United Natural Foods(US:UNFI) Benzinga·2025-12-02 15:22Core Insights - United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) exceeded Wall Street expectations for quarterly profit, reporting adjusted earnings per share of 56 cents, surpassing the consensus estimate of 41 cents despite a slight decline in sales [1][5] Financial Performance - Quarterly sales amounted to $7.840 billion, a decrease of 0.4% year over year, falling short of the expected $7.911 billion [2] - Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $167 million, an increase from $134 million in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year [3] - Free cash flow used totaled $54 million, showing improvement from $159 million used in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 [4] Segment Performance - Sales in the natural channel rose by 10.5% to $4.24 billion, indicating strong performance in that segment [2] - Conventional channel sales decreased by 11.7% to $3.33 billion, while retail sales fell by 5.5% to $554 million [2] Liquidity and Capital Expenditure - As of November 1, 2025, the company had total liquidity of approximately $1.33 billion, which included $38 million in cash and about $1.29 billion of unused capacity under its asset-based lending facility [3] - Capital expenditures in the first quarter of 2026 were $16 million, down from $49 million a year earlier [3] Outlook - The company reaffirmed its fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS outlook at $1.50 to $2.30, compared to the analyst estimate of $2.03 [5] - Sales forecast for 2026 is maintained at $31.6 billion to $32.0 billion, against a consensus of $31.953 billion [5] - UNFI shares rose by 10.68% to $38.03 at the time of publication [5]