United Natural Foods, Inc. breaks ground on distribution facility
MONTGOMERY — The Orange County Partnership and United Natural Foods, Inc., a leading national distributor of natural, organic and specialty foods, held the groundbreaking of the company’s new 525,000 square foot distribution facility at the Crossroads Distribution Center at 525 Neelytown Road on Sept. 23.
United Natural Foods, Inc. carries and distributes more than 65,000 products to more than 27,000 customer locations primarily throughout the United States and Canada. The company serves a wide variety of retail formats including conventional supermarket chains, natural product superstores, independent retail operators and the food service channel.
"UNFI is pleased to partner with the state of New York and the town of Montgomery to expand our operations,” said Sean Griffin, UNFI’s group president. “We feel the Hudson Valley Region is the optimal location for us to better service our customers in the region and increase our operational efficiencies while reducing our costs and emissions. We look forward to growing together with this great community.”
Maureen Halahan, president and CEO of the Orange County Partnership explained, “This groundbreaking is the culmination of an impressive effort to attract UNFI to the town of Montgomery. It reflects on the strong collaboration between local, county and state economic development partners to support business expansion in Orange County.”
“This $55 million capital investment project will create approximately 400 new jobs," Town of Montgomery Supervisor Michael Hayes stated. "Our location and incredible infrastructure continue to draw distribution companies with the capabilities to reach 52 million customers within a single day.”
As part of its commitment to green initiatives, the UNFI plans to pursue LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for this distribution facility once operations commence. LEED® is a third party certification program and a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.
UNFI was ranked by Fortune in 2006, 2010 and 2012 as one of its "Most Admired Companies." The company was the winner of the Supermarket News 2008 Sustainability Excellence Award, recognized by the Nutrition Business Journal with its Environment and Sustainability Award and chosen by Food Logistics Magazine as one of its 2012 Top 20 Green Providers.
For more information about the Orange County Partnership, contact Michael Sullivan, director of Business Attraction at 845-294-7215 or michael@ocpartnership.org.