Kroger EDI requirements for suppliers

What Kroger requires from a supplier

Kroger's EDI portal at edi.kroger.com states the rule on its compliance page. Vendors whose orders ship to a Kroger distribution center must be able to receive the purchase order by EDI and return the invoice by EDI. A vendor that does not gets 90 days to comply. After that, "an additional fee of 1% of total invoice amount or $250, whichever is greater, will be deducted by Kroger from payment". On an invoice of $18,000, 1% is $180, so the $250 applies; from $25,000 upward the 1% is the larger amount, so an invoice of $40,000 costs $400. Kroger's terms add that once a vendor is in production for EDI invoices, paper invoices are not processed and can incur the same charge per transaction.

Kroger uses ANSI X12 including the UCS, VICS and Motor variants, "primarily" over value-added networks and occasionally direct to a partner. New setups are made in version 5010. Kroger does not require a specific EDI solution; its providers page lists seven companies with the note that the list is incomplete and not an endorsement. Everything below is checked against Kroger's EDI requirements page and the pages and maps it links, on 3 October 2026. It is one of the trading-partner specifications we build an EDI integration against.

The documents, by program

Kroger organizes its maps by program. Directions are given where Kroger's pages state them.

Kroger's terms ask that every Kroger transaction is acknowledged within the time the standard sets or within 24 hours, whichever is shorter, and Kroger checks for the acknowledgment.

The envelope and the IDs

Ship-from and ship-to are identified by DUNS+4: the 9-digit DUNS number plus a 4-digit suffix, 13 digits in N104 with qualifier 9. Kroger publishes its ship-to DUNS+4 per program in spreadsheets on the same page, and an invalid one is rejected with 0103F.

The 856 for a Kroger warehouse

Kroger's 856 map, version 5010 UCS, uses BSN05 0001 and the levels shipment, order, tare, pack and an optional item level. The tare level is the pallet with its SSCC-18 in MAN*GM and its tiers and blocks in PAL. Under each tare there is exactly one pack level, with one case code. This sample is our own, built on the example item of our document pages, sold to Kroger in cases of 12:

ST*856*0001~
BSN*00*SH0004830*20261003*0920*0001~
HL*1**S~
TD5**2*ABCD~
TD3*TL**5521~
REF*BM*BOL7730050~
DTM*011*20261003~
N1*SF*NORTHFIELD SUPPLY*9*1234567890001~
N1*ST*KROGER DC*9*0987654320007~
HL*2*1*O~
PRF*48213~
HL*3*2*T~
MAN*GM*00006141410000483013~
PAL**4*5~
HL*4*3*P~
LIN**UK*10614141104823~
SN1**20*CA~
DTM*036*20270331~
CTT*4~
SE*20*0001~

The pallet holds 4 tiers of 5 cases, so 20 cases is the most it can carry, and SN1 reports 20. There are 4 HL segments, so CTT01 is 4, and 20 segments from ST to SE, so SE01 is 20. The PO number in PRF01 is 5 digits: Kroger rejects any other format with 0105F, so the 10-digit order number of our other examples would fail here. The DUNS+4 values are placeholders; the real ship-to comes from Kroger's spreadsheet.

Kroger's logistics page adds that the ASN is generated when the truck leaves the plant. The vendor estimates, per ship-from location, the shortest drive to each Kroger warehouse, and a location where the ASN cannot arrive in time can be excluded from testing at first.

The 997, then the 824

Kroger answers each group of ASNs with a 997, and every ASN that passes the standards check with an 824. The 824 carries TA (accepted), TE (accepted with errors) or TR (rejected) in OTI01, and a TED segment per error: a generic code in TED01 (006 duplicate, 007 missing data, 010 total out of balance, 012 invalid combination, 024 other), a free-form message in TED02 and the offending value in TED07 where Kroger has one. The codes run in ranges per document: 0400 to 0499 for the 856, 0700 to 0799 for the 875 and 850, 1000 to 1099 for the 855. A selection of the 856 codes:

Kroger's ASN violation list holds 18 further conditions found when the ASN is loaded or received, such as a PO in closed status or a quantity above tiers times blocks. A vendor that has not received an expected 997 or 824 within 12 hours after sending is asked to call the EDI coordinator; Kroger states it intends to bring that down to 3 hours. Its terms add that "the Vendor will be held liable for a return or penalty when receipt of the product is delayed due to problems in content or timing of the ASN".

Vendor managed replenishment

In the VMI program Kroger sends an 852 every day with store demand, the distribution center's stock on hand and on order, and out-of-stocks per UPC. The supplier decides the replenishment quantity and sends it back as an 855, which Kroger turns into a purchase order. Each Kroger division sends a range of PO numbers per week; the supplier uses them in sequence within that week and purges the rest. Kroger can return a "turnaround" copy of the order created from the 855, an 875 with C in G5001 or an 850 with 06 in BEG01, which shows the order and Kroger's cost per item before the goods ship. Kroger notes that the 997 for an 855 does not mean the purchase order was created; the turnaround does.

Testing, evaluation and certification

The ASN program runs in three phases. In testing, the vendor sends test ASNs with receiver ID 925411TEST until both the 997 and the 824 show acceptance and the Site ASN Coordinator has checked the pallet labels. In evaluation, received loads are verified by hand against the ASN. Certification is per ship-from DUNS+4, each Kroger marketing area sets its own criteria, and certified locations get random audits. The pallet label goes in the upper right corner, outside the shrink-wrap, on a label that does not smear in the freezer. The SSCC label page covers the number itself.

Handling Kroger orders on the ERP side

An 850 or 875 from Kroger becomes a sales order for the Kroger customer with the ship-to resolved from the DUNS+4 and the 5-digit PO number kept for the 856 and the 810. The ERP has to know cases per pallet layer and layers per pallet for each item, because PAL and SN1 are checked against them, and the warehouse has to record which pallet carries which SSCC. For a VMI vendor, the 852 feeds the replenishment calculation and the 855 is the order.

We build that part to Kroger's maps and your systems: the 850 is read and acknowledged within the 24 hours Kroger's terms set, the 856 is built from the pallet data and checked against the 824 rules before it leaves, and every 997 and 824 is matched to its document and shown in the dashboard with the error code. An ASN that would fail 0107F or 0407F is held, not sent, because Kroger cannot replace it afterwards. Other partners are on Walmart EDI and Amazon EDI. Tell us which Kroger program you supply.