Company: CHEF
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001517175-25-000003
Chunk: 24

Company: Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 24
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 our executive officers, including our equity incentive plans. Our Compensation Committee is also responsible for overseeing risks related to our compensation programs and practices. Our Compensation Committee has assessed the risk associated with our compensation policies and practices for our employees and determined that the risks associated with such policies and practices are not reasonably likely to have a material adverse effect on us. Our Compensation Committee utilizes compensation practices that it believes discourage our employees from excessive risk-taking that could be reasonably likely to have a materially adverse effect on us, including the following:

• The base salary component of compensation does not encourage ris k-taking because it is a fixed amount.

• A combination of both short-term and long-term elements of executive compensation minimizes risks by ensuring a focus on performance over time.

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• Our equity awards are designed to mitigate risk. The time-based vesting structure discourages short-term risk-taking at the expense of long-term stockholder value and a performance-based award can be earned only upon the achievement of challenging yet achievable corporate or share price goals selected to motivate executives to achieve our corporate objectives and enhance stockholder value.

• Our chief executive officer and vice chairman and chief operating officer both maintain a significant ownership interest in the Company, which closely aligns their interests with our stockholders’ interests and disincentivizes them from engaging in, or encouraging our other executive officers to engage in, unreasonable or excessive risk-taking.

• We have instituted a clawback, or recoupment, policy on awards granted under our annual cash incentive compensation program and a clawback policy applicable to all incentive-based compensation received by our executive officers.

• Provided that there is an achievement of a threshold level of performance, payouts under our annual cash incentive compensation program may result in some compensation at levels below full target achievement, rather than an “all-or-nothing” approach, which could encourage excessive risk-taking.

• Our Compensation Committee determines achievement levels under the Company’s annual cash incentive compensation plan after reviewing Company and executive performance.

• Our Compensation Committee is being advised by an independent compensation consultant who also reviews the results of our annual analysis and assessment of our compensation programs.

#### Nomination of Directors
The Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee reviews the qualifications of every person recommended as a nominee to the Board, including if the nominee is recommended to the Board by a stockholder, to determine whether the recommended nominees are qualified to serve on the Board. The Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee has adopted qualitative standards by which it determines if nominees are qualified to serve on the Board. The N