Forensic Analysis · Trading Companies & Distributors · as of Sep 25, 2026
United Natural Foods Inc (UNFI)
A forensic read on United Natural Foods Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
33.6
P / E (ttm)
5.2%
ROE
$2.6B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-2.0%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
United Natural Foods Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.9, placing it in the Grey zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
3.7%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 3.7% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2024–FY2026 from 0.1%. After-tax operating profit was $6M in FY2024 and $174M in FY2026, with operating income at 0.0% of revenue in FY2024, -0.1% in FY2025 and 0.7% in FY2026. The capital base behind it barely moved across FY2024–FY2026 ($5.1B to $4.6B, -10%), so there has been little new capital for that return to be earned on.
+2.9%/yr
FY2024–FY2026
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +6% over the last 2 years to FY2026 (+2.9%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~2.9% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2024 has been diluted ~6%.
0.2% of rev
FY2026
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.2% of revenue and 19% of free cash flow in FY2026 — about $0.97 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 2.9% a year and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$31.15B
Revenue Growth YoY-2.0%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+0.3%
Net Margin0.3%
Free Cash Flow$323.0M
Return on Equity5.2%
Debt / Equity0.96x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from United Natural Foods Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?