Sysco Corp. (SYY – Analyst Report) markets and distributes a range of food and related products primarily to the foodservice or food-away-from-home industry.

Sysco’s growth strategy remains strong and its efforts to accelerate sales, reduce costs and mitigate the ongoing gross margin pressure are encouraging. The company also remains positive on the acquisition front. However, currency headwinds and declining gross margin remains a concern for Sysco. Sysco is also witnessing soft sales growth due to the unfavorable impact of food cost deflation.

Investors should also note the recent earnings estimate revisions for SYY, as the consensus estimate has been declining. Further, SYY has delivered in-line earnings in three of the last four quarters and negative surprise in the remaining one; thus delivering an average negative surprise of 0.61%.

Currently, SYY has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), but that could definitely change following Sysco’s earnings report which was just released. We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:

Earnings: SYY’s earnings of 48 cents beat our consensus estimate of 41 cents. Investors should note that these figures take out stock option expenses.

Revenue: SYY’s revenues of $12.154 billion slightly missed the consensus estimate of $12.174 billion.

Key Stats to Note: Sysco sales grew marginally on a year-over-year basis. On an organic basis, it grew 3%. Gross margin performance also improved in the second quarter, despite a challenging deflationary environment.

Stock Price: In-active in pre-market trading.