Case Study of United Natural Foods,
United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI), which formed in 1996 has been the leading
independent national distributor of natural, organic and specialty foods. UNFI, with 7300
employees, operates 18 facilities across the U.S. and 3 facilities across Canada which are
located to provide efficient service, speed to market and reduced carbon footprint. As
consumers are more and more interested in natural foods and small regional distributors
were opening to meet demand it supplies more than 27,000 retail food centers. In 2012,
the public company reported net sales of $5.24 billion, an increase of 15.6 percent over
the previous year. United Natural Foods has been the largest distributor of natural,
organic and specialty products in North America.
In 1976, Michael Funk started Mountain People’s Warehouse out of back of his van.
It soon grew to become the largest natural foods distributor in the Western United States.
At the same time, Norman Cloutier opened Cornucopia Natural Foods in Rhode Island.
In 1996, Cornucopia merged with Mountain People’s Warehouse after acquiring several
other distributors. Since then, the UNFI is formed. In the following years the regional
distributors, Stow Mills and Blooming Prairie joined UNFI.
UNIF is a company which has high level organizational behavior workplace with
clear goal setting, high retention and job satisfaction, diversity environment and effective
motivation systems.
UNFI was named one of the “World’s Most Admired Companies” by FORTUNE
Magazine in 2012 and 2009. They have set their goal as “exceeding the needs and
expectations of all their stakeholders: their customers, associates, natural and specialty
product consumers, suppliers, shareholders, communities, the environment and the
planet. “(Un Driven by… ) The Company provides Named Executive Officers with
perquisites and other benefits for purposes of recruitment and retention. As a diversity
workplace, UNFI provides their employees the environments where they can share their
own diverse backgrounds, experiences, perspectives and ideas. UNFI launches all their
job titles without regard to age, sex, race and ethnicity or disability. To avoid the sex
