What UNFI’s New Merchandising Service Fee Means for Brands

Leading wholesale distributor United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) announced this month that it will begin charging suppliers a new fee for planogram and shelf execution in fiscal year 2026.

The cost of the program is 0.75% of shipments out of UNFI’s natural distribution centers to stores that receive shelf execution and planogram services, and impacted categories include grocery, frozen, dairy, general merchandise and health and beauty care. Suppliers cannot opt out of the program.

The fee will be calculated using the previous year’s purchases (June 2024-May 2025) on all UPC-coded products shipped from UNFI’s natural DC network to retailers participating in its in-store execution programs; stores with their own shelf management program are excluded. It is split into two payments, one in August and the other in February.

“Planograms are essential for operations. They aid independent retailers to ensure an effective assortment, optimize space, enhance customer experience, increase sales and improve inventory management,” reads a letter UNFI sent to suppliers that was posted to LinkedIn by Gregory Esslinger, head of sales at Floret.

UNFI claims the new program will improve consistency in reset execution through better traceability and accountability, speed to shelf for new products, category and consumer insights incorporated into DC base planograms and enhanced planogram compliance.

The announcement comes after the Rhode Island-based distributor had to shut down some of its computer systems in June following a cyberattack, leading to service and fulfillment disruptions. Systems operations have since been restored and customers have resumed ordering, but brand operators are anticipating continued disruption for some time.

UNFI believes the cybersecurity breach will result in a loss between $65 million and $75 million across revenue, adjusted EBITDA and operating costs, according to CEO Sandy Douglas.

“Our underlying momentum will continue as we enter fiscal 2026 with our updated outlook. We remain on track to achieve our multi-year financial targets at an accelerated pace compared to the initial targets we communicated in October 2024,” said Douglas in an off-cycle business call update with analysts.

Several brand operators believe the new merchandising fee is UNFI’s attempt to make up for the losses resulting from the cyberattack.

In response to Esslinger’s LinkedIn post, Chuck Casano, founder and CEO of Pitaya Foods, commented, “Oh and sorry our cyberattack screwed over your business for the past 8 weeks, in an effort to make it up to you, we are going to find new fees to really punish you.”

Jennifer Brown, director of sales at Sucker Punch, commented, “I wondered what they were going to call the ‘cyberattack recovery fee.’”