Restaurants Industry: Call with former FTC economist on SYY/JRD M&A; key takes & transcript

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Restaurants Industry: Call with former FTC economist on SYY/JRD M&A; key takes & transcript

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Restaurants Industry

Call with former FTC economist on

SYY/JRD M&A; key takes & transcript

Industry Overview

On May 12, we hosted Michael Vita, former Deputy Director at the FTC, to discuss the 19 May 2026

agency’s approach to food distribution M&A and implications for Sysco’s proposed Equity

acquisition of Jetro Restaurant Depot. Mr. Vita spent nearly four decades at the FTC, United States

advising on antitrust investigations and proposed enforcement actions. See below for Restaurants

key takeaways and inside for the full transcript.

Equity Research

FTC focus: consumer welfare SaraResearchSenatoreAnalyst

“The FTC cares about consumer welfare, which … often means is price. In other words, BofAS

+1 646 743 2110

is this merger going to create market power that's going to allow the merging parties sara.senatore@bofa.com

and their rivals to increase prices and reduce output?“ [Other] times we might care Credit Research

about how this will affect the quality of the goods that are produced … or innovation,” Brian Callen, CFA

Research Analyst

for example, a pharmaceutical merger. But for today’s discussion … it's fair to say, are BofAS

we worried about what's going to happen to prices after the merger takes place?” +1 646 855 8987 brian.callen@bofa.com

Economists look beyond HHI

The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) measures market concentration by summing the Stock symbol key:

square of individual firm market shares, producing a score that ranges from near zero in SYY: Sysco Corp

a highly competitive market to 10,000 in a monopoly. “The courts worry about the HHI. USFD: US Foods Holding Corp