The Show Must Go On: How KeHE Distributors used their in-house Tech to thrive in a post-COVID World

When COVID-19 hit the U.S. and shut down events, KeHE’s largest annual Holiday Show was three months away. As the natural & organic, fresh and specialty food distributor’s largest live event – and the marketplace for retailers to find and purchase the holiday products they need – the success of the entire holiday food buying season was in jeopardy. In April, KeHE announced they would convert the live event into a virtual show.

Renamed KeHE’s Holidays of Hope, the entirely virtual show welcomed over 5,000 attendees and nearly 600 exhibiting suppliers on KeHE’s proprietary digital platform. Not only was the event completely contactless, but it was also the largest and most successful KeHE show to date.

The success of the 2020 KeHE Virtual Holidays of Hope Show can be credited to the foresight of the distributor to implement a virtual ordering tool far before the pandemic hit. Released in 2016, KeHE’s Product Finder platform has allowed retailers and suppliers to communicate about promotional deals, negotiate, discover products, and place orders online while on the tradeshow floor. The technology has been improved with each show and proved to be crucial to their COVID-era success.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” said Brian Wilkinson, KeHE’s Chief Information Officer. “Over the last few years, we have embarked on a journey to become the Next Generation distributor. Through KeHE’s strategic growth of in-house technology solutions, we have been able to gradually expand our digital event offerings and ultimately launch our first industry-wide virtual buying show.”

Also, six months before the pandemic hit, KeHE piloted a virtual show experience as a proactive measure aligning with the company’s vision to become the “Next Generation Distributor” with their key partners.

“Pre-COVID, technology was a major tenant of our overall strategic plan and live event strategy – which drove us to pilot a virtual show concept. We knew it was important, but we couldn’t have predicted just how big that need would grow in 2020,” said Ari Goldsmith, Vice President of Marketing at KeHE. “Our proprietary platform was built with our stakeholders needs top of mind, and it allowed us to quickly pivot to deliver a show experience they’ve grown to expect from KeHE, entirely online.”

Since the KeHE Holidays of Hope Show, KeHE has successfully hosted a smaller, curated virtual Winter Show this fall on the same platform. Building on user feedback and analytics from those two events, KeHE is looking forward to its virtual Summer Show in January 2021. For more information on KeHE how they’re harnessing technology to continue to deliver value to their partners, visit KeHE.com.

*KeHE’s shows are invite-only shows for their supplier and customer partners.