When Food Banks Get More Than a Freight Quote

Most food banks know the frustration: You’ve sourced the product, negotiated the price, and then the freight becomes its own project. Carriers who don’t understand your hours. Drivers who show up without appointments. Rates that fluctuate wildly because you’re “just one load” to a company moving thousands.

For VAFS customers, that’s not the experience—and the reason is a partnership most of them have benefited from without even realizing it.

Watco Logistics has been VAFS’s exclusive freight partner for years, and in 2025 alone, Wayne Turner’s team moved approximately 280 million pounds of food to hunger relief organizations across the country. The majority of those shipments? VAFS orders.

But the numbers only tell part of the story.

What Food Banks Actually Get

When a food bank orders through VAFS, freight isn’t an afterthought bolted onto the transaction. It’s built into the quote, handled by a team that has spent nearly three decades working exclusively with hunger relief organizations.

“They’re purchasing a product delivered,” says Wayne Turner, Branch Manager at Watco Logistics. “They know what it’s going to cost them up front. They’re not having to go out there and secure their own transportation.”

That alone saves time. But the real value is harder to see—until something goes wrong somewhere else.

Turner’s team understands the operational realities that generic freight brokers miss. Food banks typically run shorter hours than commercial warehouses. Staff is lean. Appointments aren’t optional—they’re essential.

“A lot of other third-party companies or transportation providers don’t necessarily reach out and schedule those appointments,” Turner explains. “That’s something we take pride in—making sure we are reaching out and staying in contact with those facilities so they know we’re coming. There’s no surprises.”

For food banks managing donations, USDA commodities, and purchased inventory with skeleton crews, “no surprises” isn’t a nicety. It’s the difference between a smooth receiving day and operational chaos.

The Scale Advantage You Didn’t Know You Had

Here’s what most individual food banks can’t see: when Watco looks at hunger relief, they don’t see hundreds of small customers. They see one massive industry.

“We kind of loop the entirety of hunger relief into one and look at it as one big customer,” Turner says. “They’re all important to us, regardless of their size.”

That philosophy translates into pricing power. When a major food co-op recently approached Watco looking for a more reliable and cost-effective freight solution, Turner’s team analyzed 85 dedicated lanes and delivered over 5% savings—while improving service reliability.

The co-op’s previous provider hadn’t prioritized their shipments. Pickups were inconsistent. Deliveries missed windows. Watco’s team already had established carrier relationships on many of those lanes and could leverage existing volume to drive rates down.

That same analysis capability applies to every VAFS customer. Whether you’re running a single recurring lane or building mixed trucks from multiple origins, Watco approaches your freight with the same rigor they’d apply to their largest accounts.

“If one of your food banks came to us and said, ‘Hey, I’m running these lanes,’ we would fall all over ourselves to try to solve that issue,” Turner says.

The Risks You’re Not Managing

There’s a side of freight that food banks rarely think about—until it becomes a crisis.

Double brokering. Load theft. Unvetted carriers. These aren’t abstract industry problems. They’re daily realities that Watco’s team actively manages on behalf of every shipment.

Double brokering happens when a carrier accepts a load, then quietly hands it off to another company—one that hasn’t been vetted, may not carry proper insurance, and whose driver’s qualifications are unknown. If something goes wrong, the liability chain gets complicated fast.

“We don’t know who they gave it to,” Turner explains. “Whoever they gave it to may not have insurance, may not have authority. Their driver may not be legal to be driving. They go out and get in an accident—they’re going to come after that original company, they’re going to come after us, they’re going to come after our customers.”

Watco invests in technology specifically designed to catch these situations before they happen: GPS tracking cross-referenced against carrier equipment locations, load commitment analysis compared against reported fleet sizes, and direct verification with shippers and receivers.

“My guys go above and beyond to reach out if they think something doesn’t feel right,” Turner says. “We spot check, big time.”

Food banks aren’t typically high-value targets for load theft—as Turner notes, there’s limited black market demand for a truckload of grape jelly with three days of shelf life left. But the vetting infrastructure that protects against theft also protects against the more common problems: unreliable carriers, missed appointments, and the operational headaches that cascade when freight doesn’t show up as promised.

How the Partnership Started

The VAFS-Watco relationship began the way many good partnerships do: through a mutual connection and a conversation that just clicked.

Turner had visited a Feeding America contact whose office was located inside the VAFS facility in Wayland, Michigan. Before leaving, she introduced him to Ben Frigmanski, VAFS’s owner.

“She just walked out, closed the door, and Ben and I sat there and kind of chit-chatted,” Turner recalls. “We probably talked about everything under the sun—who I was, what my relationship was with Feeding America. I gave him our sales pitch, told him a little bit about my history with food banks and what we stood for, thanked him for his time, and left.”

A few weeks later, Turner’s phone rang.

“I was very surprised to hear from him, and pretty sure what came out of his mouth was, ‘Did you mean what you said?’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’ And he said, ‘Well, let’s give it a try.’”

That trial has grown into a partnership spanning thousands of shipments annually. Turner’s team—which he brought to Watco two years ago, introducing the hunger relief sector into the company’s portfolio—now operates as a specialized unit within a much larger logistics organization.

The combination matters. Turner brings 27 years of food bank-specific experience. Watco brings scale, technology investment, and the infrastructure to handle surges in demand without scrambling for capacity.

What’s Ahead

Turner’s team is watching the same pressures food banks are feeling: increased demand, funding uncertainty, and evolving regulations. They’re staffing and equipping to handle volume surges—whether from seasonal peaks, disaster response, or the unpredictable spikes that have become more common in recent years.

For VAFS customers, that preparation happens in the background. The freight shows up. The appointments are scheduled. The carriers are vetted.

And when Turner’s team says they’ll be there, they mean it.

“VAFS is a great company to work with—not only for the products they offer but also their people,” Turner says. “The VAFS team has an excellent understanding of hunger relief. They know the expectations and are always working on new and creative ways to service the needs of their clients and partners.”

The feeling is mutual.