Whole Foods EDI inside AIMS360 for beauty, supplement, pet and lifestyle brands: the 810 by EDI or XML over FTP as Whole Foods describes it, the 850 and 856 for direct suppliers, and UNFI EDI for the route most suppliers are on.
Whole Foods EDI Integration
AIMS360 is a consumer brands ERP with Whole Foods EDI built in, for the direct route and for the UNFI route most suppliers are on. One platform runs your inventory by style, size and UPC and produces what each route asks for: the 850 in, the 856 at shipment close, the 810 by EDI or XML over FTP the way Whole Foods describes it, 997s both ways, and the carton marking from the same shipment. It also holds the ingredient and lot documentation a beauty, supplement or pet brand needs to get through the Whole Foods standards in the first place. The connection is managed by our EDI team.
What system manages inventory and does EDI with Whole Foods? AIMS360. It runs your inventory and your Whole Foods EDI in one platform, on whichever route your buy takes: direct to a region or distribution center, with the 850 in and the 856 and 810 out, the 810 delivered by EDI or XML over FTP the way Whole Foods describes in its own guidelines, or through UNFI, Whole Foods' primary distributor under an agreement that runs to 2032, on UNFI's EDI. Carton marking, ASN and invoice come off one shipment record either way, and the same stock record feeds Amazon and your other retailers. Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, had 549 stores at the end of 2025, and bans more than 240 ingredients from beauty and body care under its Beyond Clean Beauty standard. You do not pair AIMS360 with SPS Commerce, TrueCommerce or another EDI network.
Whole Foods EDI Documents
Built from the same ERP records that run your inventory, warehouse and accounting, so the marking on the carton, the ASN and the invoice describe the same shipment, whether the order came from Whole Foods or from UNFI.
| Transaction | What it does for Whole Foods |
|---|---|
| EDI 850 purchase order | For a direct supplier, the purchase order from a Whole Foods region or distribution center. AIMS360 imports it as a sales order validated against your catalog at the UPC level, because Whole Foods requires a UPC on every product it sells. If your product moves through UNFI, the 850 comes from UNFI instead, and it is UNFI's order, not Whole Foods'. |
| EDI 810 invoice | The one document Whole Foods itself has put in writing. Its Whole Body supplier guidelines say Whole Foods can receive both XML and EDI 810 invoices and credit memos, delivered by FTP through its e-invoicing support team. AIMS360 produces the 810 off the shipment, one per PO. |
| EDI 856 ship notice (ASN) | Standard for a direct DC shipment and reported by EDI providers as part of the Whole Foods set, though Whole Foods does not publish an ASN specification on the open web. AIMS360 sends it at shipment close, carton by carton, with the same contents as the carton marking. |
| EDI 855 acknowledgment | Reported by EDI providers, not published by Whole Foods. AIMS360 sends it from the order record where your buyer wants it. |
| EDI 846 inventory | Where it applies, it is usually the distributor, UNFI or KeHE, that wants availability, not Whole Foods. AIMS360 sends it off the same stock record that runs your other retail allocations. |
| EDI 997 acknowledgment | Both directions on every document. AIMS360 generates the outbound 997 on receipt. |
| Carton marking | Whole Foods' own guidelines ask for the Whole Foods PO number, the store name and address, the box count as 1 of 3, a perishable or promotional designation where it applies, the ship or harvest date, country of origin, lot and date codes, and the supplier name and address in the upper left. Cartons no heavier than 50 pounds, sealed with tape in an H, no straps or staples, and no non biodegradable packing material. AIMS360 prints the marking from the shipment record. |
Supplier Requirements
Whole Foods does not publish an EDI implementation guide on the open web. Its supplier portal now redirects to an Amazon hosted application behind a login, and the supplier documents it does publish are its quality standards, its supplier code of conduct and a set of Whole Body supplier guidelines last updated in 2014. The rules below say which is which, and what is reported by others rather than written by Whole Foods. Confirm everything in the portal before you plan a shipment around it.
| Requirement | What Whole Foods expects |
|---|---|
| How product gets in | Register on the Whole Foods Market Supplier Portal, which is hosted on Amazon's Grocery Central, and complete the potential supplier form. Whole Foods says it cannot guarantee a response. Grocery and Whole Body brands not yet in Whole Foods can apply to LEAP, the Local and Emerging Accelerator Program, which took 10 brands from more than 1,600 applicants in 2024. |
| Who you actually ship to | For most suppliers, UNFI. Whole Foods calls UNFI its primary distributor and extended the agreement to May 2032. A direct relationship with a region or a distribution center is the narrower path, and the Whole Body guidelines say some promotional units must always ship through UNFI and never direct. |
| Documents Whole Foods has published | The 810 invoice and credit memo, in EDI or XML, delivered by FTP. Everything else on this page, the 850, 856, 855 and 846, is reported by EDI providers as the usual set for a direct supplier and is not on a Whole Foods document. Whole Foods does not publish an X12 version or a named EDI network. |
| Beauty and body care | The current standard is called Beyond Clean Beauty: more than 240 banned ingredients, including parabens, phthalates, formaldehyde donors, oxybenzone, PFAS and EDTA. An organic claim needs third party certification to the USDA National Organic Standards or NSF/ANSI 305 for personal care. The old Premium Body Care tier from the 2014 guidelines no longer appears on Whole Foods' standards pages. |
| Food and supplements | Whole Foods bans more than 300 ingredients from the food it sells, including hydrogenated fats, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, sucralose and saccharin, and publishes separate standards for supplements, meat, eggs, seafood and household cleaning. An ingredient not on the lists goes to the regional or global buyer for review by the quality standards team. |
| Pet and lifestyle | No published supplier facing quality standard for pet food or for textiles and apparel. Whole Foods sells its own Whole Paws pet line, and the 2014 guidelines promised lifestyle standards that never appeared. Those categories fall under the supplier code of conduct and the buyer's judgment. |
| Supplier code of conduct | Updated January 2023. Minimum working age of 15, no forced labor, a 60 hour weekly cap, freedom of association, environmental compliance, chain of custody and traceability documentation, and Whole Foods' right to audit the supplier. |
| UPCs and cartons | Every product needs a UPC. Cartons carry the PO number, store name and address, box count, dates, country of origin, lot codes and the supplier name and address, weigh no more than 50 pounds, and are taped in an H with no straps, staples or non biodegradable fill. From the 2014 guidelines, so confirm the current version in the portal. |
| Deductions | Customer returns are deducted from future payments on an automatic deduction statement marked paid. Promotional units shipped direct instead of through UNFI are charged back at wholesale. Whole Foods does not publish a compliance fee schedule or a dispute window; the portal has a payment disputing section. |
| Local producers | The Local Producer Loan Program has made more than 408 loans totaling roughly $34 million to small scale, local and emerging producers in the US and Canada since 2006. The published examples are food and beverage. |
Sources: wholefoodsmarket.com potential supplier, quality standards, beauty and body care standards and local producer loan pages; the Whole Body Supplier Guidelines updated August 2014; the Whole Foods Market Supplier Code of Conduct updated January 2023; the UNFI announcement of May 21, 2024 extending the Whole Foods agreement to 2032; the Whole Foods May 13, 2026 Daily Shop release; store counts reported January 2026; and EDI provider trading partner pages for Whole Foods. Whole Foods keeps its ordering and EDI specifics inside the supplier portal.
Whole Foods EDI Workflow
One loop, one system, and a route decision that comes before any of it.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. The buy | A regional or global buyer takes the item, the ingredients clear the quality standards, and the item is set up in the supplier portal. Whether it ships through UNFI or direct is decided here, and it decides everything below. |
| 2. Order arrives | Direct: the Whole Foods 850 lands and becomes a sales order validated at the UPC level. Through UNFI: the UNFI 850 lands the same way, on UNFI's trading partner setup. |
| 3. Acknowledge | The 997 goes back on receipt. The 855 goes back from the order record where the buyer or the distributor uses it. |
| 4. Pick, pack, ship | The built-in warehouse module packs to the case pack and prints the carton marking from the shipment record: PO number, store name and address, box count, dates, country of origin, lot codes, supplier name and address, under 50 pounds, taped in an H. |
| 5. ASN | The 856 transmits at shipment close, carton by carton, to Whole Foods on a direct shipment or to UNFI on a distributor shipment. |
| 6. Invoice | The 810 goes out after the ASN, one per PO. To Whole Foods, by EDI or XML over FTP through its e-invoicing team. To UNFI, on UNFI's map. |
| 7. Deductions | Customer returns come off future payments on the automatic deduction statement, and AIMS360 posts them against the invoice so accounting sees the reason. |
Native vs Bolted On
Short answer, no. And the full retail document set the provider pages list is not what most Whole Foods suppliers trade.
The carton marking, the ASN and the invoice come off one shipment record, whether the order came from Whole Foods or from UNFI, and the stock record behind both is the same one that feeds your other retailers.
Our EDI team confirms which route you are on and builds the map for that, with the 810 to Whole Foods delivered the way Whole Foods has said it takes it.
Provider web pages list the full retail document set for Whole Foods as if every supplier trades it direct. Most do not. A second system holding orders and inventory for a channel that mostly runs through a distributor is a second system to keep in sync for not much.
And the ingredient documentation Whole Foods actually asks for does not live in an EDI network at all.
Whole Foods Programs
Four ways a Whole Foods relationship can run, and the category question underneath all of them.
The main route. Whole Foods calls UNFI its primary distributor under an agreement extended to May 2032. You trade with UNFI on UNFI's EDI, UNFI delivers to Whole Foods, and the June 2025 UNFI outage that emptied Whole Foods shelves showed how much of the chain runs through it. Some promotional units must always go this way, never direct.
The narrower path. A direct supplier trades with Whole Foods itself: the 850 from the region or DC, the 856 at shipment close, and the 810 by EDI or XML over FTP, the one document Whole Foods describes in its own guidelines. Direct store delivery suppliers carry additional insurance under the older supplier packet.
The Local and Emerging Accelerator Program takes grocery and Whole Body brands not yet in Whole Foods through mentorship and a 12 week curriculum, 10 brands from more than 1,600 applicants in 2024, with a potential $25,000 grant in the 2026 cohort. The Local Producer Loan Program has lent roughly $34 million since 2006. Both start with the supplier portal.
Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, and Amazon is converting its remaining Fresh and Go stores into Whole Foods locations with a pledge of more than 100 new stores. Selling on Amazon.com is still a different business, with Vendor Central and Seller Central, and a Whole Foods buy does not put you on it. AIMS360 runs them as separate trading partners on one stock record.
One thing to keep straight: the categories. AIMS360 serves beauty and body care, supplements, pet, home and lifestyle brands, and Whole Foods publishes real standards for the first two, more than 240 banned beauty ingredients and separate supplement standards, and nothing supplier facing for pet or textiles. The buyer conversation for a pet or lifestyle brand is about the code of conduct and the assortment, not an ingredient list.
One Stock Record
A Whole Foods program can run through UNFI, direct to a region, or both, and it sits next to Amazon and your other retailers. The useful number is not what you have in total, it is what is free for the distributor after the direct POs and the Amazon allocations.
| Situation | What AIMS360 does |
|---|---|
| UNFI and direct on one pool | Distributor orders and direct Whole Foods orders draw from the same stock record, so an 846 to UNFI describes what is actually left after the direct POs are allocated. |
| Regions and DCs | Each ship to lives once in the cross reference, so the carton marking, the ASN and the invoice carry the same destination without anyone retyping it. |
| Amazon on the side | Vendor Central, Seller Central and FBA draw on the same availability as the Whole Foods program, and allocation decides who gets the last case rather than whoever picked first. |
| More than one warehouse | Availability rolls up across locations, and the shipment carries the location it actually leaves from. |
| A 3PL holding stock | Integrated 3PL locations feed the same record, so the carton count on the shipment is real. |
| Selling the other beauty and pet retailers | The same pool feeds Whole Foods, Ulta, Sephora, Petco, Chewy and the rest without a separate inventory file per retailer. Each is its own trading partner with its own rules. |
Managed Onboarding
Our EDI team builds the connection for the route you are actually on. You supply the supplier portal login, the buyer's item setup, and the distributor relationship if there is one.
| Stage | What we do |
|---|---|
| Before kickoff | Confirm whether the buy ships through UNFI, direct to a region or DC, or both, and pull the current ordering and invoicing instructions from the supplier portal, because the public documents stop at the 810. |
| Standards | Check the ingredient list against Beyond Clean Beauty or the supplement standards before the item setup, and get anything not on the lists in front of the buyer for quality standards review. |
| Setup | Build the Whole Foods trading partner, or the UNFI one, with the region and DC cross reference, packing rules to the case pack, the carton marking, FOB, carrier SCACs and the FTP delivery for the 810 where Whole Foods takes it that way. |
| Catalog | Load styles, sizes and UPCs, because every product needs one, and keep the ingredient and lot documentation on the item so a traceability request is a report rather than a search. |
| Testing | Test the 850, 856 and 810 with Whole Foods e-invoicing support or with UNFI, whichever is live, including a credit memo. |
| Go live | Watch the first PO from order to ASN to invoice, then read the first automatic deduction statement with you. |
| After | Track standards revisions. Whole Foods updates its banned ingredient lists and its code of conduct without a public changelog, and an item that passed last year can fail this year. |
We keep emergency EDI support running around the clock, because a regional buyer's promotion does not move because your invoice did not go.
Whole Foods EDI FAQ
UNFI versus direct, the one document Whole Foods has published, the beauty standard, and what Amazon ownership does and does not mean.
AIMS360. It is a consumer brands ERP with Whole Foods EDI built in for the direct route, the 850 in, the 856 and 810 out with 997s both ways, and with UNFI EDI for the distributor route most Whole Foods suppliers are actually on. Inventory, warehouse and EDI are one system, so the carton marking, the ASN and the invoice come off the same shipment whichever route it takes. Our own EDI team runs the connection.
Whole Foods has put one document in writing: it can receive EDI 810 invoices and credit memos, or XML, delivered by FTP through its e-invoicing support team. The 850, 856, 855 and 846 that EDI providers list for Whole Foods are the usual set for a direct supplier, not a published Whole Foods specification. Most suppliers trade with UNFI, Whole Foods' primary distributor, on UNFI's EDI instead.
Most do. Whole Foods calls UNFI its primary distributor and extended the agreement to May 2032. A direct relationship with a region or a distribution center is the narrower path, and Whole Foods' own guidelines say some promotional units must always ship through UNFI and never direct. AIMS360 runs both routes from one stock record.
Register on the Whole Foods Market Supplier Portal, which is hosted on Amazon's Grocery Central, and complete the potential supplier form. Whole Foods says it cannot guarantee a response. Grocery and Whole Body brands not yet in Whole Foods can also apply to LEAP, the Local and Emerging Accelerator Program, which took 10 brands from more than 1,600 applicants in 2024.
Beyond Clean Beauty. Whole Foods bans more than 240 ingredients from the beauty and body care it sells, including parabens, phthalates, formaldehyde donors, oxybenzone, PFAS and EDTA, and requires third party certification to the USDA National Organic Standards or NSF/ANSI 305 for an organic claim. The Premium Body Care tier in the 2014 guidelines no longer appears on Whole Foods' standards pages.
Not supplier facing ones. Whole Foods publishes standards for food, supplements, beauty and body care, meat, eggs, seafood and household cleaning. It sells its own Whole Paws pet line and once promised lifestyle standards that never appeared. Pet and lifestyle brands fall under the supplier code of conduct and the buyer's judgment.
From its Whole Body guidelines: the Whole Foods PO number, the store name and address, the box count as 1 of 3, a perishable or promotional designation where it applies, the ship or harvest date, country of origin, lot and date codes, and the supplier name and address in the upper left. Cartons no heavier than 50 pounds, taped in an H, no straps, staples or non biodegradable fill. Every product needs a UPC.
Whole Foods does not publish a compliance fee schedule. Its guidelines describe an automatic deduction statement that takes customer returns off future payments, and a wholesale chargeback for promotional units shipped direct instead of through UNFI. The supplier portal has a payment disputing section, and no dispute window is published.
Amazon, which bought Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods had 549 stores at the end of 2025: 531 in the US, 12 in Canada and 6 in the UK, plus the small format Daily Shop stores it is opening in city centers. Amazon is converting its remaining Fresh and Go stores into Whole Foods locations and has pledged more than 100 new stores.
No. Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, but Amazon.com is a separate business with its own Vendor Central and Seller Central programs. A Whole Foods buy is a Whole Foods buy. AIMS360 runs Whole Foods, UNFI and Amazon as separate trading partners on one stock record.
A document updated January 2023 covering a minimum working age of 15, no forced labor, a 60 hour weekly cap, freedom of association, environmental compliance, chain of custody and traceability documentation, and Whole Foods' right to audit its suppliers. It applies whatever category you are in.
No. Whole Foods does not name an EDI network, and the one document it describes, the 810, goes by FTP through its e-invoicing team. The direct maps and the UNFI maps are native to AIMS360 and managed by our EDI team, and our first job is to confirm which route you are on rather than build the full retail set a provider's page lists.
We do. The maps belong to us, so a revision is our work rather than a project for your team. Whole Foods updates its banned ingredient lists, its code of conduct and its supplier portal without a public changelog, and the item setup and the invoice route move with them.
See AIMS360 run a direct Whole Foods PO and a UNFI PO from one stock record, with the carton marking, the ASN and the 810 off the same shipment.
