USA: Michael Funk honoured for efforts on behalf of the industry

The nutrition industry’s most notable leaders of 2012 have been named in Nutrition Business Journal’s annual Business Achievement Awards issue, published in January 2013. Recipients of the awards will be honoured during the 16th annual NBJ Summit in California from 23 - 26 July 2013. The complete list of award winners is available here. 
 

For efforts on behalf of the industry, Michael Funk is recognized for decades of service and commitment to the broad advancement of natural and organic products throughout the USA, Nutrition Business Journal reports. Michael Funk founded Mountain People's Warehouse back in 1976 when there was barely a natural products industry to speak of. He helped to change that through founding the company, which became the main natural foods distributor in the Western USA, and was pivotal in expanding and maturing the sector into the multi-billion industry it is today. In 1996, Mr Funk merged the company with Cornucopia Natural Foods to co-found United Natural Foods (UNFI), now a US$5bn (over €3,7bn) company. (Picture: Michael Funk with two of his children at the Right To Know March 2013 in Washington)

Mr. Funk is known to stay true to his roots, and to the strong values that drew him to organic agriculture in the first place. He has been working to integrate sustainable practices into UNFI's operations of late, and outside of UNFI, he's been active with environmental groups and the battle over genetically-modified food. He serves as president of the Non-GMO Project and is thrilled with the progress that group and the non-GMO movement at large have made. More information is available here.