Pioneering the Natural Foods Industry Since 1976: An Interview with UNFI Co-Founder Michael Funk

January 23, 2025           5 minute read

At UNFI’s Spring and Summer Selling Show West in San Diego, UNFI’s co-founder, former CEO, and Board member Michael Funk took the stage to share his experience founding UNFI and his legacy in the natural food industry.

As a pioneer of the natural food industry, Michael has been promoting and distributing natural and organic food for over 50 years. He founded Mountain Peoples Warehouse in 1976 and built the company into the leading natural food wholesaler in the Western United States. In 1996, he co-founded UNFI to form a natural food distributor in which he served as President and CEO, Chairman of the Board, and now continues to serve as a director.

Michael Funk sat down with UNFI’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Matt Echols, to share his unique perspective with over 4,300 UNFI customers, suppliers, and associates in San Diego.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Matt Echols: When you started UNFI, did you ever imagine it would be what it is today? What were some key moments that shaped your vision?

Michael Funk: When we started, I like to say, there was no supply and no demand. Not to mention, there was no money, no experience – all we had was passion. We had a passion to try to get organic products to this new customer base that was developing. We didn’t have any training; it was all trial by error. I remember getting a call from my mom in the seventh year of business where she said, “You have a lot of potential. When are you going to get a real job?”

Fortunately, we hung in there a little bit longer and things started turning a corner around 1984. With growing media coverage on the benefits of natural and organic food and a better supply chain starting to develop, we grew an average of 50% a year for 12 years.

At some point around the mid-nineties, we started getting some scale, and I realized this business was taking off. We needed to become national, and we needed to have an infrastructure with larger warehouses with coolers and freezers to handle the product supply that was necessary. At that point, with my original partner from Cornucopia Natural Foods, we cooked up a vision and went public in 1996 to raise the capital needed. From there, we had the resources we needed to service everyone on a national scale.

The only thing we didn’t have was the next generation of leaders that had the experience of driving that scale. We had to recruit from outside our original natural foods industry and find people from conventional distribution and food service distribution that could teach us how to scale the business up, be more efficient and move boxes from point A to point B at the lowest cost. That was a big transition for us at that time.

Matt Echols: Michael, another role you have is as a founding board member of the UNFI Foundation, where you have played an important part since 2011. Tell us more about why this work is so important to you.

Michael Funk: The UNFI Foundation is a great representation of our core values, focusing on food as a catalyst for healthy communities and environments. The Foundation has been around for 14 years, and, in the beginning, it was just a couple of us deciding which organizations to donate money to. Now, we have associates around the country involved in grant committees and reading over proposals from the various organizations we support. It feels really good that we are involving all facets of the company from warehouse managers to people in corporate offices. We have the whole company engaged with the mission of the Foundation.

Matt Echols: What are your thoughts on how the company is doing today? A lot has changed over the years, and you’ve seen all of it.

Michael Funk: You can’t survive as a company for 50 years unless you adapt. It’s a constant process focused on continuous improvement and adapting to the market. Over the years, we’ve faced several challenges from technology difficulties and financial recessions to COVID-19 and inflation impacts. All of which required us to adapt. Today, our retailers are facing more pressures than ever before, and our job is to make our retailers as competitive as possible. That requires a constant retooling of our services, our technology, our infrastructure, and our product selection. I’m confident that we have the experience and will to adapt and make those changes to better serve our customers. Innovation is key to making this industry vibrant.

Matt Echols: Looking ahead, do you have any advice for our industry? 

Michael Funk: The world is changing at such a fast pace. I want to believe though that the retail business that we’ve grown up with is still set up to compete. The consumers still want to shop in stores and see the products. The experience of shopping can be a really positive thing, and we can expose people to all of these new and innovative products from our suppliers. In true partnership with our retailers, we work together to bring technology and services needed so that everybody in this room can compete effectively.

By upholding the legacy Michael Funk has built over his remarkable career, UNFI continues to embrace bold ideas and new possibilities that drive our business forward. While UNFI has grown, our core has never changed. We deliver better food to more people every day and strive to create a better future for our customers, suppliers, and communities by being the food industry’s most valued partner. We thank Michael for his time during UNFI’s Spring and Summer Show West and his continued leadership with UNFI and the UNFI Foundation.