Forensic Analysis · Trading Companies & Distributors · as of Aug 11, 2026

Chefs' Warehouse, Inc. (CHEF)

A forensic read on Chefs' Warehouse, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.

C · Mixed — selective

Forensic grade

Safe

Financial health

5.7

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

48.4

P / E (ttm)

12.0%

ROE

$4.5B

Market cap

9.4%

Revenue growth

This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.

Chefs' Warehouse, Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 5.7, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.

What the filings flag

+5.9%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share-count dilution. Diluted share count changed +19% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+5.9%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~5.9% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~16%.

6.9%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 6.9% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 5% — slightly below its ~8% cost of capital — reinvestment is roughly a wash.

0.5% of rev

FY2025

Stock-based comp load. Stock-based compensation ran 0.5% of revenue and 24% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.46 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 6.2% a year and is falling.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$4.15B

Revenue Growth YoY+9.4%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+16.7%

Net Margin1.7%

Free Cash Flow$87.8M

Return on Equity12.0%

Debt / Equity1.24x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.