Food supplier Sysco beats quarterly profit estimates on easing costs

(Reuters) - Packaged and fresh food supplier Sysco beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, helped by easing cost pressures, even as it missed sales expectations.

After struggling with higher material and labor costs for months, Sysco is now seeing some of its expenses linked to supply chain ease from their peaks last year.

Excluding certain items, Sysco earned $1.39 per share in the fourth quarter ended June 29, above LSEG estimate of $1.38, and its gross margin decreased just 1 basis point to 18.7%.

Shares of the Texas-based company, which sells frozen meat, dairy and seafood among others, rose 2.3% in premarket trading.

The U.S. restaurant industry, Sysco's largest client, has been under pressure as dining out is still expensive and remains a less preferred option among inflation-hit customers.

Sysco's quarterly net sales of $20.56 billion, which rose 4.2%, missed LSEG estimates of $20.57 billion.

(Reporting by Granth Vanaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)