Distributor guide
Shipping to KeHE: where fresh, natural, and grocery freight actually goes
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KeHE runs 19 distribution centers across North America, each tagged by what it handles: e-commerce, grocery, natural, or fresh. Only two facilities carry the Fresh designation, Ontario, California and Tualatin, Oregon, both on the West Coast. Your purchase order names the receiving DC, and that designation decides whether your product belongs there.
For most natural and organic brands, KeHE is the second distributor after UNFI, and for many specialty and emerging brands it is the first. KeHE publishes more about its supplier programs than UNFI does, including tracks built for small brands, which makes it a common early stop. It also runs its network differently, and the difference is the thing to understand before the first purchase order.
KeHE does not have one kind of warehouse. Every DC in its public locator carries a designation, and Fresh is the rarest one.
KeHE's locator labels each facility with one or more service types: e-commerce, grocery, natural, and fresh. Most DCs carry grocery and natural. Some add e-commerce. Only two carry Fresh, and they are dedicated to it: DC 45 in Ontario, California and DC 46 in Tualatin, Oregon. They are also the only two facilities listed with their own direct phone numbers rather than the shared national line, which tells you they run as their own operations.
If your product is fresh, refrigerated, short-dated, and headed into KeHE anywhere in the western United States, the public network map says it goes to Ontario or Tualatin. Not Chino, which is a few miles from Ontario and handles e-commerce, grocery, and natural. Not Stockton. A brand with a fresh line and a shelf-stable line can have both routing into the same Inland Empire corridor and still ship to two different buildings.
Ontario sits in the same corridor as UNFI's Moreno Valley and Riverside facilities, which is why Southern California reefer LTL into the Inland Empire is a lane we run constantly. The refrigerated LTL carriers page covers how that capacity is sourced. For the UNFI side of the same corridor, see shipping to UNFI.
From the LA Basin, Chino and Ontario are same-day. Stockton is a scheduled lane, and our service areas page covers how we run it.
Two facilities in the public locator do not carry the Natural designation at all. DC 18 Romeoville, outside Chicago, is listed as e-commerce and grocery. DC 31 Miami is grocery only. A natural brand planning a Midwest or South Florida launch around the nearest KeHE building may find the nearest building is not the one its category routes to. The receiving DC on your purchase order settles it, and it is worth confirming before you quote freight rather than after.
KeHE publishes several supplier programs that matter to early-stage natural brands: ELEVATE for emerging brands, AAP, described at retrieval as a flat-rate program for suppliers under a first-year sales threshold, and the CARE Trade and DIVERSE Trade programs. Onboarding and supplier resources run through the KeHE CONNECT portal. The programs affect margin and terms rather than freight directly, but they shape which brands are shipping into KeHE for the first time, and first deliveries are where receiving discipline gets tested.
The failure modes are the same as at any distributor: missed appointments, pallet and label errors, paperwork that does not match the load, routing violations. See what a UNFI or KeHE chargeback actually costs and how to avoid distributor deductions for the mechanics, and refrigerated LTL for UNFI and KeHE for the cold-chain handling side.
A fresh load into Ontario has less margin for error than a dry load into Chino, because the product clock is shorter. If a carrier fails or storage fails, the receiver's scheduling desk hears from you before the appointment is missed, not after. The no-show recovery playbook and the cold storage failure playbook cover the first hour of each.
If you are shipping into KeHE for the first time, or moving fresh product into Ontario and want the appointment, the carrier, and the paperwork handled by one team, tell us which DC is on your PO, or call (909) 304-1068. Fr8topia is a licensed freight broker, and KeHE deliveries into the Inland Empire are core to what we do.
KeHE's public locator lists 19 distribution centers: 15 in the United States and 4 in Canada. Each carries a service designation. Grouped by region:
California
Pacific Northwest
Mountain and Southwest
Midwest
Southeast
Northeast
Canada
The two Fresh facilities, Ontario and Tualatin, are the only DCs listed with direct phone numbers; every other US facility shares one national line. Addresses and designations are as listed on kehe.com on the verification date below and should be confirmed against the receiving DC on your purchase order.
KeHE distribution centers receive by appointment, and the purchase order names the receiving facility. What sets KeHE apart is that the facility name also tells you what the building handles. Each DC in the public locator carries a designation, e-commerce, grocery, natural, or fresh, and only two facilities in the entire network are designated Fresh.
In practice that means fresh product and shelf-stable product from the same brand can route to different buildings even in the same metro. In Southern California, fresh goes to DC 45 Ontario while grocery and natural go to DC 41 Chino, a few miles away. Treat them as two receivers with two appointment desks.
Direct delivery means your carrier runs to the DC on the PO with an appointment booked in advance. Consolidation pools your pallets with other brands headed to the same facility, which can lower cost at small volumes; our retail consolidation programs page covers when that fits. Fresh product into Ontario or Tualatin adds a temperature check at the dock and less tolerance for a missed window.
What KeHE publishes openly and what sits behind the supplier portal:
Public, on kehe.com: the full distribution center list with addresses and service designations, and the supplier program overview, including ELEVATE, AAP, CARE Trade, DIVERSE Trade, and the KeHE CONNECT portal as the path in.
Behind KeHE CONNECT, for onboarded suppliers: the routing guide, appointment procedures and lead times, carrier and equipment requirements, pallet configuration and labeling specifications, and the deduction schedule.
What to expect regardless, because it is standard distributor practice: appointment-only receiving, pallet labels that scan to the purchase order, case counts that match the PO exactly, and a bill of lading that agrees with both. For fresh product, expect a temperature check at the dock and a tighter appointment window.
This page does not reproduce routing guide contents. If a claim here conflicts with your guide, the guide wins. Designations and addresses are as listed on kehe.com on the verification date below.
Fresh is a different building, even when it is the same town. KeHE's Chino and Ontario facilities are a few miles apart in the Inland Empire, and they are not interchangeable. Chino handles e-commerce, grocery, and natural. Ontario handles fresh, and it is one of only two Fresh-designated DCs in the entire network. A brand with a refrigerated line and a shelf-stable line ships into KeHE Southern California twice, to two docks with two appointment desks. A fresh pallet tendered to Chino because it is on the way is not a delivery, it is a rejection with the clock running.
And the nearest DC may not carry your category. The Chicago-area facility in Romeoville is listed without the Natural designation. Miami is grocery only. Plan from the receiving DC on your purchase order, not from the map.
KeHE's public locator lists three: DC 41 Chino (e-commerce, grocery, natural), DC 45 Ontario (fresh only), and DC 33 Stockton (grocery, natural). Chino and Ontario are a few miles apart in the Inland Empire but serve different product types, so the receiving DC on your purchase order determines which one you ship to.
Per KeHE's public locator, only two: DC 45 Ontario, California and DC 46 Tualatin, Oregon. Both carry the Fresh designation exclusively, and both are listed with their own direct phone numbers rather than the shared national line. Fresh product headed into KeHE in the western United States routes through one of these two facilities.
Not according to the public locator. DC 18 Romeoville is listed as e-commerce and grocery, without the Natural designation. The nearest facilities listed with Natural are Ellettsville, Indiana and Aurora, Colorado. Confirm the receiving DC on your purchase order rather than assuming the closest building.
KeHE publicly lists ELEVATE for emerging brands, AAP as a flat-rate program for suppliers under a first-year sales threshold, and the CARE Trade and DIVERSE Trade programs. Supplier onboarding and resources run through the KeHE CONNECT portal. Program terms are set by KeHE and should be confirmed in current supplier materials.
Distribution center list, addresses, and service designations: KeHE, "Distribution Center Locations" (kehe.com/locations), retrieved September 3, 2026. Supplier programs and portal: KeHE, "Suppliers" (kehe.com/suppliers), retrieved August 29, 2026. Receiving practices described at the level of standard distributor operations; routing guide contents are not reproduced and remain governed by the current guide in KeHE CONNECT. Fr8topia service claims limited to what is published at fr8topia.com as of the same date.
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