United Natural Foods Names Eric W. Zitelli President of Hershey Import Company

November 7, 2001

Commenting on the news, Mr. Funk said, "We are delighted to welcome Eric Zitelli to the United Natural Foods team. With over 25 years experience in both the natural foods and consumer product industries, Eric brings a wealth of marketing, sales and operating management experience to this position. His leadership and vision was instrumental in the successful creation of nSpired Natural Foods, a California based company focused on natural and organic snack foods. As founder and president he played a key role in the organization's growth, highlighted by a significant increase in revenues in less than two years. He fully understands the natural products industry and we are confident that he will play an integral role in leading Hershey's to continued growth and profitability."

Prior to founding nSpired Natural Foods in 1998, Mr. Zitelli was a Principal of The Zitelli Group, a sales and marketing consulting firm. From 1984 through 1997, he was a Co-founder and Principal of Unger, Zitelli and Sletten, a business development firm advising Fortune 500 consumer product companies on new product innovation, new business start-ups, brand promotion, advertising, sales management and sales promotion. He previously worked in a variety of marketing, advertising and sales positions for Rexall Corporation, D'Arcy Advertising and Ralston Purina Company. He has a MBA from Southern Illinois University and a BA in Psychology from California State University.

Hershey Import Company, headquartered in Rahway, New Jersey, is a leading importer, processor, packager, and marketer of nuts, dried fruit, seeds, trail mixes, natural and organic products, and confections in the United States. Product is sold in its own packaged snack lines: EXPRESSnacks, Woodstock Farms and Woodfield Farms, as well as in bulk. Hershey also provides private label packaging for many large natural products, supermarket and convenience store chains.

About United Natural Foods

United Natural Foods, Inc. carries and distributes over 30,000 products to more than 7,000 customers nationwide. The Company serves a wide variety of retail formats including conventional supermarket chains, natural product superstores and independent retail operators.

For more information on United Natural Foods, Inc., visit the Company's web-site at www.unfi.com .

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding United Natural's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including but not limited to general business conditions, the impact of competition and our dependence on principal customers, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Commission on October 23, 2001, and its other filings under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Any forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and, as such, speak only as of the date made. United Natural is not undertaking to update any information in the foregoing reports until the effective date of its future reports required by applicable laws.

SOURCE United Natural Foods, Inc.

CONTACT:

Thomas Simone, Chairman of the Board of United Natural Foods, Inc., +1-707-537-9872; General Information, Joseph Calabrese, +1-212-445-8434, Analyst Information, Vanessa Schwartz, +1-212-445-8433, or Media Inquiries, Judith Sylk-Siegel, +1-212-445-8431, all of FRB Weber Shandwick URL: http://www.unfi.com

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