Every month, COTA celebrates inspirational stories from our members who are radically transforming
our food system and making waves in the organic world. We are excited to start 2022 by featuring an interview with UNFI Canada, a COTA member since 2007, a founding organization of our association.
Tell us about your organization and the people who work there.
UNFI is North America’s premier food wholesaler with 58 distribution centers across the continent and four Canadian locations situated conveniently near our customers and suppliers across the country.
At UNFI Canada, we deliver healthier food options to more people. We carry and distribute 10,000+ organic, natural & specialty products to more than 5,000 customer locations across Canada. We proudly serve a wide variety of customers including conventional supermarket chains, natural product superstores, independent retailers, eCommerce and food service.
UNFI Canada represents over 850 vendor brands. This allows us to bring more products to market faster and with a greater breadth of coverage over any other national distributor in Canada. In short, we help entrepreneurs and major brands alike unlock their full potential and transform their businesses – for the better.
At home, UNFI Canada provides a collaborative work environment with a people first culture. Our strength depends on the quality of our staff and individually, associates are given the opportunity to make a difference. Collectively, we all work together to make a difference on a global level.
What are you trying to achieve through your vision, mission, and purpose?
UNFI Canada has always had a focus on the future. Our vision—to transform the future of food—is a bold one. But by unifying strategic supplier partners with retailers through innovation and operational excellence, we play a crucial role in the types of products that we can bring to market.
Quality of customer care is at the forefront of our strategy—retailers expect delivery of their orders on time and in full and they want seamless solutions which can range from being their provider of choice for wellness food innovation to providing direct-to-store delivery nationwide.
At the store level, keeping product assortment aligned with key trends remains an important element of growth. We also find that retailers who merchandise well, prioritize education and who make it easy to identify suitable products in-store are most successful at building sales.
We are proud of what’s been accomplished; we’ve built a lasting trust among our retail and supplier partners while taking the time to genuinely understand their specific needs and priorities. Because of our strong suite of services and outstanding team, we are emerging from the pandemic period stronger and more responsive than ever, with exciting developments coming that are poised to fuel the future.
How was the organization founded? What are the origins of the organization?
UNFI was founded in 1996 by the merger of two regional distributors, Mountain People's Warehouse (founded in 1976, serving the Western U.S.) and Cornucopia Natural Foods (founded in 1977, serving the Eastern U.S.), forming the first natural products distributorship with national scope. Since 1996, other regional distributors have merged with UNFI, filling in the distribution footprint and making UNFI the largest distributor of organic products.
Please share highlights of your organization’s innovation, inspiration, and dedication to organic.
On-trend innovation is the lifeblood of UNFI Canada. Trends are focused on healthier lifestyles that have minimal impact on our environment and the planet. Whether specific diets like keto or paleo, clean label ingredient lists, sustainability-driven products, or plant-based products—we understand shifts in demographic cohorts, what they value and their buying power. We keep a pulse on emerging segments making their way into Canadian markets and we identify macro trends that will have marketplace longevity and offer our retailers the largest and most productive selections.
And we recently launched our UpNext program to foster mentoring and partnerships with diverse brands that are early in their brand life cycle. We create the right path for these brands to achieve national distribution, giving them the opportunity to bring them into your store efficiently, saving time and money
How does your organization interact with organic – either directly as a grower or with your suppliers?
Pro Organics, a division of UNFI Canada, builds strong and enduring relationships with suppliers – literally hundreds of organic farmers, packers and processors located in Canada and throughout the world, to obtain the best quality organic products for customers.
Our purchasing team personally visit many of the suppliers throughout the year to maintain their strong links. As well, the company donates significant time and money to organic sector organizations to help increase organic production and to promote organics in North America.
What gets you most excited about the organic community and your involvement in it?
Simply put, it’s the right thing to do for our environment. Our planet, our country and our communities are all under threat of serious disruptions from climate change. By continuing to embrace new, innovative, and sustainable technologies, we can produce and provide more organic and healthier food options to more Canadians.
In that, UNFI Canada can do its part to help feed a healthy future through the principles and values of organic that promote and reinforce the need to create harmonious systems that contribute to and protect the means in which we derive our food.
What are your hopes and dreams for transforming the food system to be more ecological?
Our company has a long tradition of doing the right thing—adapting and innovating in a way that leverages our legacy and scale for tangible action and caring for our people and our communities.
We remain committed to building a brighter future by delivering greater food choice and taking bold action on global social and environmental issues. As we look to the future, UNFI Canada will continue to take bold action to address and accelerate change in social and environmental issues, including climate action, waste reduction, food justice, safety and wellbeing, and diversity and inclusion.
Environment, Social, and Governance is an integral part of our company culture and business strategy and our ESG Canada program is aligned to three pillars: Building Better for Our World, Our Communities and Our People. Within those pillars, our plan is to accelerate change over the next decade, by taking bold action in six key areas: Climate Action, Waste Reduction, Food Safety, Food Access, Safety & Wellbeing and Diversity & Inclusion.
About:
Stacey Kravitz has served as President of UNFI Canada since August 2020. Previously, Stacey served as Senior Vice President of Sales for UNFI Canada. Prior to joining UNFI in 2015, Stacey spent 20 years at Kraft Canada, then Kraft Heinz Company Canada, in a variety of sales roles, culminating in her leading Canada’s largest retailer Loblaw Companies LTD., as Customer Vice President. Stacey is a graduate of McGill University and the Queens University Ivey Executive Program where she holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree and an Executive Education certification in Strategic Planning and Finance. In 2019, Stacey was elected to the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) Board of Directors where she currently serves as Vice Chair. In 2020, Stacey was elected to the Grocery Foundation Board of Directors, a non-for-profit organization that supports student nutrition programs in hundreds of Canadian communities, feeding over one million children. Stacey is an outdoor runner, avid reader and wine enthusiast supporting local vineyards in her hometown of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
To learn more about UNFI, visit https://www.unfi.ca/home