Two tables:

table: companies

| company | info |
==================
| company x | info a |
| company y | info b |
| company z | info c |

table: items

| item | company |
==================
| item 1 | company x |
| item 2 | company z |
| item 3 | company z |

What I want is a result with all the items appearing once with all the company info, but I need companies with no items to occupy a row too. The problem I'm having is that companies that have no items will not show up. So in my example company y will not show up. I've tried all manner of JOINs, but they all seem to have the same behavior. I want something like this for my result, but don't know if it's possible:

| company | info | item |
=========================
| company x | info a | item 1 |
| company y | info b | NULL |
| company z | info c | item 2 |
| company z | info c | item 3 |