Food distributor Sysco Corp. will not buy US Foods Inc. after all this year as it seeks to gain approval from the deal from antitrust regulators, causing shares to dip 2.4 percent in early trading.

The Federal Trade Commission has been wary to give Sysco the go-ahead because the two companies are the only ones with a wide enough reach to sign nationwide deals for supplying food to all sorts of businesses in the food industry, according to a Reuters report.

As a result, Sysco announced Monday it doesn’t expect the deal to go through until the first quarter of 2015 because of the holidays and the amount of work remaining.

Since December 2013, Sysco has attempted to buy US Foods for about $3.5 billion from KKR & Co., a major holder in the company.

Sysco’s net profit fell to $278.8 million in its most recent quarter — 47 centers per share — compared to $285.6 million, or 48 centes a share, the same time a year earlier. Total sales actually rose 6.2 percent to $12.45 billion, and once items were excluded, the shares came out to about 52 cents each, compared with analysts expectations of 51 cents per share and revenue of $12.36 billion.

If the merger is approved, the resulting company would be worth nearly a quarter of the $235 billion food distribution market in North America, Reuters reported. Originally, Sysco had hoped to complete the deal before October.

Sysco is trying to sweeten the deal by adding a package of asset sales, which it would sell to some major regional players, including Reinhart Foodservice, Performance Food Group, and Gordon Food service.

Sysco traded at $37.58 in trading this morning on the news, down 2.4 percent.