DES MOINES, Iowa — Convenience-store retailer Kum & Go LC has entered into a distribution partnership with KeHE Distributors LLC, a distributor of natural, organic, specialty and fresh products. The chain is adding KeHE as a primary partner for 80 Kum & Go locations, with plans to expand to more locations and to improve distribution and increase product assortment.
- Kum & Go is No. 18 on the CSP 2022 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
Des Moines, Iowa-based Kum & Go has 409 c-stores in Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming.
The new partnership expands Naperville, Ill.-based KeHE’s business in the convenience-store channel and furthers its goal of expanding access to better-for-you products through supply chain support to convenience retailers.
“We are excited to be partnering with KeHE Distributors to bring new and better-for-you products to our customers,” said Kristin Jarabek, vice president of category management at Kum & Go. “We’re proud to provide our customers options they wouldn’t expect to find in a convenience store without sacrificing the ‘convenience factor.’ This supports our initiative to ‘democratize healthy’ within the convenience space.”
KeHE is helping Kum & Go “broaden their product assortment and help them continue to challenge the perceived ‘norm’ of convenience-store food,” said Marc Rosenthal, executive director of business development for KeHE.
The distributor services more than 30,000 retail locations, including natural food stores, chain and independent grocery stores, e-commerce retailers and other specialty products retailers through its network of more than 16 distribution centers across North America. The distributor aims to continue its drive to provide more consumers with access to better-for-you products, it said.
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