Business owners, prospective buyers, and industry investors rely on a diverse set of financial benchmarks to assess the value of a business. We have compiled data from current BizBuySell listings and sold businesses to provide insight into the business for sale market and important benchmarks for pricing and evaluating food product manufacturing businesses relative to industry standards.
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Food product manufacturers listed and sold on BizBuySell cover the spectrum of small/medium businesses. Common businesses in this space are meat and seafood processors, snack food and confectionary manufacturers, fruit, vegetable, and grain processors, cheese and dairy manufacturers, and specialty food manufacturers. The majority of businesses in this category are small, niche food manufacturing operations with revenues under $2MM and local distribution.
| Median Sale Price | Median Asking Price |
| $399,000 | $400,000 |
| Average Sale/Ask Ratio | Median Days on Market |
| 0.92 | 198 |
| Median Revenue | Median Owner Earnings |
| $750,954 | $158,000 |
| Average Revenue Multiple | Average Earnings Multiple |
| 0.69 | 2.77 |
The median sales price of food manufacturing businesses sold on BizBuySell dropped around 50% since the pandemic and has yet to rebound. It's possible that larger food manufacturers are capitalizing on renewed demand for domestic food manufacturing spurred by supply chain disruptions during the pandemic years and may exit at much higher valuations in coming years.
Valuation, or pricing, multiples are financial tools that allow for comparisons between businesses that have different levels of sales and income. They represent the sales price of a business relative to its financial performance, and given enough individual business sales data, they represent what the market is willing to pay for a business given its revenue and earnings.
Business values and associated multiples fluctuate over time, influenced by a variety of macroeconomic factors such as interest rates, inflation, consumer spending, and overall economic growth. For food product manufacturing businesses reported sold on BizBuySell, the average earnings multiple had been falling compared to the broader manufacturing industry, with some recovery in 2024. This is largely driven by the decreasing size of businesses selling in this category.
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To determine how a business compares in terms of revenue and earnings performance relative to industry peers, it’s necessary to have some insight into industry standards. "Benchmarking" describes the practice of comparing a business’s financial performance to typical industry standards to determine where a business falls relative to other businesses in the same industry. These benchmarks can help guide owners and investors towards appropriate valuation multiples from the range above.
To that end, we have aggregated financial ranges useful for comparing an individual food manufacturing business to its peers sold and for sale.
Median revenue and discretionary earnings of food product manufacturing businesses sold on BizBuySell has been decreasing at a much greater rate than the broader manufacturing industry following the Covid-19 pandemic, recovering only in 2024. Median revenue and earnings rose 32% and 17%, respectively, in 2024 compared to 2023, but both remain 35% below the peak in 2020.
For a more complete understanding of the market and valuation standards, consider comparisons within the manufacturing sector. The chart and table below include key metrics from sales of manufacturing businesses on BizBuySell between 2020 and 2024. Note the tight correlation between median revenue and average earnings multiple.
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