Grocery and retail operator Grupo Comercial Chedraui delivered a consolidated EBITDA margin of 8.7% in the third quarter of 2026, a 14-basis-point improvement year over year, as operational efficiencies in its U.S. business helped offset sluggish same-store sales performance on both sides of the border.
U.S. Headwinds
Chedraui USA, which operates the El Super and Fiesta supermarket banners serving Hispanic communities across the American Southwest and South, saw its EBITDA margin rise 18 basis points to 7.5%, even as same-store sales remained soft. CEO Antonio Chedraui attributed the traffic decline to stricter U.S. immigration enforcement, reduced distribution of SNAP benefits, and ongoing pressure on household budgets from elevated gasoline prices — a combination that has become a persistent challenge for grocers serving value-conscious, immigrant-heavy demographics. Procurement gains and lower distribution costs at the Rancho Cucamonga Distribution Center (RCDC) were credited with driving the margin improvement despite the revenue headwind. For food and grocery operators tracking beverage and grocery industry trends, the RCDC efficiency story underscores how supply-chain investment can protect profitability even when consumer spending falters.
Mexico Operations
In Mexico, same-store sales came in broadly in line with ANTAD, the national retail association benchmark, but the company's outsized footprint in the Southeast Region created a drag on consolidated results. Antonio Chedraui, the company's CEO, noted that the Southeast has been affected by a slowdown in both public and private investment as well as reduced tourism activity. Chedraui Mexico's EBITDA margin edged down just 5 basis points to 9.8%, a result the CEO credited to disciplined cost containment executed by store-level employees. Consolidated gross margin expanded 53 basis points, aided by the same distribution efficiencies benefiting the U.S. segment.
Expansion Continues
Despite the softer sales environment, Chedraui pressed forward with its store-growth agenda. During the quarter, the company opened 22 Supercito convenience-format locations, three full Chedraui stores, one Super Chedraui, and one Arteli store in Mexico, plus one El Super and one Fiesta unit in the United States. Over the trailing twelve months, consolidated sales floor expanded 3.4%, with the Mexico estate alone growing 4.7%. Consolidated net income for the quarter reached 1,626 million pesos, and the company's net cash-to-EBITDA ratio improved to -0.13x from -0.03x a year earlier, reflecting continued positive free cash flow generation.
The results illustrate a broader dynamic that restaurant and foodservice operators are tracking closely: how macro forces — immigration enforcement, benefit program contraction, and currency volatility (the peso's appreciation against the dollar reduced reported results by 6.2%) — can simultaneously compress top-line growth while forcing operators to sharpen cost discipline. For regional grocers and foodservice suppliers competing for share in Hispanic-serving markets, Chedraui's ability to widen margins through logistics investment, even as traffic weakens, offers a model worth examining.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
