United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) has announced plans to reduce its capital spending for the next few years.
Steve Spinner, president and CEO of UNFI, explains that the company has completed building out its distribution capacity and thus does not anticipate the need for additional warehouses for close to three years.
Consequently, he says, the Providence-based company plans to reduce capital spending to less than one per cent of revenues over the next several years, with spending between $50 million and $60 million in fiscal 2016 (or 0.6 per cent to 0.7 per cent of sales).
Spinner added that most spending between 2016 and 2018 will be applied to expanding and improving the company’s IT infrastructure, while the cash saved will be used “to facilitate any acquisitions” in the gourmet, ethnic or fresh areas, encompassing proteins, produce, prepared food and specialty cheese.
“Those are the categories where we’re spending most of our energy, and there is a fairly robust pipeline,” he explains. “It’s just a matter of timing.”
UNFI has also revealed the appointment of Michael Zechmeister as its new SVP and CFO. In this position, Zechmeister will succeed Mark Shamber, who will leave at the end of December after 12 years with the company.
Previously, Zechmeister acted as the vice-president of finance for the Yoplait USA division of General Mills, following 25 years in a variety of corporate finance positions with that company.
