All right. Good morning, everyone. I am Mark Carden, the North American Food Retail and Food Distribution Analyst from UBS. We are super excited to have UNFI with us today. UNFI is one of the largest grocery distributors in North America with over $31 billion in revenue in 2025. Joining us today is Matteo Tarditi, the company's Chief Financial Officer. He joined the company in early 2024 after spending more than 26 years at GE, where he served as CFO for seven business units. Matteo, we really appreciate you spending time with us today. With that, why don't I pass it over to you for some opening remarks, and we can dive in some questions.
Great. Thanks, Mark, and thanks for having us today and appreciated the interest in UNFI. Before we start, just a quick housekeeping item. For those of you listening, there are a number of financial schedules and detailed results from our Q2 earnings on our website, so feel free to go and access those data. Let me start with three quick comments, and then we get into the Q&A. First of all, the disciplined execution of our strategy, including the network optimization, is clearly generating EBITDA expansion, cash flow generation, and accelerated deleverage. All moving to the positive direction. In the Q2 alone, we grew EBITDA by 23%.
We generated more than $240 million of free cash flow, and we reduced our leverage to 2.7 turns. Good outcomes there. The second point is that our strategy, as we described at the Investor Day, is centered on creating value for customers and suppliers and becoming a more effective and efficient business partner, which is really foundational for us. We top-class procurement and deliveries, and we're doing that by also deploying lean and technologies into our processes. Lastly, our pipeline, our sales pipeline is strong. It's strong both with new categories, with existing customers, and with new customers.
As you think about our reported results, sales declined 2.6%, but when you normalize it by the 500 basis points of network optimization headwind, which is very accretive in EBITDA and free cash flow, we actually grew about 2.5%, which is in line with our 2025 through 2028 financial algorithm for top line. Let's dive into Q&A.
All right. Let's do it. That's a very helpful start. So maybe we'll start off with the consumer, and it's consumer backdrop, obviously, it remains pretty volatile. Broader grocery sector is running some challenges recently, both in the natural organic side of the business and especially in the conventional side of the business. What's right now your latest read on the consumer, essentially, and really food and on-demand in general?
Yes, Mark. The operating backdrop and the commercial backdrop is very dynamic, and the way we're responding to that is to understand deeply the macro dynamics and the macroeconomic variables and make sure that we adapt very quickly to those changes, right? To continue to support our customers and suppliers in their strategies. Relative to a couple of indicators in November and December, we noticed some softening in the markets. Obviously, January was incredibly volatile with the winter storm, so there was some pickup. Just reflecting back at our fiscal quarter, so November, December, January, we saw some modest softening in volumes, and I think that some of the other players noticed the same.
The other indicator that we noticed is that the gap between food away from home inflation and food at home inflation is widening. Food away from home inflation is growing faster than food at home, which in a way points to a potential shift of spending to food at home, right, as a commercial backdrop remains, you know, volatile. What we're doing again about it is continuing to focus on our pipeline, continuing to gain confidence in our low single-digit sales algorithm throughout 2028. Again, just making sure that we increase the adaptability of our business model. Think about more work that we do with merchandising, a more agile procurement organisation, and then the role that private brands play in a competitive and kind of volatile environment.
Gotcha. That's great. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about your financial algorithm, which you guys released, not too long ago. Low single digit sales growth, healthy EBITDA growth, and then you get $300 million in annual free cash flow. Can you just walk us through how you arrived at these targets and what gives you confidence that these are achievable, especially in this backdrop?
I'm gonna start on your probably last word, which is confidence. You probably heard it many times, but our approach to planning, guidance, and financial algorithms is high confidence, which is something that I've been using for a long time and is really centered on having multiple ways to deliver the desired financial outcomes, right? They all deliver in different ways, but it is important to have multiple paths to get to, you know, your commitment. In that context, a few months ago at Investor Day, we actually increased our expectations for 2025, 2026, 2028 relative to top line growing in LSD, EBITDA growing up to $800 million by 2028 and faster deleverage, right?
The latest commitment is 2.3x or less by the end of 2026, 2x or less by the end of 2027. When we unpack the sales EBITDA and free cash flow, let me start with sales. We always start with the market analysis, and we really find our best fit relative to our strategy in a $90 billion market that has a lot of players in natural organic specialty and also players who are differentiated or differentiating. That's really where the unified strategy and capabilities plays at best. That market has a lot of players growing low single digits, which is how we got confident that between the existing and developing capabilities and the variety of our natural products, the work that we're doing on the conventional products, LSD is our high confidence case relative to sales.
Now, relative to EBITDA, our guidance is around $700 million at the midpoint in 2026, growing to $800 million in 2028. That's really a combination of four things that we can explore later. It's really growth led by natural, and that is a big kind of self-help play with a lot of focus on productivity, accretive network optimization. How do we go after $2 billion of indirect costs for a long time, all powered by Lean? And then on free cash flow that we recently upgraded to $330 million for 2026 and then $300 million in 2027 and 2028. That gives us a lot of optionalities and flexibility. Really, the discipline on growing EBITDA, de-leveraging that reduces the interest expense, and then the work that we're doing on working capital.
How do we continue to shorten our collection days, and how do we operate better our inventory, right? Having the right products that help, you know, fill rates and on-time delivery, but also buying it on time so that we have lower levels.
That's great. Maybe within some of those elements that you talked about, you've laid out some buckets that you see for, you know, margin accretion. Obviously, your three-year EBITDA margin target builds in 65 basis points of expansion over the course of the time period at its midpoint. Within some of those initiatives you talked about, you talked about Lean, you talked about network optimization, you talked about indirect spend. Where do you see the biggest buckets of opportunity in really achieving that degree of margin expansion?
We have a commitment to expand our EBITDA by 65 basis points to your point as we go to $800 million in 2028. We should really think about that EBITDA growth in four drivers. We kept a fifth element for investments and how do we support these capabilities, right? The first one is growth. We have an LSD algorithm through 2028, and it's really led by our natural products. In this context, again, the natural organic specialty and differentiating players are all kind of delivering well and following our strategy. We are very, very encouraged by what we've seen. Even in the Q2, we're again excluding the network optimization, we gre at low single digits.
The second element is what we call the value-added capabilities. Think about how merchandising, professional services, private brands, suppliers management, all play a very critical role to make our customers and suppliers successful and competitive, but in turn, also find new revenue streams and new profit streams, you know, for Unified. The third one that is by design the most controllable is productivity. We've been on a journey the last 24 months to eliminate waste through the help of Lean, and also to decentralize our model for more empowerment and more accountability. If you look at our results in the first six months of 2026, our operating expenses were down 30 basis points, which again, speaks of both the power of the network optimization and the productivity program.
Lastly is how do we continue to build a more effective and efficient supply chain organization? That's where we infuse technology. That's where we work on better throughput. We get the benefits of automation. Now, to support these four pillars, we also allocated investments, right? We allocated dollars for investments that we are toll gating very, very carefully, though, to the success of these initiatives. These are not blank allowances that we distribute every month, but these are toll gated to the success of those initiatives. I think that to your second part of the question, the component that has got probably the highest confidence, growth is definitely one. Productivity, you know, is definitely one that is very much in control. But we're also encouraged by the work that we're doing relative to the new capabilities in the supply chain.
Great. Maybe we'll pivot to your addressable market overall. You alluded to a $60 billion addressable market on the natural and organic side. You've got a $30 billion opportunity in conventional. Now, in total, the $90 billion, though, is a step down from the $140 billion subsegment of the market that you used to target back, prior to when you rolled out your new strategy. Can you talk about the decision to narrow your focus? What was in that $50 billion that you moved away from, and where you really see the biggest opportunities for growth and differentiation within-
Yeah.
Your customer set.
That's great, Mark. We studied our markets very carefully a couple of years ago, and we led a review with the management team and the board and really defined that the best deployment of the unified strategy of creating value and being more effective and efficient is with natural organic specialty multicultural players, and then players that are interested in a differentiated differentiating experience. That's how, you know, we really find and sharpen our focus on a $90 billion market that, to your point, has got about two-thirds of natural products in it and a third of conventional products. That redefinition of the market really allowed us then to focus on what are the core capabilities that we have and we need to develop in order to drive share profitable growth, you know, with our customers.
In that direction, areas like merchandising or professional services or private brands, and then the technology deployments and the supply chain of the future, as we call it, are all geared to support, you know, that $90 billion space and find, you know, a lot of opportunities with them. We've also listened very carefully to our customers, as Sandy mentioned in his remarks, and we receive, you know, a lot of positive feedback and encouraging feedback on how the strategy is working. Now, the environment is volatile, as we said, but we're really deploying a strategy that is working for the customers and for us as we saw in our results.
Great. Just as you think about your conventional customers, when you think about what they've been doing in natural organic over the course of the past 10+ years, we've seen a steady increase in penetration within those categories. Do you think that there's still as much of a growth opportunity within your conventional retailers for natural organic products? Do you think that that opportunity is starting to fade a bit? Are they getting closer to maturity in that category? How do you think about the growth outlook for that customer in particular?
Mark, I'm gonna start at a 100,000 ft first because I think it's important that we explain a little bit how we operate the company, which is by natural products and conventional products, just by how the DCs are organized and the procurement organizations and our systems, but also the fact that we really have one face to our customers, right? We have natural customers that buy natural products, but we have a lot of differentiating customers that buy both. They start with a foundation of conventional products and then are very active in the experience of differentiating their shelves and differentiating their product assortments.
The reason why this is important is that one of the schedules that we have posted, I think last night, shows that if you look at the last two decades in a trillion-dollar grocery market, pure natural players have grown their market share 3x from 1%- 3%. Differentiating retailers have doubled their market share, basically, right? The mass players have more than doubled their market share. You know where I'm going. The squeeze has been with the other grocers, right? That ability to provide support for a differentiating experience keeps many players in the game, and that's exactly how we play. Support the pure natural players, support the differentiating players. Now underlying these assumptions and these, you know, this explanation is what we saw in the Q2.
Negative reported growth, 2.6%, 500 basis points of network optimization headwind that though translated into 23% higher EBITDA and strong free cash flow, and the rest of the business grew basically 2.5%, which is very much in line with how the $90 billion market is growing at LSD. That's how I think it is an important difference because we report the segments as natural and conventional.
Yeah.
We operate them as such, but the face of the customer has to be one integrated.
Right. Makes sense. Let's pivot to food inflation for a second just 'cause that's obviously a very in discussion topic. There's been a lot of puts and takes there. For a little while, there was talk about disinflation. There was talk about some of the, you know, lapping of higher egg prices from the year ago period. At the same time, you know, there's other changes at play, shifting tariff backdrop. There's obviously the situation in the Middle East. How are you thinking about the food inflationary backdrop really and where it goes from here?
Yeah. I'm gonna start again at 100,000 ft, and then we dive into a couple of indicators here. Our response to inflation is always to work with our suppliers in our supply chain organization to make sure that prices stay low, stable, and predictable, which is the best strategy to keep our, you know, customers competitive and make sure that we support them in their strategy. Every time there is inflation, our first reaction, our first muscle goes into, okay, how can we differentiate our offering? How can we make sure that, again, we don't create pressure downstream? And how can we think about alternatives like private brands that create non-comparability of items, but also, you know, competitive value for consumers and our customers.
Now, specifically to a couple of indicators, you know, the first one is we are modeling inflation for the rest of our fiscal year that runs through July of 2026 as low single digit. It is in line with what we've seen in the first six months of the year and in line with what our indicators are predicting and signaling. Again, our play here is against the low single digit inflation, how do we help our customers, you know, remain competitive. The other point that is probably top of mind for many of us and many of you is what could be an impact of the Iran crisis and the oil crisis and everything that is happening out there. Obviously, we're all seeing fuel prices increasing, right?
We have a hedging strategy in place for several, you know, gallons that we utilize, you know, in our operations. Then we also have contractual protection to basically pass on to our customers, you know, any fuel increase and any fuel surcharge. That has been kind of the initial monitoring and initial response to what is happening and much more obviously to study and monitor as we go forward.
Gotcha. That's helpful. Just shifting over to the competitive backdrop a bit, I'm seeing some shifts in your space with two of your largest competitors on the conventional side combining forces. How are you thinking overall about the health and the competitiveness of the industry today, both on the conventional side of the business and also on the natural organic side of the business, more from a distribution standpoint than a retailer standpoint?
Michael, what I would say is that our environment has always been very competitive, so I think that the recent activities and the recent dynamics are no exception in a way. Our mission here and our strategy is to remain, you know, very adaptable. As you know, the market and the era stay competitive is how do we find ways to differentiate and through the value creation, helping customers, you know, grow and be successful, and we then share profitable growth. How do we continue to be the reference in the industry relative to procurement and delivery? How do we continue to be more effective and more efficient relative to our operating model? That's kind of our game here.
The $90 billion market with again natural, organic, and specialty obviously offers many ways to do it. We're again encouraged by the low single digits, the growth that we have modeled, and by the strong pipeline that we have here. Our strategy is really trying to differentiate the way UNFI interacts with customers and then how our customers, you know, can provide a differentiated experience to their consumers.
Great. Lean. It's been something that's been near and dear to you, I know. You guys now have Lean Daily Management deployed across 36 of your distribution centers. A couple more added this past quarter. Just as you continue to deploy Lean to incremental distribution centers, how have returns been trending? Maybe I'll break it into two, and we'll start with that part.
We introduced Lean a couple of years ago, and Lean is really three principles. One is going after waste in a very methodical way, and we have a lot of processes, we have a lot of practices, and how do you go after, you know, waste? The second is, how do you create a culture of methodical problem-solving, where you have standard KPIs, red scores comes up, you know, problem-solving operates very quickly and in a very decentralized fashion. There is a third leg, which is the continuous improvement, right? Once you are after waste, once you're after a set of KPIs, how do you drive a culture of continuous improvement? We're pleased with the results of the early innings, as I keep calling it, even if I'm not a baseball expert, of the Lean deployment.
Think about 36 distribution centers that were not, and I emphasize were not mandated Lean. I mean, the Lean program at UNFI is a voluntary program where we want enthusiastic practitioners to recognize the value that Lean can create and adopt the program. What we're seeing in the first 36 DCs is that safety, quality, delivery, and cost KPIs or metrics, always in that order, are improving. Now, I would say we're still early innings, right? We've seen productivity improvement of 6%-7%. We've seen safety improvements. Obviously, our fill rates are better than they were a year ago or two years ago, but very early innings. I mean, it's now a matter of going deep into the processes, going deep into the distribution centers, and again, create that constant culture of immediate problem-solving and then continuous improvement.
Gotcha. You hit an interesting point there, that you mentioned that essentially it's voluntary for the distribution centers. They aren't mandated to go into Lean. What's been key in really helping you encourage more and more distribution centers to get onto Lean?
That's a great question. As you would expect, there is a lot of cross-communication between, you know, distribution centers, and you create a healthy Lean competition in a way, you know, between the centers. Once the word spreads that, hey, we're measuring six KPIs and we see improvement in safety, we see improvement in on-time delivery, we see improvement in fill rates, people develop curiosity and say, "Well, let's go and explore it." That's when we deploy, you know, these SWAT teams that go out for five days religiously and implement the program, and then come back and audit them and help them, you know, get to the next level. We're very encouraged by, I would say, the energy and the enthusiasm that we've seen around Lean.
Super early days of the kind of the implementation. We recently onboarded a Lean veteran, Scott Moran, who played for more than 30 years in the Lean space. We are excited about what he's gonna help us do now with his expertise right in the business.
Great. Sticking somewhat related, you guys are implementing RELEX to really help to modernize your supply chain, improve inventory management. Maybe can you walk through a bit how this fits in with the Lean mindset, some of the improvements you tend to see when you do implement it, and then the timeframe for really having it across the entire business?
Yeah. That's a great question. RELEX and technology in general and lean relative to process mapping and waste elimination need to go hand in hand. I mean, no offense to you know, ERP deployments or big technology deployments, but unless you start with some process redesign and deep understanding of how the organization works, technology in itself cannot solve the issues, right? I view technology as a clear accelerator of benefits and improvements, but not per se the you know, the therapy. The way we have implemented RELEX, which is this AI cloud-based kind of inventory management tool, is we started with first decentralizing the procurement organization. We now have small teams at each distribution center who can read the demand signal and can operate the procurement strategy very, very quickly.
They don't need to go three levels up to Providence and then three levels down, right, to determine what to buy. We did a lot of value stream mapping or process mapping to understand how the flows work, right, on the demand signal and the source and procurement organization. At that point, we deployed RELEX. We deployed it at the natural distribution centers, along with some of the Lean Daily Management. Now we're in the process of deploying RELEX in the conventional distribution centers, and we'll be mostly completed by the end of FY 2026. Which has helped us in a couple of areas at Altitude. The first one is buying the right products. That's fundamental for fill rates and on-time delivery, and then buy the products when you need them, not weeks and weeks in advance.
That has helped with better inventory management and better free cash flow, lower leverage.
Another subject, just as you continue some of the more efficiencies that you guys are putting into the organization is just the subject of warehouse automation. Just where do you think that stands today? I know you guys have, you know, made some early efforts on doing some automation within your distribution centers, and as you think going forward, does it make more sense to retrofit existing distribution centers? Do you need to build more new distribution centers and replace old ones? Just how do you think about that balance?
Great. Great question. Let me start by saying that automation is one of the many tools we're deploying to be more effective and more efficient, but is not the only tool, because automation works incredibly well in kind of growth markets, kind of growing DCs. As you know, these are expensive and very committal investments, so you wanna deploy them where you see, you know, a lot of potential and not just the need for, you know, some productivity or some operational fixing. With that in mind, I mean, it is one of the important tools in our strategy. We have broadly implemented automation at about seven distribution centers, you know, different generations of automation, two or three very recent, very modern, and some again variety of automation technologies.
In general, we clearly see benefits relative to higher safety, right? Obviously, quality delivery and cost. What I would say is that, again, it fits well a revenue management strategy as well. When you see a lot of growth potential, when you see, you know, the ability to either retrofit a facility or to your point, build a new one, which is what we have done in Manchester and in Sarasota, Florida, the potential is clearly there, right? I mean, I think that we talked about the Manchester facility basically delivering from the automation system more than 350,000 cases every week with basically no defects, right?
I mean, that is a very, very encouraging sign of what automation can do once you do the right process mapping and once you have the growth potential of the distribution center, which is a proxy for the growth potential of the market.
Great. Pivoting over to private labels, a subject that earlier on today you guys talked about a significant opportunity in private label, especially on the natural organic side, which I believe you said the conventional is 4x-
That's right.
what it is in natural organic today. Maybe, could you provide some examples of your work on private label and some of the efforts to really get that penetration gap between the two to maybe narrow a bit?
Yeah. Private labels play a very important role in our strategy. That's why, you know, we highlighted them as one of the four capabilities that we're deploying for value creation to customers and suppliers. Really, think about private labels in two areas. One is creating that known comparability of items, you know, for our customers and the shoppers. It creates new assortments, different products, you know, that are quite helpful in the strategy of growing and remaining competitive. Then the second part is obviously more value for the dollar that you spend, right? In times of, you know, high competition, inflation, private labels are clearly, you know, a great area to deploy and to continue to grow. At the Investor Day, we did highlight that the natural brands are about 1/4 of penetration compared to the conventional brands.
That's a big area of opportunity for both principals. Think about having more non-comparable items on the shelves through private labels, and then also offering the consumers more value for the dollar that they spend. We're putting a lot of focus on the brands, on the private brands. We have a strong portfolio, but we wanna expand it. Very recently, we added 50 new private brands to the portfolio. Think about a couple of easy and great examples, banana water or healthy snacks. I mean, these are things that can be deployed very quickly, and again, help non-comparability and value for the dollar.
Banana water is great. I remember you guys had that at the Investor Day.
I'm glad you liked it.
One part of the business that sometimes gets overshadowed a bit, and it is smaller, but it still does play a key role for you as retail. You know, Cub is a market share leader in Minneapolis. You guys recently appointed a new CEO to oversee that organization. A bit of a turnaround. Just given that, what does keep you interested in holding onto that retail operation, and where do you see the biggest opportunities for Cub to really kind of take it to the next level going forward?
Yeah. To your point, Mark, Cub is the market leader in the Minneapolis area. There is a long successful legacy, you know, from our Cub business, so there is a lot of attachment to it. It is also an important part of our kind of broader wholesale business because we operate Cub directly, but we also have franchising agreements with many players who operate Cub banners, but also their own kind of banners. It is quite an interesting, you know, network for us in the area. We are thrilled to have David Best leading the retail business. David is a super known talent, you know, within the industry. He's local, so he understands well the markets and again the value of the Cub brand.
He's building a really strong team around him, and he's working on the right fundamentals. I mean, how do we revitalize, you know, the brands? How do we go back to the fundamentals of Cub, while obviously continuing to find ways to differentiate the experience? How do we make sure that Cub goes quickly into that differentiating pool of kind of customers and players in the industry that I was describing, you know, early on. The other thing is that Cub is, obviously back to that point, a little bit of a lab for us, right? I mean, seeing how private brands, professional services, merchandising, differentiating experience play in Cub, then allows us to build a broader playbook for the many, many players who want to be in the $90 billion market and wanna offer that differentiating experience.
I just wanna also reinforce, I don't wanna be the boring CFO on stage, but as we think about the 2028 kind of guidance, the $800 million EBITDA in the path to that, we have not modeled a retail financial turnaround, right? We wanna give David and the team the time and the space to fix the fundamentals and bring Cub back to where it should be.
Makes sense. Another subject, network optimization, has been big for you guys over the course of the past few years. You guys have focused on creating a more efficient footprint, and also you guys have moved away from some customers where it just didn't necessarily make sense from a mutual standpoint to be working with them going forward. It sounds like this is now largely complete as of your last earnings call. Can you walk through, you know, just how your updated distribution center footprint and your updated or your up-to-date customer base really best positions you for the longer term?
Yeah. I would say, again, starting with Altitude, the network optimization is a good proxy for revenue management. The way we look at network optimization is really let's understand the markets, let's understand the customer portfolio that we have, and then get into actions. It start with a basically weekly review of our distribution centers at the CEO and CFO level, complemented by, again, a weekly review, as you would expect, of market and pipeline. It has provided two very important results in the last 18 months. First, it has enabled us to make the confident decision to open two new highly automated distribution center, one in Manchester, Pennsylvania, the other one in, excuse me, in Sarasota, Florida, both highly automated, and there is more coming, right?
Because of that, again, weekly review of where should we grow, where is the opportunity, how does the $90 billion market play. The second part is that we closed, you know, five distribution centers in the conventional space, but always with the principle in mind to have win-win conversation with our customers first. You know, we're not in the business of closing distribution centers to, you know, exit customers, right? We had opportunities to consolidate. We had a lot of dialogues with our customers to see if there was a win-win solution. In many cases, as demonstrated by the 5% growth rate in 2025, the conversations were successful. In other situations, like Allentown, they were not, right?
They are translating into the 2026, FY 2026 500 basis points headwind in the top line, while again, the fundamentals of the LSD for 2027, 2028, remain in place. It's really a revenue management tool that can go into both directions with the common denominator being, let's make sure that we find win-win solutions with customers, and then whichever decision we make has to be EBITDA free cash flow accretive in helping us with the deleverage.
Great. Moving on to value-added services. You know, obviously this is a high margin part of the business, expected to grow pretty rapidly over the course of the next few years. To date, what kinds of customers have been most receptive to your value-added services? Maybe we'll start with that, and we'll.
Yeah. This is where maybe my industrial background comes out because I'm a big fan of services businesses, and they all start with the proximity and the feedback that you create with the customers. I mean, you're out there every day, right? The touch point is daily. First of all, a services business creates the intimacy and proximity with the customer that is fundamental to our model. Then it creates another couple of very important benefits. I mean, it helps customers reduce their operating costs, think about implementing, you know, credit card platforms or new ways to grow the business. You know, planograms, how do you think about your shelves and many more things that we do. There are three very fundamental pieces of our professional services. A lot of opportunities here, right?
I think that by intensifying the dialogues with the customers in both natural products, conventional products, and this is where services almost become agnostic of how you run the, you know, the company, right? It's really the face of the customer, but a lot of dialogues with them and a lot of opportunities because as you may remember from the Investor Day, on average, our customers use two services to three services, and there are many customers who use up to six services, right? We actually don't know if six services is what the definition of what good looks like is, or it could be, you know, even more in a way. I think that there is a lot of work going on, really going through customer by customer, what are they interested in? What is...
Are they looking for a cost solution? Are they looking for a revenue solution? Knowing that both answers in turn help us grow, you know, services that is highly accretive, right, in our gross profit and our EBITDA. More work to do there, but a great capability that we're focusing on.
Do you see many differences just between the natural organic customers, which I believe have historically taken on less services, but of course, it also used to be, or it originated from the Supervalu organization, and so it originated in the conventional side. Just as you think about the number of services that a conventional customer, you know, typically uses versus natural organic, how do you get that natural organic number?
Yeah, that's a great question. That's where the voice of the customer, and this is where the dialogues, the intensity and the interaction, you know, plays a huge role. Instead of having us making a set of assumptions on kinda what are they interested in is where you gotta go out and talk to them. I always say dropping a lot of business cards. I don't know if we print them anymore, but it's just having a very high frequency of dialogues, you know, with our customers.
you know, opportunity within services, retail media. Obviously, you guys have a unique viewpoint just in terms of your touchpoints with independents, with smaller chains that might not be able to do this on your own. How do you think about the overall opportunity with retail media over time? There's been some changes in how customers are seeking out products. We've seen the rise of GenAI and just how that interplays with how you think about retail media going forward.
Another important part of our strategy. I mean, there is no doubt that the digital channels are growing in the industry. Even if we are maybe one step remote in a way from the day-to-day, you know, usage of customers and consumers of the digital platforms, but we need to be very much part of it. As you think about it, we can play a very important role because we are one step away from the suppliers, one step away from the customer. We can really continue to play a digital integration role in that direction. We are working with suppliers, we're working with technology partners. Obviously, between Cub, that is the immediate feedback, right?
One phone call away, and then the many, many customers that we support, we're gathering a lot of intelligence on how to make it successful. It is an important part of our strategy. Now, again, the boring CFO here wants to remark that it's not one of the, you know, critical value creators or, let's say, financial, elements in our 2028 guidance. We will view that as upside.
Gotcha. That's great. Artificial intelligence, obviously a big topic in the space. Just broad high-level, you know, thoughts on where you see the biggest opportunities for deployment of artificial intelligence across UNFI. We talked about some of them earlier in the conversation, but just near term and call it medium term, how do you see the opportunity?
Yeah. I think we're all humbly studying, and we're all learning kind of the potential of artificial intelligence. We like business cases, and I think that RELEX, for instance, was a business case of how artificial intelligence removes the variability from the demand forecast and procurement decisions, right? By having a powerful AI brain that is just taking a lot of data and eliminates the manual input into the process, we're seeing very big results. I think that that's where the value creation of AI is inside UNFI. Obviously, we're gonna continue to study opportunities to eliminate waste is the core of Lean, and AI can be one of the enablers of that.
we're really studying and building small business cases to see how can we scale them, how can we find more kind of RELEX type of examples.
Fantastic. We're coming pretty close to time, but any closing thoughts on just what you think might be most misunderstood today about the UNFI story?
I think that a couple of thoughts here. First of all, just re-emphasizing the consistency and the focus of our strategy. It's two elements. It's creating value for customers and suppliers and it's becoming a more effective and efficient business partner, which is really, you know, foundational for us and then expands into the value creation. We are executing well our strategy, right? The EBITDA growth rate in the H1 is strong. The free cash flow generation in the H1 is strong, and that continues to build, you know, high confidence for our guidance in 2026 and then 2027 and 2028. The other part is that the capital allocation question is always out there.
Our focus right now is to deleverage to our commitment, so 2.3 turns or less by the end of 2026 and then get it to 2x or less by the end of 2027. When you think about $330 million of cash generation in 2026, about $300 million in 2027 and 2028, that speaks of a lot of flexibility, right? In the high confidence context, speaks of flexibility. Whether it's more working capital investment to support growth, more capital investments to support, you know, growth, technology, safety, or maybe more opportunistic decisions on share buyback as we did in the Q2, it's all out there, right? It's all dry powder and flexibility that we wanna keep.
Okay. Well, Matteo, this has been great. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks to everyone who's listened in, and hope you all have a great day.
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.