A UNFI deduction or a KeHE chargeback is money the distributor subtracts from what it owes a brand when a shipment, an invoice, or a piece of paperwork does not match its published compliance requirements. The categories are listed in each distributor's routing guide and remittance codes, but what they add up to in real dollars is usually not visible until the first check arrives short.

What Counts as a Chargeback at UNFI or KeHE?

UNFI calls its version a deduction rather than a chargeback. Its compliance codes fine suppliers for shipping, labeling, pallet, ASN/EDI, or weights-and-measures violations against UNFI's routing and vendor requirements.

KeHE's compliance chargebacks cover similar ground: labeling and packaging issues, ASN non-compliance, late or missed delivery appointments, and other vendor guideline violations such as an unapproved carrier or a routing guide miss. For the freight practices that prevent each of these, see how to avoid UNFI and KeHE distributor deductions.

What Does a Single Chargeback Cost?

Individual compliance fees are usually modest on their own. CPG deduction platform Intercept has reported examples in the range of roughly $100 for a shipment missing a packing slip, around $250 for a pallet without the required sticker, and a few hundred dollars for a missing or late ASN. The exact fee for each violation type is set by the distributor and published in its own supplier documentation, so the number that matters for your brand is the one printed in your current routing guide, not an industry average.

What Do Chargebacks Add Up to Across a Real Set of Invoices?

Individual fees are one thing. What they total across a batch of purchase orders is another, and two documented examples show the range.

One food and beverage brand invoiced KeHE $68,267 across six purchase orders and was paid $13,345, or 19.5% of what was invoiced. Chargebacks totaled $54,921 across eight categories, and two of them alone, intro allowances and free fills tied to opening new distribution centers, accounted for $22,660, over 40% of the total.

In a separate case, a brand invoiced KeHE $32,000 and was paid $21,000, an $11,000 difference, or 34% of the invoiced amount, driven largely by chargebacks tied to unsold inventory at a retailer.

Both examples include promotional allowances and free fills, not just freight and compliance fines, so the freight-and-documentation share of a chargeback report is usually a smaller slice of the total. It is also the slice a broker and a carrier can directly control.

Which Freight Failure Points Trigger Chargebacks Most Often?

Across both UNFI and KeHE, the freight-side causes repeat: delivery outside the scheduled appointment window, a shipment routed through an unapproved carrier, pallets configured wrong for the receiving DC, and a bill of lading, purchase order, or case count that does not match the physical shipment. Get the routing guide and the first purchase order details right and most of these do not happen in the first place.

How Do You Keep Chargebacks From Eating Into Margin?

The freight-side fixes are the ones a brand can control before a load ever leaves the dock: book and protect the delivery appointment, confirm pallet and labeling specs for the receiving DC, and match the BOL, PO, and case counts exactly. As a CPG freight broker for the natural and organic channel, Fr8topia does not own trucks. We source and manage a vetted carrier network and coordinate the carrier, the appointment, and the documentation so loads arrive inside the window and inside spec.

Chargeback cost is one piece of a larger picture: our UNFI and KeHE Compliance Hub collects the routing, appointment, and documentation answers in one place.

If chargebacks are cutting into your margin, request a quote and tell us which distributors you ship into.