UNFI brings CPG partners more insight into supply chain data

Grocery distributor United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) has launched an information platform to give food and beverage brands more visibility into supply chain data.

Called UNFI Insights, the service offers supplier partners “the most comprehensive and cohesive” sales, inventory and deduction data across natural and conventional grocery retail channels, Providence, Rhode Island-based UNFI said Tuesday. Crisp, an open data platform for the consumer goods sector, developed UNFI Insights in tandem with the distributor, building on a partnership formed in the summer of 2021.

CPG suppliers can use New York-based Crisp’s cloud-based commerce platform to share, manipulate and use UNFI data within their own business intelligence tools—such as Tableau, Excel and Power BI—enabling them to more easily track UNFI sales and inventory levels across retail sales channels, UNFI reported. The platform also works with cloud-based analytics tools from Google and Microsoft, as well as Databricks and Snowflake.

Through Crisp-powered UNFI Insights, brands now can access value-added insights directly through the MyUNFI.com supplier portal, boosting their marketing and merchandising efforts, the distributor said. The insights also include store and category recommendations, fill rates, voids, and deduction and food waste dashboards.

“Expanding our relationship with Crisp to deliver to CPGs access to both their natural and conventional sales and inventory data, all housed in one location, provides CPG brands with an unrivaled opportunity to boost their relationships and growth prospects with retailers,” John Raiche, executive vice president of supplier services at UNFI, said in a statement. “Leveraging our scale, focusing on investments in technology and enhancing connectivity with and market visibility for our suppliers is expected to lead to better overall service levels for our retail customers and differentiate UNFI in a competitive marketplace.”

Through on-hand inventory dashboards, UNFI Insights can help suppliers better manage their supply chain to avoid out-of-stocks, UNFI said. The distributor noted that since it and Crisp both target food waste reduction, the platform includes an actionable spoilage dashboard to track short-dated inventory, which should help brands identify which products are approaching their expiration date.

“With hundreds of joint customers, the UNFI and Crisp strategic partnership enables both natural and conventional brands to collaborate more effectively with UNFI and their retail partners,” stated Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of Crisp. “By removing data silos, data becomes more actionable, which should lead to brands increasing profitability while reducing food waste. We applaud UNFI’s leadership in facilitating data access and their commitment to supplier success.”

UNFI suppliers using Crisp include Greenleaf Foods, Organic Valley, Mid-day Squares, Outstanding Foods, RxSugar, NotCo, Rebel Green, Grandy Organics and, most recently, food giant Kraft Heinz.

“Kraft Heinz is committed to building a single data hub to power digital transformation initiatives and use a single source of truth for the analytics that power our daily decisions,” commented Stefanie McNansky, customer vice president for UNFI at Kraft Heinz. “UNFI Insights, powered by Crisp, should help us drive category growth by accessing category-level data and pushing the latest available distribution and sales data directly into our Snowflake cloud data platform. Having easy access to this data throughout our organization is also expected to reduce out-of-stocks, benefitting our retail partners while creating a better experience for our consumers.”

North America’s largest publicly traded grocery distributor, UNFI operates 56 distribution centers and supplies more than 30,000 retailers in the United States and Canada, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, e-commerce retailers and foodservice providers.