UNFIUnited Natural Foods, Inc.
Is it safe?
Forensics clean, with a caveat: clean books and quality strong, but big price swings.
Mixed, watch the balance sheet Altman Z-score, a bankruptcy-risk model from five balance-sheet ratios.
Reported earnings show no manipulation flags Beneish M-score, a forensic model that detects earnings-manipulation patterns (receivables outrunning sales, margins slipping, accrual-heavy profit).
High fundamental quality Piotroski F-score, nine pass/fail tests of year-over-year financial health across profitability, balance sheet and efficiency. 7 to 9 is strong, 0 to 3 weak.
Investment-grade balance sheet. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Large price swings, high volatility. Worst drawdown -90% · now 16% below its 52-week high.
Unless marked, from SEC EDGAR, as of Aug 1, 2026.
Against the whole market›
Percentile against every name Ryufin tracks. Higher is better; the tick marks the middle of the market. Context, not one of the checks above.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can UNFI take a bad year?
United Natural Foods, Inc. carries $1.52B of net debt at 2.96× EBITDA: a load its earnings can carry.
Net debt · as at Q4 2026 · between two and four years of EBITDA, normal for a stable business
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 2.96×
Net debt / EBITDA · 6.27× a year ago · the load is coming down
- Altman Z-score
- 5.13
Altman Z-score · safe zone, above 3
- Interest cover
- 1.67×
Interest cover · operating profit barely covers the interest bill
Details›
- Total debtQ4 2026
- $1.56B
- Cash and short-term investments
- $37M
- Net debt
- $1.52B
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $514M
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $211M
- Debt / equity
- 0.96×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 3.04×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 49%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −90%
- Below its 52-week high
- 16%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
The balance sheet
What it owes against what it owns, and how close that comes to trouble.
How far can it fall?
How much the price moves, how deep and how long its falls have run, and what each unit of risk has paid.