Gourmet News

UNFI Promotes Horvath to COO, Martin to Wholesale President

Published March 24, 2023

United Natural Foods, Inc. has promoted two senior leaders to better align leadership teams and resources to drive its customer-centric strategy and transformation agenda. This agenda is aimed at enhancing shareholder value creation by improving the company’s customer and supplier experience and increasing operating efficiency. Erin Horvath has been appointed to the position of chief operating officer and Louis Martin has been named president of wholesale.

UNFI recently outlined the core tenets of its four-part transformation program. Key initiatives of the plan will include network automation and optimization, commercial value creation, digital offering enhancement, and infrastructure unification and modernization.

Horvath and Martin will join company president, Chris Testa, who oversees UNFI’s Services platform, to leverage the combined knowledge of industry veterans and new leaders, and together form a team of operators with considerable experience with these types of capability improvement programs.

“This operational leadership team, made up of UNFI veterans and new leaders, is equipped to help us accelerate improvement in our customer and supplier experience, our operating efficiency, and digital and physical infrastructure,” said UNFI CEO Sandy Douglas. “With our transformation plan nearly complete and the realignment of our leadership teams in place, we are well positioned to become a unique value creator for our customers, suppliers, associates, and shareholders.”

Horvath will be responsible for driving project management underpinning the improvement plan, enhancing UNFI’s legacy integration and physical infrastructure, as well as ensuring successful implementation of the digital, technology, and automation initiatives. Chief supply chain officer, Mark Bushway, will report to Horvath and partner with her to drive improved process and standardization across the supply chain.

Horvath joined UNFI in October 2022 after more than 17 years in senior leadership roles with AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a global pharmaceutical wholesale company. She brings deep expertise in driving transformation initiatives in large scale wholesale distribution systems.

Martin joined UNFI in March 2022 and has been a key leader in the development of UNFI’s strategy and transformation agenda, as well as in spearheading the creation and early-stage development of the Company’s digital roadmap. Steve Dietz, chief customer officer, will report to Martin and continue to lead UNFI’s field sales and merchandising organizations with a renewed focus on UNFI’s growing regional and independently owned customers.

Before joining UNFI, Martin served for 15 years in a variety of senior leadership positions with The Coca-Cola Company, including overseeing the Global Walmart Customer team, where he built leading customer service capabilities. Martin is a seasoned leader who, as president of wholesale, will lead the evolution of UNFI’s customer-centric strategy by integrating national and regional customer organizations, revenue growth management, and the commercial planning teams.

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Spud Art: Try a New Easter Activity, Painting Easter Potatoes

Published March 24, 2023

Families love their tried-and-true Easter traditions, but sometimes, you just need to scramble things up. This year, due in part to skyrocketing food prices, Potatoes USA reports that families are hopping on the newest trend and painting Easter potatoes.

You heard that right: 2023 is the year of the Easter potato.

As it turns out, there are lots of upsides to brushing up on your spud art. In addition to being an affordable, nutritious pantry staple, potatoes are an excellent canvas for family activities.

“As a mom of two kids, I’m constantly looking for new activities. The idea of painting potatoes made me laugh, but honestly, it’s really fun,” said Marisa Stein, director of marketing at Potatoes USA. “My kids loved experimenting with different designs. It was silly and a great way to spend time with my family.”

Across the internet, families are giving their best tips for family-friendly crafting, featuring everyone’s favorite vegetable. Some use edible paint and water-based food coloring to dye their potatoes and eat them, too. Artists can give potatoes a food coloring bath for a lighter color or paint the food coloring directly on the spud for a vibrant alternative.

Other families are using traditional paint from their local craft store or dollar store to paint fun decorative potatoes to showcase their artistic accomplishments. Like with carving pumpkins at Halloween, the potato’s long shelf-life makes it an excellent opportunity to display fun showpieces in a friendly painting contest.

For the best results, here are a few tips for your Picasso potato:

Cover your workspace with newspapers or plastic tablecloths so you can embrace the painting process without worrying about the cleanup.

Gloves are a great way to keep little hands clean from food dye or paint.

If you’re using food coloring, painting the food coloring on will result in the most vibrant color. If you don’t want the color to rub off, and you’re fine keeping the potatoes purely decorative, a coat of hairspray can seal the color and keep the dye from bleeding.

If you use regular paint, a white primer coat will make the colors pop!

Make sure the painted potatoes have fully dried before you move them.

For an extra activity, parents can cut the potatoes in half and carve them to make Easter stamps! Once the adults have carved the pattern, kids can paint the potato stamps and use their creations to make fun Easter-themed paintings on paper.

As an added bonus, potatoes are a great option for scavenger hunts in the backyard. The Easter Bunny doesn’t have to worry about hiding their spuds a little too well, since anything the tater hunters miss is biodegradable. (Just be sure to keep dogs away, as raw potatoes can make them sick.)

Parents are loving potatoes for their Easter activities this year due to their affordable price points and lack of prep work. Potatoes work best as an artistic medium in their natural state, so no boiling or set-up is needed to make them canvas ready. Plus, they’re tough against falls and drops for younger (and mess-prone) artists.

“I’m thrilled to see so many families hopping aboard this new trend,” said Bonnie Johnson, R.D., director of nutrition and industry relations, Potatoes USA. “As a dietitian, I love seeing families embrace vegetables in creative ways. Making potatoes a fun part of your holiday will help children learn to love the spud – and all its incredible nutritional benefits.”

In addition to their more creative side, potatoes also shine as a nutritious pantry staple. Research published in The Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that potatoes have the highest score per dollar on eight important nutrients including potassium, fiber, protein, vitamins C and E, calcium, iron and magnesium. Potatoes also have a longer shelf life than many fresh vegetables.

Be sure to visit PotatoGoodness.com to learn more about the many health benefits of potatoes and find some delicious spring recipes.

If your Easter bunny hops on the #easterpotatoes trend this year, send us your photos! Tag @PotatoGoodness on Facebook or Instagram.

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Burger King Field Team Fleet Now 31% Electric Vehicles

Published March 23, 2023

Burger King has transitioned 31 percent of its North American field team fleet to electric vehicles across 16 states, with goal of 100 percent EVs by 2030. This move is the next step in delivering on Restaurant Brands International’s (parent company of Burger King) science-based targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030, versus a 2019 baseline.

The field team is critical to the brand’s success as the first line of support for franchisees locally, living in various states across the United States and traveling to restaurants to provide the level of service BK franchisees deserve. This adds up to tens of thousands of miles driven each month.

“Franchisee success is the end goal of everything our field team does, and restaurant visits are critical to this partnership,” said Jeromy Gwin, BK Corporate franchise business partner. “I’m proud to work for a company that allows me to do my job in a more sustainable way.”

Burger King worked with Element Fleet Management, the largest pure-play automotive fleet manager in the world, to source the electric vehicles and launch the program.

“It was instantly clear Burger King is serious about following through with their commitments and finding solutions that have long-term payoff and positive impact on the environment,” said David Madrigal, chief commercial officer at Element Fleet Management. “The brand’s enthusiasm for the goal, combined with the team’s responsiveness and active partnership enabled us to mobilize vehicle sourcing and charging infrastructure installations at record speed — making this our fastest program launch across the nation to date.”

For a full breakdown of RBI’s sustainability commitments and progress towards change including the BK electric vehicles, visit the company website.

Founded in 1954, the Burger King brand is a global quick service hamburger chain known for food quality and value as the only place guests can get the iconic flame-grilled Whopper sandwich. The Burger King system operates more than 18,700 locations in more than 100 countries and U.S. territories. Almost 100 percent of Burger King restaurants are owned and operated by independent franchisees, many of them family-owned operations that have been in business for decades. Burger King is a subsidiary of Restaurant Brands International Inc., one of the world’s largest quick service restaurant companies with more than $35 billion in annual system-wide sales and approximately 30,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries. RBI owns four of the world’s most prominent and iconic quick service restaurant brands – BURGER KING, TIM HORTONS, POPEYES and FIREHOUSE SUBS.

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