DAYVILLE, Conn., Oct 6, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- United Natural Foods,
Inc. (Nasdaq: UNFI), a leading national distributor of natural foods and
related products, today announced the appointments of Rick Antonelli to the
position of President of the Western Region and Michael Beaudry to the new
position of Vice President of Operations for the company. In addition, Di Ann
Sanchez has been appointed to the newly created position of Vice President of
Human Resources.
Mr. Antonelli, age 45, has served as President of the Eastern Region for
United Natural Foods (UNFI) from 2002. He assumes the role of President of the
Western Region of UNFI from Kevin Michel, who will remain on to work on
special projects and strategic initiatives for our company. Steven Townsend,
CEO and President of UNFI, will assume the interim responsibility for the
President of the Eastern Region. Mr. Antonelli has committed a majority of his
professional career to United Natural Foods, serving as the Director of Sales
of the Eastern Region since its inception in 1996 through 2001. From 1985
through 1996, Mr. Antonelli served as Director of Sales for Cornucopia Natural
Foods, the Company's predecessor. From 1982 through 1985, Mr. Antonelli was
director of operations for Harvest Provision, a division of Bread and Circus
that was acquired by Cornucopia Natural Foods in 1985. Mr. Antonelli rejoined
United Natural Foods from Fairfield Farm Kitchens, a Massachusetts-based
custom-food manufacturer, where he held the position of president from 2001 to
2002.
Mr. Beaudry, age 39, served as our Vice President of Operations, Eastern
Region, from December 2002 to August 2003. Mr. Beaudry served as our Director
of Operations from December 2001 to December 2002, and was the Warehouse /
Operations Manager of the Dayville, Connecticut facility from December 1999 to
December 2001.
Ms. Sanchez comes to UNFI most recently from Resources Connections, a
Human Resource consulting firm out of Dallas, Texas. She has been Vice
President of Human Resources for companies with 500 to 100,000 employees and
has worked in companies such as American Airlines, The Boeing Company, Kraft
General Foods, Coca-Cola Enterprises, PepsiCo, Delta Technology, and BNSF.
She brings with her significant talent and great experience that will be
extremely beneficial as we continue to develop the human resource
infrastructure of our Company. Di Ann will be located at the corporate
headquarters in Dayville, Connecticut. Her appointment is effective October
6, 2003.
Ms. Sanchez, age 42, has worked extensively in the areas of global Human
Resource strategy, leadership development, succession planning, diversity
strategies, mergers and acquisitions, compensation design and benefits
administration. She will be responsible for the integration of the Human
Resource function into the strategy of the Company. She has been the
recipient of many awards for her work in Human Resources and has received
honors as a top business professional by the Hispanic Business Magazine.
All appointments were made during a recent meeting of the Board of
Directors.
Steven Townsend, Chief Executive Officer of United Natural Foods,
commented, "We continue to build a team of talented people to enable us to
take advantage of growth opportunities in the rapidly growing natural products
market. Accordingly, with a strong operational background and extensive
knowledge of UNFI and the natural products industry, Rick Antonelli is
uniquely qualified to assume the position of President of the Western Region.
As the previous President of the Eastern Region, Rick played an important role
in our organization's growth and development. We believe this is a natural
transition that strengthens our Company as well as our opportunities for
growth."
Mr. Townsend added, "We are also pleased to announce that Di Ann Sanchez
has joined UNFI. Di Ann brings to us a strong background and a tremendous
amount of experience, which will help us strengthen our Human Resource
infrastructure."
About United Natural Foods
United Natural Foods, Inc. carries and distributes over 32,000 products to
more than 14,000 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 quarterly report on Form 10-Q
filed with the Commission on June 13, 2002, 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.
Rick D. Puckett, Chief Financial Officer of United Natural
Foods, Inc., +1-860-779-2800, or General Information, Joseph Calabrese,
+1-212-445-8434, or Analyst Information, Vanessa Schwartz, +1-212-445-8433,
both of FRB Weber Shandwick
http://www.unfi.com