Central Texas Food Bank uses data to guide Waco expansion
Central Texas Food Bank chose Waco for its first site outside Austin after mapping a 19.5% northern hunger rate and a 9.1-to-1 gap in food access.
The 64,000-square-foot Central Texas Food Bank facility at 1402 Gholson Road on 11.3 acres broke ground on March 4, 2025, after Waco City Council approval. A Community Needs Assessment showed McLennan County with a 19% food insecurity rate and nearly 25% child food insecurity, making Waco the food bank’s first site outside the Austin area.
The site will include a sorting facility, a public food pantry, a commercial kitchen, a garden, benefits assistance, nutrition education, workforce training in culinary arts and warehouse work, and a volunteer sort room. The Waco location will serve as a northern territory distribution center, putting services about 100 miles closer to its Austin headquarters.
CEO Sari Vatske built an 11-person Strategic Insights department with a budget of about $1 million, and that team uses dashboards, surveys, interviews and community needs assessments to map how food moves through Central Texas. The team found 9.1 times as many convenience stores and fast-food restaurants as grocery stores in the region. Food Access Convening Tool data showed food insecurity at 19.5% in the nine northern counties of its 21-county service area, compared with 15.4% in the southern counties, with more than 157,000 neighbors in the Heart of Texas region struggling to find their next meal. In the Waco area, only 48% of respondents said they accessed charitable food even though 84% experienced food insecurity, with schedule conflicts and lack of awareness among the barriers.
Shepherd’s Heart, which has served Waco and surrounding communities since 2010, merged into Central Texas Food Bank on June 1, and part of the community market will be named after Shepherd’s Heart. The Applied Materials Foundation is the largest contributor to the project to date. Vatske said the food bank serves 21 counties, and at one point it had gone from spending $1.3 million monthly to $1 million weekly on food.
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