Top 10 Healthcare vs Food Companies by Revenue in 2026: Revenue, Market Cap Comparisons, ETF Insights, and Performance Analysis
Update note (July 21, 2026): This article, first published November 23, 2025, has been fully revised with second-quarter 2026 earnings, current market capitalizations, and refreshed ETF performance data. The biggest changes: Eli Lilly's market cap climbed past $1 trillion, CVS Health's stock staged a dramatic recovery, and healthcare-sector ETF returns cooled sharply from their 2025 pace while consumer-staples ETFs swung back into positive territory. Details below.
Quick Answer
As of July 2026, UnitedHealth Group leads healthcare by revenue (~$450B TTM) while Eli Lilly leads by market cap (~$1.05–1.10 trillion). In food, Nestlé remains the revenue leader (~$113–115B), with JBS newly cracking the top 10 in place of Bunge. Combined healthcare market cap (~$2.9T) now outweighs food (~$948B) by roughly 3-to-1 — an even wider gap than in late 2025 — even though healthcare-sector ETF returns have cooled in 2026 while consumer-staples ETFs have rebounded into double-digit gains.
In This Article
- What Changed Since November 2025
- Top Healthcare Companies by Revenue
- Notable Addition: Eli Lilly
- Top Food Companies by Revenue
- Top Healthcare & Pharma ETFs
- Top Food & Consumer Staples ETFs
- Market Cap Comparison & Sector Rotation Analysis
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Ask an AI Assistant: Personalize This Data
- Disclaimer & Sources
In 2026, healthcare and food companies continue to sit at opposite ends of the market's growth-versus-defense spectrum. Healthcare has been reshaped by GLP-1 drug economics, insurer margin recovery, and pharmaceutical distribution consolidation, while food and beverage companies are working through a more moderate environment of easing input costs and cautious consumer spending. This update merges the latest trailing-twelve-month (TTM) revenue figures with market capitalizations as of mid-July 2026, and revisits the ETF landscape for both sectors — including a notable performance reversal between the two.
As in the original ranking, we include Eli Lilly as a notable addition to the healthcare list despite it not placing in the top 10 by revenue, because its market cap now dwarfs every other company on either list. Food company rankings have been aligned with our June 2026 food-sector ranking update, which reflects JBS's first full year of confirmed public filings since its 2025 U.S. listing.
What Changed Since November 2025
- Eli Lilly crossed the $1 trillion mark. Market cap rose from ~$948B to roughly $1.05–1.10 trillion, and TTM revenue jumped from $59.4B to $72.2B on continued Mounjaro/Zepbound demand; full-year 2026 guidance now sits at $80–83B.
- CVS Health staged a sharp turnaround. Market cap climbed from ~$99B to roughly $135B (a 74% one-year stock gain) as Aetna's margin-recovery plan took hold; full-year 2026 revenue guidance was raised to at least $405B.
- Johnson & Johnson re-rated higher. Market cap rose from ~$491B to roughly $600B even as its underlying revenue growth stayed in the high single digits, with 2026 sales guidance raised to $100.8–101.4B.
- JBS displaced Bunge in the food top 10. With confirmed FY2025 revenue of ~$86.2B, JBS now ranks ahead of Performance Food Group, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Unilever, and Tyson by revenue — a change driven by JBS's first full reporting year as a U.S.-listed company rather than a decline at Bunge.
- Healthcare ETF returns cooled substantially. XLV's YTD return fell from 12.39% (Nov 2025) to roughly 3.8%; XBI's fell from 29.52% to roughly 6.7% — still positive, but a much more muted year after 2025's rally.
- Consumer-staples ETFs reversed course. XLP flipped from a -0.90% YTD loss in November 2025 to a roughly +10% YTD gain by mid-July 2026, suggesting a rotation of investor interest back toward defensive food and staples names.
- Unilever's revenue base shifted. The 2025 demerger of the Magnum Ice Cream Company (Ben & Jerry's, Magnum, and other ice cream brands) into a separately listed entity means Unilever's continuing-operations revenue is not directly comparable to pre-2025 figures.
Top Healthcare Companies by Revenue in 2026
Healthcare revenue continues to be dominated by insurers-turned-integrated-care-companies and pharmaceutical distributors, whose enormous top-line figures reflect pass-through drug costs as much as underlying profitability. Figures below are TTM revenue and market capitalization as of mid-July 2026, compiled from company earnings releases, SEC filings, and financial-data aggregators.
| # | Company (Ticker) | Revenue (TTM) | Market Cap | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UnitedHealth Group (UNH) | ~$450B | ~$385B | Q2 2026 medical care ratio improved to 86.7%; raised FY26 EPS outlook. |
| 2 | CVS Health (CVS) | ~$408B | ~$135B | FY26 revenue guidance raised to ≥$405B on Aetna's margin recovery. |
| 3 | McKesson (MCK) | ~$398B | ~$100B | Pharmaceutical distribution; roughly a third of North American drug volume. |
| 4 | Cencora (COR) | ~$325B* | ~$62B | Formerly AmerisourceBergen; pharmaceutical sourcing and distribution. |
| 5 | Cardinal Health (CAH) | ~$240B* | ~$50B | Supplies roughly a quarter of U.S. drug distribution volume. |
| 6 | Cigna Group (CI) | ~$250B* | ~$73B | FY2025 net income grew ~73% year-over-year; Evernorth pharmacy services. |
| 7 | Elevance Health (ELV) | ~$185B* | ~$70B | Formerly Anthem; health plans and complex-care products. |
| 8 | Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) | ~$96.4B | ~$600B | FY26 sales guidance raised to $100.8–101.4B; Innovative Medicine + MedTech. |
| 9 | Roche Holding (RHHBY) | ~$80B | ~$300–320B* | Listed on SIX Swiss Exchange; ADR trades OTC in the U.S. |
| 10 | Sinopharm Group (SHTDY) | ~$80B† | ~$8–10B† | Hong Kong-listed; limited fresh USD-denominated data this cycle. |
*Estimated from Q1–Q2 2026 disclosures and financial-data aggregators; fiscal calendars differ by company. †Last independently reported figure; verify current data before making investment decisions.
Totals (including Eli Lilly, below): Revenue ~$2.58–2.68 trillion | Market cap ~$2.9 trillion — both higher than the November 2025 totals of ~$2.16–2.31 trillion and ~$2.52 trillion, respectively.
Notable Addition: Eli Lilly (LLY)
Eli Lilly still doesn't crack the top 10 by revenue — its TTM revenue of $72.2 billion trails Sinopharm and Roche — but its market cap of roughly $1.05–1.10 trillion now exceeds the entire food sector's combined market cap on its own. Q1 2026 revenue grew 56% year-over-year to $19.8 billion, led by Mounjaro and Zepbound, and the company raised full-year 2026 guidance to $80–83 billion in revenue. In July 2026, Lilly also announced plans to acquire psychedelics developer AtaiBeckley for $2.8 billion, extending its pipeline beyond metabolic disease into neuroscience.
Top Food Companies by Revenue in 2026
The food and beverage ranking below reflects one meaningful change from November 2025: JBS N.V. now appears in the top 10 by confirmed FY2025 revenue, having completed its first full year of reporting since its 2025 U.S. listing. That pushes Bunge Limited — #10 on the original list — out of the top 10, though Bunge remains a major global agribusiness and food-ingredient company in its own right.
| # | Company (Country / Ticker) | Revenue | Market Cap | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nestlé (Switzerland / NSRGY) | ~$113–115B | ~$268B | World's largest food manufacturer; Nescafé, KitKat, Purina. |
| 2 | Ahold Delhaize (Netherlands / ADRNY) | ~$107B* | ~$37B* | Global grocery retailer and distributor. |
| 3 | PepsiCo (USA / PEP) | ~$95.4B | ~$187B | Beverages and snacks; North America volumes remain soft. |
| 4 | JBS (Brazil / JBS) | ~$86.2B | ~$19–20B* | New to the top 10; world's largest protein producer, NYSE-listed since June 2025. |
| 5 | Sysco (USA / SYY) | ~$81.4B | ~$40.6B | Leading global foodservice distributor. |
| 6 | Archer Daniels Midland (USA / ADM) | ~$80.3B | ~$36–41B* | Agricultural processing and ingredients; recent regenerative-farming push. |
| 7 | Performance Food Group (USA / PFGC) | ~$63.3B | ~$13.7B | Foodservice distribution. |
| 8 | Anheuser-Busch InBev (Belgium / BUD) | ~$61.0B | ~$155–163B | World's largest brewer; BEES Marketplace GMV up 55% year-over-year. |
| 9 | Unilever (UK/Netherlands / UL) | ~$58.5B* | ~$170B* | Revenue base shifted after the 2025 Magnum Ice Cream demerger. |
| 10 | Tyson Foods (USA / TSN) | ~$55.7B | ~$20.3B | Major poultry, beef, and pork producer. |
*Estimated from most recently available disclosures and financial-data aggregators. Privately held Cargill (~$160B+ revenue) and Mars remain excluded due to a lack of standardized public financials.
Totals: Revenue ~$804B | Market cap ~$948B — market cap up from ~$881B in November 2025, largely on Anheuser-Busch InBev's and Unilever's re-rating higher.
Top Healthcare & Pharma/Biotech ETFs in 2026
The headline story in healthcare ETFs this year is deceleration, not decline: every major fund below is still in positive territory year-to-date, but the pace of gains has slowed considerably from 2025's rally.
| # | ETF (Ticker) | AUM | 2026 YTD | Nov 2025 YTD (for comparison) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV) | ~$41B | ~+3.8% | +12.39% |
| 2 | Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT) | ~$18B | ~+4.1% | +13.44% |
| 3 | iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB) | ~$7B | ~+5.2% | +26.71% |
| 4 | SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) | ~$6B | ~+6.7% | +29.52% |
| 5 | VanEck Pharmaceutical ETF (PPH) | ~$1.2B* | 1-yr: ~+28% | +18.06% |
| 6 | iShares U.S. Pharmaceuticals ETF (IHE) | ~$0.7B* | Strong GLP-1-driven year | ~+18% |
| 7 | iShares Global Healthcare ETF (IXJ) | ~$4.5B* | ~+2% | +12.66% |
| 8 | iShares U.S. Medical Devices ETF (IHI) | ~$4.1B* | Modest gain | +7.46% |
| 9 | iShares U.S. Healthcare ETF (IYH) | ~$3.3B* | Modest gain | +11.69% |
| 10 | Invesco Pharmaceuticals ETF (PJP) | ~$0.3B* | ~+7% | +18.21% |
*AUM estimated from most recently available fund data; smaller funds see less frequent third-party updates. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Top Food & Consumer Staples ETFs in 2026
The consumer-staples ETF story has essentially flipped since late 2025. The flagship fund, XLP, moved from a small year-to-date loss to a double-digit gain — a sign that investors have rotated back toward defensive names after a volatile stretch in equities.
| # | ETF (Ticker) | AUM | 2026 YTD | Nov 2025 YTD (for comparison) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP) | ~$14B | ~+10.3% | -0.90% |
| 2 | Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (VDC) | ~$7B* | Positive, tracking XLP | +0.28% |
| 3 | Fidelity MSCI Consumer Staples ETF (FSTA) | ~$1.3B* | Positive, tracking sector | -0.06% |
| 4 | iShares U.S. Consumer Staples ETF (IYK) | ~$1.3B* | Positive | +4.80% |
| 5 | iShares Global Consumer Staples ETF (KXI) | ~$0.9B* | Positive; includes Nestlé, Unilever | +7.83% |
| 6 | VanEck Agribusiness ETF (MOO) | ~$0.6B* | Tied to ADM/Bunge/JBS complex | +10.03% |
| 7 | Invesco Food & Beverage ETF (PBJ) | ~$0.1B* | Improved but still lagging XLP | -4.93% |
| 8 | Invesco DWA Consumer Staples Momentum ETF (PSL) | ~$0.08B* | Improved | -5.48% |
| 9 | Invesco S&P SmallCap Consumer Staples ETF (PSCC) | ~$0.03B* | Improved from deep losses | -18.36% |
| 10 | First Trust Nasdaq Food & Beverage ETF (FTXG) | ~$0.02B* | Improved | -7.06% |
*AUM estimated from most recently available fund data. Directional YTD characterizations for smaller funds are inferred from XLP's sector-level move; confirm exact figures with your broker before trading.
Market Cap Comparison & Sector Rotation Analysis
Healthcare's combined market cap (including Eli Lilly) of roughly $2.9 trillion now exceeds food's $948 billion by more than 3-to-1 — a wider gap than the roughly 2.9-to-1 spread seen in November 2025 — even though the two sectors' revenue bases (~$2.6 trillion vs. ~$804 billion) are closer to a 3.2-to-1 ratio. Eli Lilly alone now accounts for more market value than the entire food sector combined, underscoring how much investor enthusiasm for GLP-1 drugs and pharmaceutical innovation continues to outweigh interest in food and staples names on a pure valuation basis.
Where the story gets more interesting is performance. In the twelve months through November 2025, healthcare ETFs like XBI (+29.52%) and IBB (+26.71%) posted returns far ahead of consumer-staples ETFs, several of which were negative. By mid-2026, that gap has narrowed sharply: healthcare ETF returns have cooled into mid-single digits, while XLP's turnaround to roughly +10% YTD suggests capital rotating back into defensive food, beverage, and household-staples names. This doesn't mean healthcare has become a weak sector — GLP-1 drug economics, insurer margin recovery at UnitedHealth and CVS, and continued pharmaceutical distribution growth all remain intact — but the pace of outperformance that defined 2025 has moderated.
A few other threads worth watching for the rest of 2026: JNJ's re-rating from $491B to roughly $600B in market cap happened largely without a matching jump in revenue, reflecting a valuation multiple expansion rather than a fundamental step-change; CVS's recovery has been driven specifically by Aetna's medical-cost discipline rather than pharmacy or PBM growth; and the food sector's ranking shuffle (JBS in, Bunge out of the top 10) is a reporting-calendar artifact as much as a competitive shift, since Bunge's underlying business has not meaningfully declined.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is bigger by market cap in 2026, healthcare or food companies?
Healthcare, by a wide margin. The top 10 healthcare companies plus Eli Lilly carry a combined market cap of roughly $2.9 trillion versus about $948 billion for the top 10 food companies — a gap of more than 3-to-1.
Why is Eli Lilly included even though it's not a top-10 healthcare company by revenue?
Eli Lilly's TTM revenue of about $72.2 billion doesn't crack the top 10, but its market cap of roughly $1.05–1.10 trillion is larger than every other company on either list, making it too significant to exclude from a market-cap-focused comparison.
Why did JBS replace Bunge in the food company rankings?
JBS listed on the NYSE in June 2025 and has since published its first full year of confirmed public financials, showing FY2025 revenue of about $86.2 billion — enough to rank ahead of Bunge's roughly $53 billion. It reflects JBS's reporting transparency catching up, not a decline at Bunge.
Have healthcare ETFs underperformed in 2026?
Not in absolute terms — funds like XLV, VHT, IBB, and XBI are all still positive year-to-date. But returns have cooled substantially compared with 2025's rally; XBI's YTD gain, for example, fell from roughly 29.5% to roughly 6.7%.
Are consumer staples and food ETFs a better buy than healthcare ETFs right now?
This depends on individual goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance, and isn't something we can answer generically. What the data shows is that consumer-staples ETFs like XLP have swung from negative to roughly +10% YTD in 2026, while healthcare ETF gains have moderated — a rotation worth factoring into a diversified portfolio, but not a signal to abandon either sector. Consult a licensed financial advisor for guidance specific to your situation.
Is Cargill included in the food company rankings?
No. Cargill (estimated revenue over $160 billion) and Mars remain privately held and do not publish standardized public financials, so they're excluded from rankings based on public company data, even though either would likely rank near the top by revenue if included.
Ask an AI Assistant: Personalize This Data
This article is structured so AI assistants can extract and summarize the current healthcare-vs-food company and ETF data accurately. If you're using one of the tools below, here's how to get a more personalized read on this comparison:
- Claude: Paste this article's tables and ask Claude to model how a specific portfolio allocation between healthcare and consumer-staples ETFs would have performed year-to-date, or to flag which figures above are estimates versus confirmed filings.
- ChatGPT: Ask ChatGPT to cross-reference the revenue and market-cap figures here against the companies' most recent 10-Q or 10-K filings for a line-by-line accuracy check before making any investment decision.
- Gemini: Use Gemini's connection to Google Finance to pull real-time quotes for the tickers listed here, since the market caps above are snapshots as of mid-July 2026 and will have moved by the time you're reading this.
- Perplexity: Ask Perplexity to search for the most recent quarterly earnings call transcripts for any single company on this list (for example, CVS Health or Eli Lilly) to get management's own explanation for the moves described above.
Disclaimer
The information presented in this article is intended for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial, investment, or medical advice. Revenue figures, market capitalizations, ETF data, and company rankings are based on publicly available data, company filings, and third-party financial-data aggregators as of mid-July 2026, and are subject to change without notice — some figures are estimates where precise TTM or fiscal-year data was not available at time of writing (marked with * or †). All currency conversions, where applicable, are based on approximate exchange rates and may not reflect real-time rates.
While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy and timeliness, One Day Advisor and this article's authors do not guarantee the completeness, reliability, or suitability of this content for any particular purpose. Readers are encouraged to verify details independently through primary sources (company investor relations pages, SEC filings, and fund providers' official fact sheets) and to consult a licensed financial advisor before making any business, investment, or healthcare decision based on this information. Past ETF performance does not guarantee future results. One Day Advisor is not responsible for any losses or damages arising from the use of this information.
If you're currently working through a difficult health or financial situation and this article's dollar figures feel overwhelming rather than useful, that's understandable — this piece is written for investors and market-watchers, not as guidance for personal medical or financial decisions. Please consult your doctor or a licensed financial advisor for advice suited to your own circumstances.
References and Sources
- UnitedHealth Group Q1 2026 and Q2 2026 earnings releases (SEC 8-K filings)
- CVS Health Q1 2026 earnings release and FY26 guidance update
- Johnson & Johnson Q2 2026 earnings commentary and FY26 sales guidance
- Eli Lilly Q1 2026 earnings release and FY26 guidance
- Anheuser-Busch InBev Q1 2026 6-K filing
- Company investor relations pages, Wikipedia infoboxes, and financial-data aggregators (StockAnalysis.com, CompaniesMarketCap.com, MacroTrends, TradingEconomics, Yahoo Finance) for market cap and revenue snapshots as of mid-July 2026
- Top 10 Food Companies by Revenue — 2026 Update (OneDayAdvisor)
- Top 20 ETF Picks in 2026 (OneDayAdvisor)
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