Dive Brief:
- United Natural Foods, Inc. has moved operations from its Racine, Wisconsin, distribution center to its nearby Joliet, Illinois, facility, CEO Sandy Douglas said on a Sept. 8 earnings call.
- Completed in June, the move consolidates operations at a facility in the early stages of implementing full-case automation, executives said.
- “While it is still early and we have more work to do, we expect that this move will help us more effectively serve customers and suppliers in the Midwest over time while generating operating efficiencies for UNFI," President and COO Giorgio Tarditi told investors, cautioning that any such move will likely have “a little bit of growing pains.”
Dive Insight:
UNFI’s latest consolidation efforts advance a distribution network reorganization launched in fiscal 2025 alongside a three-year financial recovery plan after two years of unsteady results.
The company also consolidated centers in North Dakota, Montana, Indiana and Pennsylvania into nearby facilities between October 2024 and October 2025, Rajiv Sujan, SVP of network process optimization, said in an email to Supply Chain Dive.
The reorganization has also included openings. UNFI opened a facility in Manchester, Pennsylvania, in September 2024 and a Sarasota, Florida, distribution center in August 2025, Sujan said.
UNFI has also targeted operational improvements in its distribution network. By Aug. 1, the end of fiscal 2026, the company had completed the initial rollout of lean daily management at 44 distribution centers, Douglas said. Tarditi credited the rollout with delivering a fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvements in order fill rates, on-time deliveries and warehouse throughput.
The company plans to implement a second phase of lean management, called Lean 2.0, focused on strengthening daily programs and management problem-solving, Tarditi said.
In fiscal 2026, the company also completed the rollout of its artificial intelligence-powered supply chain and procurement planning platform across all distribution centers in the network, Douglas said.
UNFI expects to further bolster its distribution system in fiscal 2027 through $300 million in capital spending, including investments in automation, an ERP deployment and other technology initiatives designed to simplify processes and provide faster, better operational insights, according to Tarditi.
