KeHE Unveils New Enterprise Branding
KeHE Distributors, LLC president and CEO Brandon Barnholt unveiled new branding for the company during its annual Holiday Show, held this week at McCormick Place in Chicago.
The branding initiative – which completely absorbs the Tree of Life name into KeHE with the exception of products and Canadian operations – is represented by KeHE’s new One Earth logo, which involves a multi-color globe that depicts KeHE’s three areas of product expertise – Natural & Organic, Specialty and Fresh. “KeHE” in its familiar deep blue color remains.
“Our main job is to be a supply chain partner to our customers in these three channels of products,” Barnholdt told Progressive Grocer. “We offer 37,000 natural and organic SKUs, 21,000 specialty SKUs, and 9,000 fresh SKUs. The fresh segment is our fastest growing of the three, and includes items such as cheese, deli items, and organic produce.”
According to Barnholt, this new branding signals an important step in KeHE’s continuing quest to be the preferred supply chain partner in natural, specialty and fresh retail product channels. “We are embarking on an exciting new phase in our company’s journey to make on-trend easy for our suppliers and retail customers,” he said. “The past few years brought a great deal of change to our industry and KeHE has grown and added products and expertise to meet the needs of today’s marketplace. The KeHE brand name, along with the new one earth logo effectively capture the scope of sales, marketing, product assortment, and supply chain expertise we bring to every channel of business we serve.”
Long-term KeHE customers need not worry about the rebranding impacting operations. “Nothing in our day-to-day relationship with supply and retail partners will change,” added Barnholt. “The same team of professionals that serves these partners today will continue to serve them tomorrow. However, everyone will notice our determination and care in making on-trend easy for our partners.”
KeHE will continue to use the Tree of Life name in Canada and on its proprietary family of natural and organic food products sold into natural food stores across the U.S.
Romeoville, Ill.-based KeHE Distributors provides natural and organic, specialty and gourmet, international and multicultural and fresh products to over 30,000 retail customers in the chain grocery, independent grocery, natural food store and niche specialty retail channels throughout North America.