Case Study: Turning Pallets of Abandoned Food Into a Donation

Challenge

When a client stops paying and goes quiet, the inventory they leave behind becomes the warehouse’s problem. Symbia’s Houston facility was holding 22 pallets of unexpired canned food, tomato sauce and applesauce, with no clear path forward. The product was in good condition. It wasn’t damaged. It wasn’t expired. It simply had nowhere to go.

Disposal felt like the wrong answer for food that could still feed people. Traditional donation, the kind that requires sourcing a willing nonprofit, arranging transportation, and generating documentation independently, wasn’t a realistic option without significant time and coordination. Symbia needed a way to move the inventory quickly, cleanly, and to the right place.

Solution

Symbia connected with Stock, a marketplace platform founded by logistics veteran Abby Nawrocki, to handle the donation from end to end. Stock was built specifically to connect brands and 3PLs holding excess inventory with nonprofits that need it, managing the matching, transportation, scheduling, and tax documentation on behalf of the donor.

Symbia listed the 22 pallets on Stock’s platform. From there, Stock took over:

• Nonprofit matching: Stock identified One Generation Away, a food distribution nonprofit serving North Alabama, Middle Tennessee, and the Florida Panhandle
• Transportation: Stock arranged and coordinated delivery to One Generation Away’s Alabama facility
• Documentation: Stock handled all paperwork required for the donation and tax deduction
• Cost to nonprofit: None

“We had 22 pallets of food sitting in our Houston warehouse with nowhere to go. Stock handled everything: finding the right nonprofit, arranging transportation, and taking care of the paperwork. It was the easiest decision we made, and the right one.”

— Leslie Barton, Symbia

Outcomes

The 22 pallets of canned food left Symbia’s Houston warehouse and reached families in need through One Generation Away’s distribution network. Symbia recovered the floor space, closed out the abandoned inventory cleanly, and generated a tax-deductible outcome instead of a disposal expense.

This inventory donation case study reflects a broader opportunity for 3PLs and brands sitting on excess or abandoned product. Stock moved the inventory in under five days, compared to the 16 weeks traditional liquidation typically requires. The cost of transportation for a full truckload through Stock often runs under $800.

“There is $1.88 trillion in excess inventory sitting in U.S. warehouses and 1.5 million nonprofits that need it. Those two groups have never had a clean way to connect. That is exactly the problem Stock was built to solve.”

— Abby Nawrocki, Founder, Stock

One Generation Away distributed the donated food through its mobile pantry network, reaching individuals and families across North Alabama at no cost and with no registration required.

If your warehouse is carrying inventory with nowhere good to go, Symbia works with partners like Stock to turn excess product into a tax-advantaged, community-directed outcome. Learn more about the brands Symbia is built to serve or reach out to start the conversation.