Last week, KeHE, a wholesale food distributor, opened the new KeHE Elkton distribution center in Florida. The facility is significantly larger than the company’s previous site in the area.
In an email to Grocery Dive, the firm stated that the 530,000-square-foot KeHE Elkton distribution center will support the expansion of its distribution of organic, natural, and specialty food products.
Located close to KeHE’s former hub, the new facility offers 61% more space. It features six temperature zones, 105,000 square feet of cooler and freezer capacity, and separate rooms designated for ice cream and bulk products. The KeHE Elkton distribution center also includes a 30,000-square-foot office space.
With the rapid increase of grocery stores across Florida, the KeHE Elkton distribution center is expected to help the company better serve this growing and vital market.
“This warehouse has been designed with flexibility and scale in mind,” Chuck Graefen, VP of operations and supply chain management at KeHe, said in a statement. “Whether it’s meeting seasonal surges, onboarding new products, or adapting to shifting customer demands, infrastructure and processes were built to support success, all of which translates directly into better service levels and reliability for our retail and supplier partners.”
KeHE supplies natural, organic, specialty, and fresh foods to over 31,000 grocery stores in North America. Its customers include Albertsons, Associated Food Stores, Thrive Market, and Fresh Thyme Market.
The company now operates 19 distribution centers in North America, including four in Canada and 15 in the U.S. Combined, these centers span more than 7 million square feet of warehouse space, with five of them LEED-certified.
The opening of the KeHE Elkton distribution center coincides with ongoing negotiations between KeHE and Sprouts Farmers Market for a renewed long-term agreement. The companies have currently agreed to a short-term contract extension past the originally scheduled end this month.
