Providence, Rhode Island-based United Natural Foods has completed its 2022 schedule of events wrapping up its Natural Winter show Oct. 5 in Las Vegas. Throughout the two-day event more than 2,000 UNFI customer attendees connected with suppliers offering an assortment across grocery, fresh, organic and specialty departments.
The show also featured UNFI’s Professional Services offerings, which drive traffic, save time and money and enhance the shoppers’ experience.
“The UNFI natural shows always have a strong presence from smaller, innovative, on-trend manufacturers with passionate and meaningful stories,” said Steve Dietz, chief customer officer.
“Retailers come to our shows not only to discover new items to keep their stores a step ahead of their competition, but also for the opportunity to connect with suppliers and utilize our insights and advanced offerings to deliver a differentiated value proposition consumers expect from their local grocer.”
Throughout the year, UNFI hosts more than 10,000 registered customer attendees at its four major events.
“UNFI is more than a grocery distributor, they are our partner in so many aspects of our business,” said Saj Khan, VP of grocery operations and purchasing at Nugget Markets.
“Through events like this week’s Las Vegas show, they work alongside our team to help us identify new and on-trend products, source the best deals and assist in supplier negotiations that are impactful to our merchandising plans. Our continued growth and success require our strong partnership with the entire UNFI team.”
One aspects of UNFI’s shows is the Pitch Slam competition, presented by UNFI UpNext. The team discovers and mentors emerging brands, guiding their path to growth while helping deliver UNFI customers a regionally sourced, differentiated product mix. Pitch Slam pits suppliers against each other in an elevator pitch style competition.
This year’s winner of the UNFI Natural Winter Show Pitch Slam is Viv, an earth-friendly and toxin-free period care brand based in Boston, Massachusetts.
“Viv is newer to retail as we started off as a direct-to-consumer brand. Through the UpNext program, UNFI has helped give us the extra support and knowledge we needed to bring a facelift to the period care aisle,” said Katie Diasti, CEO and founder of Viv.
“Our goal at Pitch Slam was to be bold, vibrant and exciting, and it was fun to see all the retailers and those in the audience react to our story.”
Suppliers interested in learning more about UNFI’s UpNext program can visit discover.unfi.com/upnext.
