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UNFI, United Natural Foods

Consumer Distributors capital-intensive Distress / turnaround

Our Background UNFI is a leading distributor of grocery and non-food products, and support services provider to retailers in the United States and Canada.

Since the formation of our predecessor in 1976, we have grown our business both organically and through acquisitions, which have expanded our distribution network, product selection and customer base.

Our diversified customer base includes over 30,000 customer locations ranging from some of the largest grocers in the country to smaller retailers.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

UNFI · United Natural Foods

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$31.8B

+2.6% YoY · 4% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $31.2B 5-yr avg $29.8B

Gross margin 13% 5-yr avg 14%

Operating margin 0.2% 5-yr avg 0.6%

Owner-earnings margin 1% 5-yr avg 1%

Free cash flow margin 1% 5-yr avg 1%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Natural (50%), Conventional (42%) and Retail (7%).
Situation: Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 14% and operating margin about 0.4% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. That margin has held in a narrow −0.9%–2.4% band over the years, so steadiness itself is the evidence — the lever is unit growth and cost discipline, not a moving line. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 5%, above 15% in 0 of 8 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 3 segments, the largest Natural at 50%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Natural50%$16.0B
Conventional42%$13.5B
Retail7%$2.3B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMay 2026
										Income statement
$9.3B	$10.2B	$22.3B	$26.6B	$26.9B	$28.9B	$30.3B	$31.0B	$31.8B	$31.2B	RevenueRevenue
15%	15%	14%	15%	15%	14%	14%	14%	13%	13%	Gross marginGross mgn
$226M	$224M	($196M)	($193M)	$294M	$423M	$120M	$8M	($31M)	$64M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
2.4%	2.2%	−0.9%	−0.7%	1.1%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%	−0.1%	0.2%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$130M	$163M	($285M)	($274M)	$149M	$248M	$24M	($112M)	($118M)	($38M)	Net incomeNet inc.
39%	22%	—	—	19%	18%	—	—	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
$273M	$109M	$285M	$457M	$614M	$331M	$624M	$253M	$470M	$503M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$86M	$88M	$248M	$282M	$285M	$285M	$304M	$319M	$321M	$304M	DepreciationDeprec.
$31M	($167M)	$296M	$424M	$135M	($246M)	$258M	$7M	$224M	$177M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$56M	$45M	$228M	$173M	$310M	$251M	$323M	$345M	$231M	$174M	CapexCapex
0.6%	0.4%	1.0%	0.7%	1.2%	0.9%	1.1%	1.1%	0.7%	0.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$217M	$64M	$57M	$284M	$304M	$80M	$301M	($92M)	$239M	$329M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
2.3%	0.6%	0.3%	1.1%	1.1%	0.3%	1.0%	−0.3%	0.8%	1.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$217M	$64M	$57M	$284M	$304M	$80M	$301M	($92M)	$239M	$329M	Free cash flowFCF
2.3%	0.6%	0.3%	1.1%	1.1%	0.3%	1.0%	−0.3%	0.8%	1.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$9M	$39K	$2.3B	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0	$24M	$0	$0	$0	$0	$62M	$0	$0	—	BuybacksBuybacks
7%	8%	-3%	-4%	7%	9%	3%	—	-1%	—	ROICROIC
8%	9%	-19%	-24%	10%	14%	1%	-7%	-8%	-2%	Return on equityROE
8%	9%	−19%	−24%	10%	14%	1%	−7%	−8%	−2%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
										Balance sheet
$15M	$23M	$44M	$47M	$41M	$44M	$37M	$40M	$44M	$43M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$526M	$596M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$887M	$936M	$1.1B	$943M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1.0B	$1.1B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.1B	$2.0B	InventoryInvent.
$535M	$517M	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$1.8B	Accounts payablePayables
$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.2B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.7B	$1.8B	$3.6B	$3.7B	$3.5B	$3.8B	$3.5B	$3.4B	$3.4B	$3.2B	Current assetsCur. assets
$704M	$699M	$2.1B	$2.4B	$2.5B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$2.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.4×	2.6×	1.7×	1.6×	1.4×	1.6×	1.4×	1.4×	1.3×	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$371M	$362M	$442M	$20M	$20M	$20M	$20M	$19M	$19M	$19M	GoodwillGoodwill
$2.9B	$3.0B	$7.2B	$7.6B	$7.5B	$7.6B	$7.4B	$7.5B	$7.6B	$7.2B	Total assetsAssets
$224M	$319M	$3.1B	$2.6B	$2.2B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$1.9B	$2.2B	Total debtDebt
$208M	$296M	$3.0B	$2.6B	$2.1B	$2.1B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$2.1B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
13.5×	14.0×	-1.1×	-1.0×	1.4×	2.7×	0.8×	0.0×	-0.2×	0.5×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.1B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.6B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	$8M	$293M	$424M	—	—	—	—	—	—	Goodwill written downGW imp.
										Per share
50.8M	50.8M	51.2M	53.8M	60.0M	61.0M	60.7M	59.3M	60.2M	62.7M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$182.66	$201.17	$436.35	$493.66	$449.17	$474.23	$498.71	$522.43	$527.97	$497.70	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.56	$3.20	$-5.57	$-5.09	$2.48	$4.07	$0.40	$-1.89	$-1.96	$-0.61	EPS (diluted)EPS
$4.28	$1.27	$1.11	$5.28	$5.07	$1.31	$4.96	$-1.55	$3.97	$5.25	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$4.28	$1.27	$1.11	$5.28	$5.07	$1.31	$4.96	$-1.55	$3.97	$5.25	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.11	$0.88	$4.45	$3.22	$5.17	$4.11	$5.32	$5.82	$3.84	$2.78	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$33.12	$36.31	$29.43	$21.28	$25.25	$29.36	$28.71	$27.67	$25.76	$25.49	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	8-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+14.2%/yr	+1.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−0.9%/yr	−5.5%/yr
Capital spending / share	+16.8%/yr	+3.6%/yr
Book value / share	−3.1%/yr	+3.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

60Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

−1%low FY2020

Gross margin

13%low FY2025

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

7.6×peak FY2019

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$239Mowner earningsvs.($118M)net incomelow FY2024

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2017FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned a $118M loss into $239M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($118M)	($112M)	$24M	$248M	$149M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$321M	+$319M	+$304M	+$285M	+$285M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$43M	+$39M	+$38M	+$44M	+$45M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$224M	+$7M	+$258M	−$246M	+$135M
Cash from operations	$470M	$253M	$624M	$331M	$614M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$231M	−$345M	−$323M	−$251M	−$310M
Owner earnings	$239M	($92M)	$301M	$80M	$304M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	1%	0%	1%	0%	1%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $43M), owner earnings is nearer $196M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? -0.2×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($31M) ÷ interest expense $146M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.1B

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $44M − debt $2.2B

What this means
Netting $44M of cash and short-term investments against $2.2B of debt leaves $2.1B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 15d

Tight

DSO 12 + DIO 28 − DPO 25 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 3%

Below average through the cycle

8-yr median, range -4%–9%; -1% latest = NOPAT ($24M) ÷ invested capital $3.7B

Industry peers: median 4%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 8 years (it ran -1% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 1%

Thin through the cycle

9-yr median margin, range -0%–2%; latest $239M = operating cash $470M − maintenance capex $231M

Industry peers: median 2%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 1% of revenue this year, a 1% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $43M of SBC) leaves $196M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $470M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($118M) · cash from operations $470M

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 0%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $0 ÷ Owner Earnings $239M

What this means
Of $239M Owner Earnings, $0 (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $0 buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.72×

Harvesting

Capex $231M ÷ depreciation $321M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $31.8B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.32×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $2.2B vs $821M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (9-yr record) · 4 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −2697%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-1.13/share (latest year $-1.95), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $25.63/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2017–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 5 of 9

What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 9 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 1% → 0% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The margin has held, but the filing names price competition — the pressure is present even where the margin has absorbed it so far.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 1% early, 0% lately, median 0%.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth −8%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 8% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · −0.9% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2019, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +2.2%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, May 2, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$3.2B

Cash & short-term investments$43M
Receivables$943M
Inventory$2.0B
Other current assets$264M

Current liabilities$2.4B

Debt due within a year$3M
Accounts payable$1.8B
Other current liabilities$670M

Current ratio1.33×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.51×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.02×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$802Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$3M due · $43M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the May 2, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−4.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 1.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($2.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.1B$1.5B of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$5M

'27$1.0B

'28$5M

'29$505M

'30$5M

Bars scaled to the largest single year.

Due in the next 12 months$5Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.0Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.0Bin 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Due over the next five years$1.5Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $2.2B of debt in all

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, May 2, 2026$43M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$239M

Together, against $5M due next year56.4×

Cash on hand as of May 2, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $282M against the $5M due in the twelve months after the Aug 2, 2025 schedule: 56 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Aug 2, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

How the cash was used, 2017–2025

Over the record, the business generated $3.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$2.0B · 57%
Buybacks$86M · 3%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.4B · 40%

Returned to owners$86M
6% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $86M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $2.0B and cash and short-term investments rose $28M.
Average price paid for buybacks$39.42
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 1M shares were bought for $24M, about $39.42 each.
Net change in share count23.5%
The diluted count rose from 51M to 63M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 9-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$595M8% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity1%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$2.3Bover 9 years buying other businesses, against $2.0B of capital spent building

$725M written down across 3 years (2018, 2019, 2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 31% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 9-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$8.4M	$17.6M	$304M
2022	$8.7M	$8.9M	$80M
2022	$6.3M	$709k	$80M
2023	$6.2M	−$1.7M	$301M
2024	$7.6M	$5.2M	($92M)
2025	$9.7M	$21.6M	$239M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership2.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$43M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why United Natural Foods is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2017–2025.

4 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?0.5% vs 1.1%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 1.1% early in the record and 0.5% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?23.5%
Diluted shares grew 23.5% over 2017–2025, even as the company spent $86M on buybacks. The repurchases were a treadmill: stock issued to staff outran them, so owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$224M → $2.2B
Debt rose from $224M to $2.2B while owner earnings went from about $113M to $149M — about 2.0 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 15 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?6 of 9 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 6 of the last 9 years, $1.5B in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Inventory as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Consumer Distributors

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
UNFIUnited Natural Foods	$31.8B	14%	0.4%	5%	1%
GLPGlobal Partners LP Common	$18.6B	6%	1.4%	—	1%
ANDEAndersons	$11.0B	6%	1.0%	4%	1%
SEBSeaboard Corporation	$9.7B	8%	3.5%	4%	2%
CAPLCrossAmerica Partners LP Common	$3.7B	8%	1.8%	—	2%
CENTCentral Garden & Pet	$3.1B	30%	7.4%	10%	7%
ASHAshland	$1.8B	30%	3.0%	2%	4%
MGPIMGP Ingredients Inc.	$536M	28%	13.3%	14%	8%
Group median	—	11%	2.4%	5%	2%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what United Natural Foods has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, United Natural Foods earns about $239M on its 0.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 0.8% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($239M) Net of stock comp (−$60M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−21%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’25−8%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $329M on 61M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-06-04; net debt $2.1B. The if-converted diluted count is 63M, 4% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh UNFI against another business →

The owners of UNFI: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "United Natural Foods (UNFI), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/UNFI, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← UNF its page in the Manual UNH →

Industry order: ← PFGC the Consumer Distributors chapter WILC →