United Natural Foods
At a Glance
Industry
Wholesale
Project Type
Food and Agriculture
Year
2022
Location
Providence, RI
Summary
UNFI’s leadership and executive teams now have real-time food waste and ESG information previously not available.
Goals
As the first-ever EDF fellow at UNFI, Fredrick was tasked to create real-time dashboards that track progress towards UNFI’s waste reduction goals: zero waste to landfill from distribution center operations by 2030, and a 50% reduction in distribution center food waste by 2025. These data dashboards and reports are essential to providing senior leadership and key stakeholders with the insights needed to shape food waste strategies, change behaviors, and achieve these ambitious goals.
Solutions
Fredrick worked closely with the Financial Planning and Analysis team and Facilities, Energy, and Environment team, to convert tens of thousands of rows of Excel data into easy-to-understand visualizations using Microsoft’s Power BI. As a project manager and data analyst, he helped identify missing data and uncovered opportunities for greater efficiencies.
Through various subject matter experts and vendors, Fredrick learned about the unique operational food waste challenges that UNFI faces as a national food distributor and was able to understand the problems complexities throughout the supply chain in a 360-degree perspective, allowing for better information to design and display the data that is collected.
Potential Impact
The systems that Fredrick assisted with and helped to implement will save hours of work each subsequent reporting cycle for various stakeholders, including the Financial Planning and Analysis team, the Facilities, Energy, and Environment team, and the Sustainability team.
Through his dedicated efforts and advocacy, Fredrick has helped elevate the transparency of food waste and ESG data across the organization, exposing real-time insights previously hidden in unprocessed datasets. He identified areas of missing data and informed stakeholders where the operations and business practices are inconsistent or lack formality, leading to the potential for greater food waste.