Central Texas Food Bank opens Waco hub to expand access beyond business hours

Central Texas Food Bank’s new Waco hub was built as more than a warehouse. At 1402 Gholson Road, the 64,000-square-foot facility sits on 11.3 acres and was designed to move food, meals and support services closer to families, schools and partner agencies that could not easily use Austin-based operations during standard business hours.

The regional stakes are high. Central Texas Food Bank serves 21 counties and says the average food insecurity rate in its territory is 18.2%, above the Texas average of 17.7%. More than 477,000 Central Texans in the service area could not afford adequate food at all times, and the need is even more severe in the organization’s nine northern counties, where food insecurity is 19.5% compared with 15.4% in the south. In McLennan County, the rate is 19%, and nearly one in four children faces food insecurity.

That is why the Waco site was planned as a northern territory distribution center, bringing services about 100 miles closer to some communities than the food bank’s Austin headquarters. The hub was shaped by community research with partner agencies and local leaders, a point that matters for food recovery work because route timing, pickup windows and pantry schedules can determine whether donated food actually reaches people after work, on weekends or during school breaks.

The facility was designed to support that kind of flexibility. It includes a community market, on-site pantry, warehouse, sorting area, community garden and a commercial kitchen for hot meal preparation, including afterschool meals for children. The site also expands distribution and supports mobile distributions, a setup that gives schools, pantries and neighborhood partners more options for getting food when their own staffing and volunteer schedules do not match a traditional warehouse day.

The Waco hub also folds workforce support into hunger relief. Central Texas Food Bank’s culinary training program is free and covers culinary basics, food safety and professional development. Its warehouse training program teaches shipping and receiving, inventory management, forklift certification, ServSafe and career development support. The organization also works with Workforce Solutions Capital Area on job resources and with Texas Health and Human Services on SNAP and other benefit applications.

The project moved from rezoning approval by Waco City Council on Oct. 1, 2024, when the food bank called it the second-largest investment in its history, to groundbreaking on March 4, 2025. For food-recovery organizations and volunteers coordinating pickups, pantry relationships and delivery routes, the Waco model shows how access can widen when service is built around the hours neighbors, agencies and staff can actually use.