United Natural Foods Releases Better for All Report for Fiscal Year 2022

United Natural Foods, Inc., (NYSE: UNFI) (the “Company” or “UNFI”) today released its annual Better for All Report, which details UNFI’s progress toward its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments during the Company’s 2022 fiscal year, which ended July 30, 2022. In its 12th year of environmental and social reporting, UNFI reported progress in nine impact focus areas consisting of Customer Health & Safety, Energy Efficiency, Governance, Associate Safety & Well-Being, Climate Action, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI), Community Development, Responsible Procurement, and Waste Reduction. This year, the Company launched three new science-based targets, bringing its total goals to 15 across its entire Better for All strategy.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230109005845/en/

UNFI associates spend time volunteering with UNFI Foundation partner FoodShare Toronto. During the Company’s 2022 fiscal year, UNFI associates logged a 35 percent increase in volunteer hours. (Photo: Business Wire)

UNFI’s Better for All strategy continues to focus on proactively engaging with the people growing, making, and moving the products the Company distributes. As highlighted in this year’s report, engagement efforts include new customer surveys, continued conversations with investors, and cross-functional efforts to respond to associate feedback for additional DEI and associate wellbeing initiatives. The Company also proactively engaged with suppliers, including making investments in platforms such as UNFI’s recently launched Climate Action Hub, marking the first step in a more collaborative approach to address some of today’s most critical issues.

In its fiscal year 2022, UNFI reported the following milestones in support of its goal to build a food system that is better for its people, its communities, and the planet, resulting from ambitious and innovative efforts across the Company:

• Launched the Climate Action Hub, starting with the release of the Climate Action Guide for Business – a free resource for suppliers.
• Created the UNFI Foundation Food Equity Grant, awarding the Southside Community Land Trust in Providence, R.I. $100,000 to help promote food equity, eliminate hunger, and improve public health.
• Doubled year-over-year spend with diverse suppliers as a result of a clarified action plan to better identify, source, and assist diverse suppliers with certification and planning needed to grow their business with UNFI.
• Launched the installation of a roof-mounted solar array at UNFI’s distribution center in Howell, N.J., the Company’s largest to date.
• Completed a waste audit and kicked off an active audit for all owned brands retail packaging to enable sustainability progression across our brands portfolio.
• Recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality” and one of the “Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion.”
• Launched a new monthly campaign, called Difference Maker Spotlight, to highlight associates’ contributions to Better for All via their everyday responsibilities.

“In the past year we’ve made a focused effort to holistically integrate our Better for All strategy throughout the organization, as well as proactively engage our stakeholders, from our associates to our supply chain partners, on issues from climate to food equity to DEI,” said UNFI Chief Executive Officer, Sandy Douglas. “That approach has yielded some meaningful achievements this year and, in several areas, also allowed us to establish the organizational structures and processes needed to make progress against future goals. While we are proud of the progress we have made, we recognize that in many ways we are just at the beginning of our journey and that there is much more to be done. We look forward to continuing this important work in the coming years.”