UNFI CFO Mike Zechmeister Resigns

United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) is making changes to its senior management team as CFO Mike Zechmeister prepares to leave the company, effective Aug. 23.  Zechmeister is taking the position of CFO at Minneapolis-based third-party logistics company C.H. Robinson.

UNFI has appointed John W. Howard to the position of interim CFO as the company beings an internal and external search. Howard, who came to the company as SVP, finance and accounting in July, has more than 20 years' experience leading finance teams, and was CFO of Prime Therapeutics before joining UNFI. Prior to that, he was VP, corporate finance at Valspar.

"I thank Mike for his contributions to UNFI over the past four years of significant growth and change. In the near term, we're fortunate to have John's experience and financial acumen available to our board, leadership team and finance organization," said Steven L. Spinner, UNFI's chairman and CEO. "John will help continue our efforts to align and build a world-class finance organization, focusing on financial-planning data, systems, and processes to drive and achieve our strategic business objectives."

Providence, R.I.-based UNFI delivers products to customer locations throughout North America, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, ecommerce retailers and foodservice customers. Combined with Supervalu, which it acquired in 2018, UNFI is the largest publicly traded grocery distributor in the United States, and is No. 30 on Progressive Grocer’s 2019 Super 50 list of the top grocers in the United States.