Wholesalers make up the supply chain. The industry monetizes its work.

In the great theater of Italian food & beverage, the spotlight is always on the most visible actors: the industry with its established brands, the chefs who transform products into stories, the consumers who determine the rise and decline of food fashions. Yet, the protagonist without whom all this would not exist—the only one truly indispensable to the daily functioning of the market—remains relegated behind the scenes: Ho.Re.Ca Distribution.

We are talking about a sector from15.3 billion euros, composed of3,400 businessesthat feed every day382,000 consumption points. An industrial infrastructure that operates with operating margins between2% and 5%, levels that in any other sector would have already triggered the systemic alarm. Yet, it is precisely this segment, economically among the most exposed, that supports an overall market from107.1 billion, absorbing delays, operational risks and financial imbalances that neither the industry nor locals would have the ability to manage independently.

Wholesalers do not just distribute products:they transform them into real presence, translating the industrial offer into actual availability in the area. They also play a hidden but crucial financial role, immobilizing – industry estimates say –over 3.5 billion eurosin trade credit and thus guaranteeing the continuity of the channel. Without this network, Italian eating out would lose operations in a few hours: no producer, large or small, would be able to replicate the same logistical efficiency, the same capillarity or the same risk management capacity.

The paradox is evident: the supply chain is supported by the ring that economically has the least margin of safety. And precisely for this reason—because the stability of the entire system depends on that fragility—the industry can no longer afford to ignore its strategic role

In the glittering world of Italian agri-food, among starred chefs, multinational tastemakers and food influencers, there is a protagonist who works in the shadows but keeps the whole scene going:the Ho.Re.Ca. wholesalerNo glossy storytelling, no social live broadcasts, but trucks loaded at dawn, full warehouses, cold rooms that never turn off and hundreds of references delivered every day to bars, restaurants, hotels and venues of all kinds.

And yet, this essential link in the chain is still too often looked at with condescension, as if it were just any logistics operator. A sort of "evolved porter" who unloads crates and collects a margin, perceived as inevitable but not strategic. It's a convenient narrative, but profoundly flawed.Because the truth is different: without wholesalers, the food & beverage industry wouldn't even be able to enter the market.

Whoever produces needs someone who transforms production into distribution. Anyone who manages a restaurant needs a partner who selects, transports, stores and delivers. The wholesaler is exactly this: a strategic actor, often transparent in the eyes of the final consumer but decisive for the economic life of the entire supply chain. It is he who discreetly supports the continuity of the offer and the accessibility of the products. It is time to definitively remove the "series B" label from wholesalers and give them back the place they deserve: that of fundamental enablers of the success of the Italian agri-food industry.

A high volume and low margin model

If the turnover numbers describe the magnitude of the phenomenon, it is when it comes to profitability that the veil of rhetoric falls and reality finally becomes interesting - and a little more uncomfortable for those who have always pretended not to see. Ho.Re.Ca. distribution it is a profession built on very thin margins and on an amount of working capital that, in any other sector, would be defined as absurd. It is a model based on enormous volumes, continuous investments and an unforgiving cost structure: here there are no bearings, here we walk on a razor's edge every day.

Just start from the data: those2.7 billionof added value generated on15.3 billionof turnover mean an added value/turnover ratio of around17–18%. It's not EBITDA, of course, but it's still a number that puts the cards on the table. Because, translated into practice, it means that every one hundred euros invoiced by wholesalers becomes less than twenty euros of actual wealth even before removing depreciation, financial charges and taxes. And after those steps, we also start talking about the famous "margins" of distribution.

Going down to the individual company level, the picture becomes even more stark. Reading any of the financial statements of beverage operators. Let's take an emblematic example: a Lombard company which, in 2023, registered9 million eurosof revenues and an EBITDA of247 thousand euros, equal to one2.7% margin. It is difficult to imagine another business in which millions of euros of goods, customers, risk and complex logistics are managed to obtain a margin that to define as "minimalist" would already be a compliment. But this is the industry: low unit value, fierce competition and price pressure that never lets up.

Meanwhile, neighboring sectors that are often cited as virtuous comparisons – such as automatic distribution via vending machines – show average EBITDAs of13.8%, with operators even exceeding the30%. But there the margin is generated by the direct relationship with the final consumer, not by the forced balancing act between industry and venues. The model of traditional wholesalers is another world: one in which you work in the middle, without the final service stretch, but with all the weight of complexity.

Ho.Re.Ca. distribution, in fact, lives crushed between two forces that do not speak to each other: on the one handindustry, committed to defending its margins and asking wholesalers for new services, more data, more controls, more performance; on the otherthe premiseswhich demand increasingly competitive prices, payment terms and increasing levels of service. In the middle, the wholesaler who must invest in logistics, vehicles, warehouses, technology, personnel, and who must do so with EBITDA margins between2 and 5 percent. A condition that would seem like an exercise in financial masochism, if it weren't for the fact that it represents the daily life of the sector.

And it is precisely here that the Italgrob-Censis Report puts its finger on the wound: Ho.Re.Ca distribution. it is, to all intents and purposes, a "de facto bank" for away from home. During the most difficult years - first the pandemic, then the crisis in energy costs and raw materials - while consumption collapsed and cash tensions increased, wholesalers continued to guarantee supplies and financial oxygen to customers. They granted extensions, flexible conditions, breathing space. They did it while the industry defended its prices and the clubs fought to survive.

And here comes the element that everyone ignores: distribution finances the system. In away from home, points of sale pay in 30, 60, sometimes 90 days. The industry, on the other hand, wants to be paid in 30 days and already considers this a concession. In the middle there is only one entity that absorbs the misalignment: the wholesaler. The most recent estimates are clear: beyond3.5 billion eurosimmobilized in trade credit. The distribution advances liquidity to the entire supply chain with a financial exposure that would have caused more than one local bank to close.

A decisive function, exercised every day with discretion, without proclamations, without recognition. But it is precisely this function that holds the sector together. Because while the industry defended its margins and the locals fought for survival, it was the wholesalers who cushioned the impacts of the crisis by using their own working capital as a shield for everyone. A profession that does not guarantee income, but requires iron discipline in cost management, obsessive precision on the margin mix by category, and a logistical optimization ability that would make many companies that bill ten times as much pale.

And in all of this, talking about "profitability of wholesalers" as if it were a simple economic indicator is misleading. It is not a margin to get rich: it is a marginality that serves to prevent the system from falling apart. Their task is not to make double-digit profits, but to hold together an impossible equation: to oversee the territory, serve fragile customers, support the industry, guarantee continuity, finance the channel and do it within a profitability corridor that goes from2 to 5 percent. In other words, wholesalers don't just protect their balance sheets: they protect the supply chain. A supply chain that is worth more than100 billion a year.

A 107 billion supply chain and a 15 billion piece that supports everything

To understand how Ho.Re.Ca. is central, just look at the last photograph of the supply chain. According to the 2025 Strategic Report promoted by Italgrob, the Ho.Re.Ca. supply chain closed 2024 with a turnover of107.1 billion euros, growing by23%compared to 2019, generating53.8 billion in added valueand occupying approx1.5 millionof employees distributed across382 thousand businesses. Numbers that alone would be enough to place "away from home" among the structural drivers of the Italian economy.

Within these 107 billion, there is a piece that directly concerns wholesalers: Ho.Re.Ca. Distribution. Again according to the 2025 Strategic Report, in 2024 this sector generated 15.3 billion euros in turnover and 2.7 billion in added value, employing 57 thousand direct and indirect employees, including seasonal workers, agents and logistics operators. There are around 3,400 active companies, with investments in the year amounting to over 107 million euros, destined for infrastructure, digitalisation and sustainability.

In other words:out of every hundred euros spent away from home by Italians, more than fifteen pass through the network of Ho.Re.Ca wholesalers., which transform industrial production into real availability on the premises. Antonio Portaccio, president of Italgrob, summarized it with an effective formula: Ho.Re.Ca Distribution. it is "a pillar on which the out-of-home consumption system rests", capable of supporting not only the sale of quality products, but the entire extended agri-food chain and, with it, an important part of Made in Italy.

This is not an exaggeration. Without this intermediate hub, the industry would not be able to reach the myriad of consumption points that characterize our country: neighborhood bars, trattorias, fine dining restaurants, pizzerias, hotels, wine bars, hybrid formats. A fragmented constellation that no producer alone would be able to serve in an economically sustainable way.

From the margin to the strategic value: why the industry is better off with a healthy wholesaler

If you simply look at the numbers on the income statement, a wholesaler might seem like a marginal business: compressed profitability, recurring investments, exposure to credit risks and a competitive context that requires continuous efficiency. But for the industry, the economic solidity of distribution is not an accessory element; it is an essential condition for one's growth. A financially weakened wholesaler - forced by thin margins, rising structural costs and liquidity tensions - will inevitably be less inclined to invest in inventories, to support new launches, to bet on emerging brands or to offer the commercial support that turns a product into a market success. On the contrary, a balanced distribution, with an EBITDA margin sufficient to remunerate capital and generate stable cash flows, represents a strategic extension of its organization for the producer: a tool capable of guaranteeing territorial coverage, quality of sell-in and above all the ability to generate sell-out, communicating authoritatively with the managers of the premises.

It is not surprising that many analyzes consider the EBITDA margin the most immediate indicator to measure this capacity. It reveals how much of the turnover actually remains available - before depreciation, interest and taxes - to support investments, absorb risks and remunerate shareholders. Nel settore della distribuzione Ho.Re.Ca., dove il margine operativo lordo è tipicamente a una cifra, anche variazioni minime rappresentano la linea di separazione tra un operatore capace di programmare il futuro e uno costretto a navigare nella contingenza. A single percentage point, in this context, is not a detail: it is the margin that determines whether distribution will be able to support the industry or whether it will have to limit itself to surviving.

For the industry, therefore, supporting an economically sound network of wholesalers is not philanthropy, but industrial rationality. A strong distribution is able to absorb the shocks of economic cycles, to maturely address more sophisticated pricing policies, to efficiently manage peaks in demand and to invest in advanced technologies: from digital order entry systems to sell-out dashboards, up to data sharing platforms that significantly improve go-to-market efficiency. It is in this logic that the 2025 Strategic Report recalls the need for a modern, sustainable and innovative distribution, capable not only of supporting quality products, but of supporting the entire extended agri-food chain,one of the pillars of Made in Italy.

Behind this perspective there is not a wish, but an observation: the industry can no longer afford to consider the wholesaler as a simple B2B customer. It must begin to recognize it for what it is: an industrial partner, with which to share information, strategies, risks and benefits in a framework of real co-planning. It is this alliance - not the commercial push alone - that will determine who will be able to compete in the coming years and who, instead, will pay the price for a too narrow vision of the supply chain

A tiring job, a central role, a future to be co-planned

The picture that emerges from the numbers and the main institutional reports is clear:the Ho.Re.Ca. wholesalers they do not represent an anonymous periphery of the supply chain, but its actual circulatory system.They are the silent mechanism that allows the sector to remain alive, despite one of the lowest profitability of the entire value chain. Precisely in this limited space - where other segments would not be able to survive - distribution guarantees continuity, territorial coverage and that financial support without which the Italian out-of-home sector could not sustain its daily complexity.

Ho.Re.Ca. distribution it is not logistics in the strict sense: it is an architecture of intelligence spread across the territory.It is an organismwhich, more than any report, perceives in real time what is happening in neighborhoods, clubs, seasons and consumer habits. The wholesaler does not interpret the market through models; understands it through direct experience, daily relationships, accumulated knowledge. It is a form of expertise that cannot be purchased, cannot be replicated digitally and cannot be improvised. And it is precisely this competence - as little visible as it is indispensable - that makes distribution a strategic player.

The profitability of wholesalers should not be judged exclusively through end-of-line percentages, but through the value it enables for the entire supply chain. It is their presence that allows producers to focus on quality, restaurants to have broad assortments and sustainable conditions, and the country system to move a supply chain worth billions of euros and more than one and a half million people employed. Their margins are modest not because the sector is worth little, but because their role is to absorb other people's complexity and transform it into daily functioning.

For the industry this should be a non-negotiable principle: an economically healthy wholesaler is a competitive advantage, not a cost item to be reduced. Only a distribution with adequate margins can invest in the modernization of vehicles, technological updating, staff training and services that amplify the brands' ability to reach the market. Only a balanced distribution can afford industrial relations based on planning, not on contingency.

In a phase in which out-of-home demand is no longer growing at a sustained pace and shows signs of maturity in various segments, the quality of the relationship between industry and distribution becomes a structural factor. Those who know how to build partnerships based on data transparency, shared definition of objectives and real sharing of responsibilities will have a more solid positioning in the coming market cycles. Those who, however, continue to treat wholesalers as simple logistics suppliers risk discovering, with delay and at great cost, how vulnerable a supply chain can be that weakens its most crucial link.

Because reality, despite any narrative, is simple:wholesalers do not only make the functioning of the supply chain possible; guarantee its existence.And when such a central actor is underestimated, the entire system loses stability.It's a lesson the industry would do well to consider before it becomes evident not in the analysis, but in the results