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OUR PEOPLE
Empowering our associates to bring impact to life – and we’ve seen evidence that they are working.
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OUR COMMUNITIES
Putting people first, making informed decisions, and investing intentionally in our communities and planet.
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OUR WORLD
Making sure we are growing in responsible ways along with the expansion of the global food chain and rapid speed of delivery.
governance
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From the policies that keep us on track day- to-day, to the mechanisms that maintain proper oversight of our practices, to the goals we set to keep us accountable long-term, we believe governance is critical to the credibility of our impact strategy and our ability to drive progress in our industry.
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Governance comes in a lot of forms – from our Code of Conduct, to our Board and governing committees, to our public reporting. The more we can integrate Better for All into the way our whole organization operates, the more we become the company we want to be.
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Mission & Values
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Business Ethics & Compliance
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Associate Involvement
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We have a strong heritage of helping our customers unlock their full potential and transform their businesses for the better. This internal compass guides us to live our values and establish policies and procedures that promote integrity. We seek to lead by example on social and environmental issues of critical importance to society and strive to be a force for positive change in the food system and beyond. As we continuously adapt to a changing world, we will always come back to our mission and stay true to the core values we’ve had for nearly half a century. Our governance systems help to remind us of who we are and what we stand for when faced with difficult choices.
Mission:
We strive to make our customers stronger, our supply chain better, and our food solutions more inspired.
Values:
We do the right thing.
We courageously embrace what’s next.
We deliver better together.
We believe in Better for All.
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Our internal and external processes are in place to hold us accountable from top to bottom. The Nominating and Governance Committee, which includes four members from our Board of Directors, develops and recommends adjustments to our corporate governance practices and has ultimate oversight of our ESG strategy. This committee annually reviews and enhances our charters and policies, and regularly engages with the full Board and leadership team to share environmental, social, and governance trends that are critical to the Company’s overall business strategy.
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We also recently grew the Senior Leadership Team to accelerate progress against the Fuel the Future strategy and create shared value for our stakeholders. We believe we are now more effective when managing company-wide, cross-functional objectives, including Better for All.
These principles guide our decisions:
Accountability: Monitoring performance against goals
Transparency: Being authentic and a model in our story
Leadership: Collaborating for greater impact
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Our leadership team and Board help put strong policies and governance structures in place, but our associates are key to leading the charge. Each of our associates is responsible for cultivating and upholding a culture of compliance and integrity in everything we do, and that’s non-negotiable. Since launching the Better for All strategy just a few years ago, we’ve made steady progress to help our associates better understand how the strategy connects with their daily lives at home and at work. More importantly, our associates are telling us what they believe in and holding us accountable to walk the talk.
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Our ‘Missions’ program was launched in the Associate Action Hub in 2021 to promote awareness of our goals and engage associates in issues that matter to them and to UNFI. While we will may continue to use this platform to track engagement, there are more natural ways to recognize and reward associates’ action that we will continue to tap into.
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These governance structures aren’t about just checking the box on legal compliance, they’re about establishing credibility, reflecting on where we can do even better, and making sure we’re integrating our mission and values into the decisions we make every day. We find ways to strengthen these structures every year.
Progressive Grocer Impact Award
We are honored that our efforts in recent years are being recognized by the industry – in FY2022, UNFI was selected as a winner of the first-of-its-kind Progressive Grocer Impact Award in the Sustainability & Resource Conservation category.
Social and Environmental Policy
This policy was created in 2021 and summarizes the responsibilities we have, the actions we aim to achieve, and the outcomes for which we are striving as a socially and environmentally responsible organization.
ESG Executive Steering Committee
In 2021, we created an Executive Steering Committee to oversee the programs and practices that guide how we show up as a socially and environmentally responsible organization. The members of the committee help us align our impact strategy with our business objectives, mission, and values – and serve as ambassadors to proactively promote our impact strategy.