How to Get Raw Sales Data from KeHE and UNFI

Every CPG founder selling through KeHE or UNFI eventually asks the same question. How do I get my actual sales data, by store, by week, without waiting for my account manager to email me a PDF? The answer is that both distributors do offer raw data, but the path to getting it depends on your portal access, your revenue scale, and whether you know exactly what to ask for.

This guide walks through what's available, how to download it, when API access becomes realistic, and how to turn a pile of CSVs into something you can actually use to make decisions.

Does KeHE and UNFI Offer Raw Data Exports

Yes. Both distributors offer raw data, but neither markets it loudly and the user experience varies. Most brands under $5M in distributor revenue work with CSV exports from the portal. A smaller subset of brands at higher scale qualify for API or scheduled file feeds.

KeHE CONNECT is KeHE's supplier portal. Once you have access (your KeHE rep provisions it), you can pull reports on shipped sales, on-hand inventory, voids, returns, and authorized retailers. Most reports export to CSV or Excel. The portal also surfaces deduction details and remittance breakdowns.

UNFI Insights (formerly known under a few different brand names depending on which UNFI business unit you sell into) is UNFI's supplier-facing analytics platform. It provides shipment data, store-level distribution, fill rate, and inventory reporting. Like KeHE, most data can be exported to CSV or Excel.

The key distinction. What you get from the portal is ship-in data, what UNFI or KeHE shipped to retail stores. It's not true sell-through. Sell-through (what shoppers actually purchased at the register) only comes from the retailer directly or from a syndicated data source like SPINS or Circana. Confusing ship-in for sell-through is one of the most common analytical mistakes founders make with distributor data.

How to Pull Raw Data from KeHE CONNECT

KeHE CONNECT is the primary source of truth for anything related to your KeHE business. Most brands underuse it because they don't know what's available.

Sales by store and week. Inside CONNECT, navigate to the reporting or sales section and look for shipment or PO-level reports. You can typically filter by date range, division, and retailer account. Export to CSV and you'll get a row per PO with store identifier, ship date, item, units, and dollars.

Inventory and weeks on hand. Pull the on-hand inventory report by DC (KeHE operates multiple distribution centers, so a single SKU often shows up in five or more DCs with different inventory levels). This is critical for spotting over-ordering before it turns into spoilage deductions or under-ordering before it turns into OOS at retail.

Voids and out of stocks. KeHE tracks voids (stores that were authorized but did not order this cycle) and OOS situations at the DC level. These reports are gold for sales planning. A void list is essentially a target list of accounts already approved for your product that just need a reorder push.

Authorized retailers list. Download this monthly. It tells you exactly which retail accounts are authorized to order your SKUs from KeHE. New authorizations appear here before they appear in sales data, giving you a chance to make sure stores actually start ordering.

Deductions and chargebacks. Reviewed in detail in our deductions guide, but worth flagging here as well. KeHE CONNECT lets you export every deduction with code, amount, PO reference, and dispute status.

How to Pull Raw Data from UNFI Insights

UNFI's analytics tooling has evolved over the years. Today most brands access supplier data through UNFI Insights or the broader UNFI Connect supplier suite.

Shipment reports. Look for shipment or sales reports filterable by date, account, and DC. Export to CSV for a row-per-shipment view that includes account number, ship date, item, units, and extended cost.

Store distribution reports. UNFI provides reports showing which retail accounts are receiving your product across their network. These are critical for tracking distribution gains and losses month over month.

Fill rate. UNFI tracks the fill rate they achieved on orders to retail accounts, which reflects both your service level to UNFI and their warehouse pick performance. Low fill rate to retail is one of the fastest ways to lose distribution, so monitoring it monthly is essential.

Inventory by DC. Like KeHE, UNFI splits inventory across multiple regional DCs. Your single SKU may show up in 10 or more DCs with very different inventory positions. The DC-level inventory report is essential before any promotional push.

OOS and reasons. UNFI Insights surfaces OOS events with reason codes. Some are your fault (you missed a PO), some are theirs (warehouse issue), and some are retailer-driven. Tracking the reason mix tells you where to focus.

API Access at KeHE and UNFI

Most brands ask about API access, hoping to skip the portal entirely. Here's the honest read.

Both distributors have data feed and API capabilities, but they're not for every supplier. API access is typically reserved for larger brands, brands that have demonstrated scale, or brands integrating through approved third-party platforms. Many of the reporting tools the broader CPG ecosystem uses (analytics platforms, deduction management tools, supply chain visibility tools) connect through these feeds, but the brand itself rarely sets up a direct integration.

What the thresholds look like. There's no published cutoff, and it varies by distributor, business unit, and the specific feed you want. Anecdotally, brands doing under $2M annually through a distributor rarely qualify for direct API access. Brands doing $5M or more often can negotiate it, especially if they can articulate a clear business reason (real-time inventory visibility, automated deduction reconciliation, integration with an internal BI tool).

How to ask. Talk to your account manager or category lead. Explain what data you want, how often, and what you'll use it for. They'll route you to the right data or IT contact internally. Be prepared for a multi-week process and possibly a fee. Some feeds carry a setup cost and a recurring monthly charge.

The practical alternative. For most growing brands, scheduled CSV exports plus a third-party analytics tool will get you 90 percent of what an API would provide. Tools that sit on top of KeHE CONNECT and UNFI Insights can scrape or import your data, normalize it, and surface dashboards. These are usually faster to set up and cheaper than building a direct integration.

What's Actually Inside Raw Distributor Data

When you finally have the CSVs in hand, what are you looking at?

PO-level shipment records. Each row is typically one PO line. You'll see distributor PO number, retailer or DC identifier, ship date, your item number, units shipped, cases shipped, and dollar amount. With this you can roll up sales by store, week, account, or item.

On-hand inventory. Snapshot of how many units of each SKU are sitting in each DC at the moment of the report. Combined with average weekly shipments, this gives you weeks on hand, which is the single best indicator of whether your distributor is over- or under-stocked.

Fill rate. Percentage of ordered units actually shipped. Calculated at the order level. If retail accounts order 100 cases and UNFI ships 92, that's 92 percent fill rate. Anything below 95 percent is a yellow flag, anything below 90 percent is a red flag.

Voids and OOS events. Lists of orders or order lines that should have shipped but didn't. Voids usually mean the retail account skipped your product (didn't include it in their order). OOS means the distributor had no inventory to fulfill. Voids point at retailer engagement issues. OOS point at supply or forecasting issues.

Authorizations and de-authorizations. New stores that picked up your product. Stores that dropped it. These changes are critical for understanding distribution momentum, and they often precede changes in sales data by 30 to 60 days.

Deductions and chargebacks. Detailed in a separate deductions context, but worth knowing the data is in the same portals.

How to Organize Distributor Data Once You Have It

The download is the easy part. Making the data useful is where most brands stall out.

Establish a cadence. Pick a weekly download day and stick to it. Monday morning works well because it gives you a full week's data and lets you start the week with insight. Set a calendar reminder. Pulling weekly for six months produces a dataset you can actually analyze.

Name files consistently. Use a format like kehe_shipments_2025-W50.csv or unfi_inventory_2025-12-21.csv. Consistent naming means you can sort chronologically, write simple scripts to combine files, and avoid the disaster of KeHE Report (1).csv versus kehe report final FINAL.csv.

Pick a storage layer that matches your skills. Three reasonable options:

• Google Sheets for brands under $1M in distributor revenue or for solo founders. Drop weekly CSVs into a sheet, use a master tab with QUERY or FILTER formulas, build a basic dashboard. Free, easy, good enough for early stage.
• Airtable for small teams that want better structure and views. Set up a Shipments base with linked records to a Stores base. Use views for weekly, monthly, by account. More flexible than Sheets for collaborative work.
• A real BI tool (Looker Studio, Metabase, Mode) for brands with at least one team member who's comfortable with SQL or data modeling. Load CSVs into a database (BigQuery, Postgres) and build proper dashboards. Worth it once distributor revenue crosses $2M to $5M.

Build a few baseline reports first. Don't try to build everything at once. Start with: weekly sales by account, weeks on hand by DC, voids list, and fill rate trend. Those four reports will surface 80 percent of the decisions you need to make.

Map distributor data to retailer accounts. Distributors identify retailers by their internal account numbers, not by the retailer name you know. Build a mapping table that translates UNFI account 12345 to "Whole Foods NA region" or "Sprouts SoCal." Without this, your data is meaningless to anyone outside the warehouse.

Common Pitfalls When Working With Distributor Data

A few traps to avoid as you build your data muscle.

Data lag. Portal data is rarely real-time. KeHE and UNFI both have 24 to 72 hour delays between actual shipment and data availability. If you pull a report on Monday morning, last Thursday's shipments may not appear yet. Plan around the lag.

Ship-in versus sell-through. Repeating because it matters. Distributor data shows what the distributor shipped to the retailer. It does not show what the consumer bought. Strong ship-in with weak sell-through means inventory is piling up at retail and reorders will soon collapse. You only see this if you pair distributor data with retailer scan data.

Missing stores. Sometimes a store is authorized to carry your product but doesn't appear in shipment data for weeks. That's a void. Don't assume "no data" equals "no distribution." Check the authorized retailers list to know your true denominator.

Distributor account mapping. UNFI and KeHE both restructure account hierarchies periodically. The Whole Foods account number you knew last year may have changed. Verify your mapping table quarterly.

Promotional spikes. Big sales weeks often reflect promotional lifts, not organic growth. When analyzing trend lines, mark promotional periods so you don't misread a TPR-driven spike as natural acceleration.

Returns and credit memos. Some shipment reports net out returns, others don't. Read the column headers carefully. A 10 percent gap between gross shipments and net shipments usually means returns are being deducted. Both numbers matter, but for different reasons.

When to Layer in Third-Party Analytics

CSV downloads work well at the early stage. Once you cross a certain scale, the manual process breaks down.

Consider a third-party analytics platform when you have more than 200 retail accounts across distributors, you're managing more than 10 SKUs, or you're spending more than five hours a week pulling and reconciling reports. At that point, a purpose-built CPG analytics tool will pay for itself in time saved and decisions made faster.

What to look for. Good tools normalize KeHE and UNFI data into a common model, handle the account mapping headache, surface voids and OOS automatically, and let your sales team pull insights without needing a data analyst.

Don't pay for what you won't use. Some platforms bundle features (planogram management, deduction recovery, broker management) you won't touch for years. Start with what solves your most painful question, usually "where am I losing distribution and why."

The brands that grow fastest in wholesale treat distributor data as a core competency, not an afterthought. Start with weekly CSV downloads from KeHE CONNECT and UNFI Insights, build a simple warehouse in Sheets or Airtable, and graduate to API access or a third-party platform when scale demands it. The founders who own their data make sharper decisions, catch problems earlier, and win the accounts their competitors don't even see slipping away.