Manufacturing ·NAICS 311

NAICS 311 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP

Food Manufacturing - Industry Benchmarks

$55,880/yr average annual pay, with 4,203 SBA loans on record for NAICS 311.

4.6%
Net margin
1.7M
Workers employed
$55,880/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$2.5B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated July 2026

The verdict · NAICS 311

Food Manufacturing runs a 4.6% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 31K establishments employing 1.7M workers.

4.6%
Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
1.7M
Workers employed (Census CBP)
$55,880/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$2.5B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Benchmarking Insights for Food Manufacturing

Food Manufacturing sits inside Manufacturing at a 4.6% net margin (below the national median), $708.3B in aggregate receipts across 73,762 returns, averaging $9.6B per establishment.

31,130 establishments employ 1,707,316 workers (54.8/location) at $55,880/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Illinois.

Profit Margin

4.6%

Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)

Total Receipts

$708.3B

Annual revenue (IRS SOI)

Net Income

$32.5B

Pre-tax net income

Employment

1,707,316

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

$55,880/yr

Annual compensation

Establishments

31,130

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

Employment increased by 54,938; establishment count increased by 627. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.

Where each dollar of Food Manufacturing revenue goes

Workforce scale

Food Manufacturing margin vs national reference points

Food Manufacturing net margin 15.3%
Cross-industry median (5%)

p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/8%

Business Structure Breakdown

How businesses in this industry are legally structured (IRS SOI)

C Corporation
15,602 returns 21%

Margin: 4.7% · Receipts: $699.3B

Sole Proprietorship
58,160 returns 79%

Margin: -1.1% · Receipts: $9.1B

Financial Detail

Total Tax Returns Filed
73,762
Avg Receipts per Business
$9.6B
Annual Payroll (Total)
$95.4B
Avg Employees per Establishment
54.8

Sub-Industries

Industry Profit Margin
Animal Food Manufacturing

NAICS 3111

 3.9%
Animal Slaughtering and Processing

NAICS 3116

 2.5%
Bakeries and Tortilla Manufacturing

NAICS 3118

 4.3%
Dairy Product Manufacturing

NAICS 3115

 3.5%
Fruit and Vegetable Preserving and Specialty Food Manufacturing

NAICS 3114

 5.7%
Grain and Oilseed Milling

NAICS 3112

 N/A
Other Food Manufacturing

NAICS 3119

 5.5%
Seafood Product Preparation and Packaging

NAICS 3117

 N/A
Sugar and Confectionery Product Manufacturing

NAICS 3113

 11.7%

Top States by Employment

State Employment
California 175,392
Texas 114,544
Illinois 89,684
Wisconsin 80,121
Pennsylvania 78,350
Georgia 72,868
Ohio 63,363
North Carolina 62,272
Iowa 57,496
New York 54,317

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

4,203

Total Loan Volume

$2.5B

Avg Loan Size

$602K

Jobs Supported

62,429

Program Breakdown

7(a) 3,679 (88%)
504 524 (12%)

Top SBA Lender

The Huntington National Bank

310 loans in this industry

New Business Share

34.4% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)

2020
473
2021
651
2022
626
2023
710
2024
796
2025
853
2026
94

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average revenue for Food Manufacturing?
$708.3B in total annual receipts across all Food Manufacturing businesses. Average per business: $9.6B.
How profitable is Food Manufacturing?
4.6% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Food Manufacturing?
31,130 business establishments. Together they employ 1,707,316 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Food Manufacturing?
$55,880/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 54.8 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Food Manufacturing employment?
California leads with 175,392 workers. Texas (114,544) and Illinois (89,684) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Food Manufacturing receive?
Food Manufacturing businesses received 4,203 SBA loans totaling $2.5 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $602K. These loans supported 62,429 jobs at origination. Most lending (88%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.

Comparable industry benchmarks

These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.

Closest reported net margins

Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.

Closest workforce scale

Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.

Benchmarking Food Manufacturing

Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.

Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023

NAICS 311 · Data year: 2023

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023

Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.

Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.