By Dean Seal

United Natural Foods swung to a profit in its fiscal third quarter despite lower sales as it whittled away some of its operating costs.

The Whole Foods distributor posted a profit of $33 million, or 52 cents a share, for the quarter that ended May 2, compared with a loss of $7 million, or 12 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier.

Stripping out one-time items, adjusted earnings were 77 cents a share, topping analyst projections by a penny.

Sales fell 4.2% to $7.72 billion, missing analyst views for $7.8 billion, according to FactSet.

Natural products, the company's biggest category by revenue, saw about a 4% gain, but its conventional-products segment declined 13.6%. The net sales drop was largely due to its transition out of a distribution center in Allentown, Penn., earlier in the fiscal year, along with lost sales from the unwind of short-term, project-based work in the company's natural product unit, the company said.

United Natural Foods was able to lower its operating expenses for the quarter thanks to insurance proceeds and the benefits of its cost-savings initiatives, it said.

The company reiterated its fiscal guidance for the rest of the year, narrowing its outlook ranges but maintaining midpoints for sales and earnings.

Shares dropped 10% to $46.40 in premarket trading.

Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 09, 2026 07:39 ET (11:39 GMT)

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