B
Net income
$17.37M
Diluted EPS
0.40
Operating cash flow
$38.26M
Free cash flow
$30.56M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.14B
Net income
$21.68M
Diluted EPS
0.50
Operating cash flow
$73.87M
Free cash flow
$65.78M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.02B
Net income
$19.15M
Diluted EPS
0.44
Operating cash flow
$-8.72M
Free cash flow
$-19.73M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.03B
Net income
$21.24M
Diluted EPS
0.49
Operating cash flow
$14.50M
Free cash flow
$4.52M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$950.75M
Net income
$10.29M
Diluted EPS
0.25
Operating cash flow
$49.57M
Free cash flow
$37.22M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.03B
Net income
$23.93M
Diluted EPS
0.56
Operating cash flow
$73.00M
Free cash flow
$64.63M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $27.55 vs current price $104.23
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $126.12 (357.8% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $27.55 a share — about 73.6% below today's price of $104.23, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $781.0M. Interest coverage 3.7x.
Net debt
$781.05M
Interest coverage
3.68x
The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 3.7 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
CHEF
BASELINE
The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.
Total debt $945.77M Interest coverage 3.68x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $7.78B Interest coverage 2.15x -42% vs CHEF Carries about 1.7x less debt cushion than CHEF.
Total debt $5.41B Interest coverage 4.04x +10% vs CHEF Has roughly the same debt cushion as CHEF.
Total debt $3.04B Interest coverage 2.44x -34% vs CHEF Carries about 1.5x less debt cushion than CHEF.
Total debt $900.76M Interest coverage 2.72x -26% vs CHEF Carries about 1.4x less debt cushion than CHEF.
What you should know
The case for and against CHEF
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 8.6% last year.
-
Returns 16.2% on equity, ahead of 60% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 8/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 26.0% over 3 years.
-
Stock trades 16.6% above its 5-year average P/E.
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
44.73x
Forward P/E
33.96x
P/B
6.19x
P/S
1.01x
EV/EBITDA
19.35x
PEG ratio
1.08x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
24.7%
Operating margin
4.5%
Net margin
2.3%
ROE
16.2%
ROA
6.2%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.38x
Current ratio
2.21x
Quick ratio
1.25x
Total debt
$945.77M
Total cash
$164.72M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$4.51B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
24.2%
EPS TTM
2.33
EPS 5Y CAGR
32.0%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$215.00M
Free CF TTM
$87.79M
FCF margin
1.9%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
0.0%
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
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