Is UNFI a high-quality business?

AlphaMadera's AlphaQuality grade scores United Natural Foods, Inc. on six pillars — profitability, capital efficiency, balance-sheet strength, growth durability, cash generation, and shareholder yield. The composite letter grade reflects how UNFI compares to a Buffett-style quality bar.

What is United Natural Foods, Inc.'s AlphaQuality grade?

AlphaQuality assigns a letter grade (A through F) to UNFI based on a six-pillar quantitative model. The live page shows the composite grade plus each pillar's individual score with the underlying metrics.

What makes UNFI a quality stock?

AlphaQuality looks at return on capital, free-cash-flow margins, debt-to-equity, revenue stability, dividend and buyback policy, and operating-margin trend. Stocks scoring well across all six pillars earn higher grades — the methodology favors compounders over cyclicals.

UNFI - United Natural Foods, Inc.

Price: -- -- | CONSENSUS: Hold DETAILS | PRICE TARGET: $50.75 DETAILS

AlphaQuality

Quantitative six-pillar business-quality grade

Stable Earnings Power

AlphaQuality — archetype-weighted quantitative grade

F 30.0 / 100 pillar composite

Composite Grade

Composite of six pillars weighted for stable earnings power businesses. Purely quantitative — the six pillars score only reported financials, no analyst input.

⚠ 2 of the last 5 fiscal years showed negative net income — AlphaQuality will not grade above F for persistent unprofitability in a stable earnings power business.

Grade overrides the 30.0 pillar composite because hard gates always win. Use the pillar breakdown below to see where the underlying numbers sit.

Profitability

Weight: 20%

D- 31.8

5yr Avg ROIC 2.8% 24/100
Operating Margin Trend -0.08 pp/yr 50/100

Capital Efficiency

Weight: 15%

F 26.7

5yr Avg ROE 1.2% 16/100
5yr Share-Count CAGR 0.9% 47/100

Growth Quality

Weight: 15%

D 36.0

5yr Revenue CAGR 2.9% 44/100
5yr EPS CAGR -11.6% 0/100
Revenue-Growth Years (5) 4/5 80/100

Cash Generation

Weight: 15%

C- 44.5

5yr FCF Margin 0.6% 28/100
5yr FCF/NI Conversion 5.57x 65/100

Balance Sheet

Weight: 20%

D 37.1

Net Debt / EBITDA 5.72x 10/100
Interest Coverage (EBIT/Int) 1.86x 26/100
Altman Z-Score 5.13 100/100

Stability

Weight: 15%

C 56.6

EPS Volatility (σ/μ) 0.51 29/100
Negative-Revenue Years (5) 1/5 80/100
Piotroski F-Score 7 78/100

3 of 3 gurus held; 3 trimmed; 1 full exit.

Holders: 3
Avg Δ position: -18.7%
New buys: 0
Full exits: 1

Laffont sold -100%
Dalio decreased -27%
Greenblatt decreased -26%

How this is calculated

AlphaQuality grades six pillars from 0-100 and weights each by archetype:

Profitability (20%) — 5yr Avg ROIC, Operating Margin Trend
Capital Efficiency (15%) — 5yr Avg ROE, 5yr Share-Count CAGR
Growth Quality (15%) — 5yr Revenue CAGR, 5yr EPS CAGR, Revenue-Growth Years (5)
Cash Generation (15%) — 5yr FCF Margin, 5yr FCF/NI Conversion
Balance Sheet (20%) — Net Debt / EBITDA, Interest Coverage (EBIT/Int), Altman Z-Score
Stability (15%) — EPS Volatility (σ/μ), Negative-Revenue Years (5), Piotroski F-Score

The six pillars read only reported financial-statement fields — no analyst targets or consensus ratings. The archetype that picks which pillar formulas apply is not fully price-free, though: it can route a company to the distressed/ungradable archetype based on price vs. its 52-week high, and beta affects one classification check. A minimum of 5 fiscal years of audited statements is required. Insurers and banks are graded on their own methodology — insurers on loss ratio, its trend and stability, and premiums-to-surplus; banks on the efficiency ratio, its trend and stability, and equity-to-assets — rather than on industrial margin/ROIC signals. Distressed, highly leveraged infrastructure, asset-manager, and other financial businesses are declared ungradable rather than forced into a numeric score.