EMPLOYEE STOCK OWNERSHIP PLAN

12 Months Ended

Aug. 01, 2015

Disclosure of Compensation Related Costs, Share-based Payments [Abstract]

The Company adopted the UNFI Employee Stock Ownership Plan (the "ESOP") for the purpose of acquiring outstanding shares of the Company for the benefit of eligible employees. The ESOP was effective as of November 1, 1988 and has received notice of qualification by the Internal Revenue Service.

In connection with the adoption of the ESOP, a Trust was established to hold the shares acquired. On November 1, 1988, the Trust purchased 40% of the then outstanding common stock of the Company at a price of $4.1 million. The trustees funded this purchase by issuing promissory notes to the initial stockholders, with the Trust shares pledged as collateral. These notes bear interest at 1.33% as of August 2, 2014, and were payable through May 2015. As the debt was repaid, the shares were released from collateral and allocated to active employees, based on the proportion of principal and interest paid in the year.

All shares held by the ESOP were purchased prior to December 31, 1992, except that 9,393 shares were purchased during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 to fund the final allocation of shares under the ESOP. As a result, prior to the final release of the shares in the ESOP, the Company considered unreleased shares of the ESOP to be outstanding for purposes of calculating both basic and diluted earnings per share, whether or not the shares had been committed to be released. Prior to the repayments, the debt of the ESOP was recorded as debt and the shares pledged as collateral are reported as unearned ESOP shares in the consolidated balance sheets. During the fiscal years ended August 1, 2015 and August 2, 2014, contributions totaling approximately $0.1 million and $0.2 million, respectively, were made to the Trust. Of these contributions, less than $0.1 million in each fiscal year represented interest.

The ESOP shares were classified as follows:



	August 1, 2015		August 2, 2014
	(In thousands)
Total ESOP shares—beginning of year	1,595		1,833
Shares distributed to employees	(538	)	(238	)
Total ESOP shares—end of year	1,057		1,595
Allocated shares	1,057		1,580
Unreleased shares	—		15
Total ESOP shares	1,057		1,595

During the fiscal years ended August 1, 2015 and August 2, 2014, 24,512 and 41,089 shares were released for allocation based on note payments, respectively. All shares have been released as of August 1, 2015. The fair value of unreleased shares was approximately $0.9 million at August 2, 2014.