Rescuing rejected truck loads with help from Lineage Logistics

On a Wednesday in mid-September 2017, a call came into the office. On the line was a food transport driver: “I have a truck full of yogurt that was just declined by the customer.” Why? “It wasn’t what they ordered.” How much is a truck full? In this case, eight pallets – nearly 9,000 16-oz. containers. Not only that, but this yogurt’s sell by date was still six-eight weeks away. What a windfall and a scramble to deliver it all!

Several times a year we get a call from a driver with a rejected load. We have to be prepared to accept it immediately, or else it’s more expedient for the driver to dump it at the landfill. Thanks to a partnership with Lineage Logistics donating cold warehouse space starting in 2020, we can say yes to most of these calls. Lineage accepts the donation on our behalf, giving us time to plan distribution logistics on a schedule that is most helpful to partner agencies. By finding ways to accept these offers, we’ve recovered chicken, oranges, Brussels sprouts, beef, milk, and more.