UNFI Names Steve Dietz Chief Customer Officer

Exec will oversee sales regions, driving strategy and enhanced engagement

9/10/2021

Steve Dietz

United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) has promoted Steve Dietz to the newly created role of chief customer officer effective Oct. 1. In his new role, Dietz will oversee UNFI’s sales efforts throughout the United States and Canada.

Dietz has been UNFI’s president, Pacific region since 2018. As chief customer officer, he will support the region teams for UNFI’s National, Atlantic, South, Central, Pacific and Canadian divisions, driving business growth and helping ensure that the company delivers on its long-term vision to transform the future of food. Working with the region presidents, Deitz will help implement a local go-to market strategy while leveraging data, learnings and outcomes to further best practices and programs that can benefit all UNFI customers.

“Steve is a terrific selection for this role, and I’m confident his leadership will help us further unlock the customer experience, delivering greater value and innovation to grocery retailers of all sizes and formats,” said UNFI President Chris Testa. “We have a tremendous responsibility to our customers and communities, and Steve’s experience, sales acumen and strong understanding of the ever-changing grocery landscape will help us continue to deliver on our customer promise.”

Dietz joined UNFI in 2014 through the acquisition of Tony’s Fine Foods, where he had spent 15 years in various roles overseeing sales, customer service, procurement, marketing and pricing. He has held his current leadership role since the completion of the Supervalu acquisition, helping unite various sales teams under one cohesive Pacific region organization.

Dietz has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. As well as his work at UNFI, he’s a member of the executive board for the California Grocers Association.

UNFI will name a new Pacific region president later this fall.

Providence, R.I.-based UNFI delivers a wide variety of products to customer locations throughout North America, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, e-commerce retailers and foodservice customers. The largest publicly traded grocery distributor in America, the company is No. 47 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer's 2021 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.