United Natural Foods Inc. will eliminate 150 roles — mostly managers and supervisors — as part of its consolidation of four operating regions into three: East, Central and West.
The Providence, R.I.-based grocery wholesaler delivers fresh, branded and owned-brand products to more than 30,000 locations throughout North America, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, e-commerce providers and foodservice customers. UNFI also provides value-added services and segmented marketing expertise, including proprietary technology, data, market insights and shelf management.
The goal of restructuring, announced June 13, is to enhance profitability, speed decision-making and reduce administrative layers, according to a news release.
In March, UNFI named Erin Horvath as chief operating officer and Louis Martin as president of wholesale to better align leadership teams and resources.
“These changes are a step in our transformation plan,” UNFI CEO Sandy Douglas said in the release. “The regional realignment will decrease layers of administrative management, increase leaders’ span of geographic responsibility, better align us to serve customers with less complexity and support faster decision making. These changes are also intended to make our company more efficient and more profitable.”
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The three regions will cover these areas with these leaders:
- The new East region will span from Maine to Florida and as far west as Tennessee. It will encompass 22 distribution centers and service more than 10,000 customers. Kelly Sosa will lead as East region president.
- The new Central region will cover the Mississippi River to the Rockies, comprising 21 states, 16 distribution centers and about 9,000 customers. Tandy Harvey will lead as Central region president.
- The new West region will span 10 states, from Utah to Alaska. It will serve about 11,000 customers from 14 distribution centers, led by Bob Garibaldi as West region president.
Sosa, Harvey and Garibaldi will continue to report to Steve Dietz, UNFI’s chief customer officer, according to the release.
David Matthews will continue to lead UNFI’s national accounts team, which will support the company’s largest national retailers and serve the growing needs of online and e-commerce retailers. Stacey Kravitz will also continue to lead the UNFI Canada business. Both Matthews and Kravitz will continue to report to Martin, the wholesale president, the release said.
