Dave Saoud

Co-Founder and Co-CEO FreezPak Logistics

Last Reviewed: September 26, 2026

Executive Summary

Dave Saoud is co-founder and co-CEO of FreezPak Logistics, a family-owned cold storage and temperature-controlled food logistics company that he and his brother Mike Saoud started in 2001. FreezPak is the latest form of a family food business that began in 1961 as Ray Saoud Farms, a local retail store. Under the brothers it has become a third-party logistics provider offering cold storage, transportation, crossdocking, blast freezing, customs-bonded warehousing and USDA inspections. It now lists 14 facilities in eight states. Dave Saoud leads sales operations, transportation and the site selection and design of new buildings. He is also co-owner of Saoud Development, the company’s real-estate arm.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded FreezPak Logistics in 2001 with his brother Mike Saoud, and serves alongside him as co-CEO.
• Oversees sales operations and transportation strategy, and directs site selection and building design for the company’s expansion.
• Co-owner of Saoud Development, which designs, develops and builds FreezPak’s cold storage facilities.
• Quoted on FreezPak’s August 2022 partnership with BG Capital, which aimed at $1 billion of cold storage development, with more than 200 million cubic feet of warehouse space across the country.
• Quoted in October 2022 as FreezPak extended its relationship with Plug Power, a supplier since 2014, to cover hydrogen fuel cells and fueling infrastructure at nine more sites and nearly 400 lift trucks.
• Graduated cum laude from Seton Hall University with a degree in business management.

Professional Journey

The Saoud family has worked in food since 1961. By FreezPak’s own account, Ray Saoud Farms began in the 1960s as a local retail store and became a wholesale supplier. In the 1970s it moved into frozen foods, and in the 1990s the family prepared its next generation to take over. In 2001 Dave Saoud and his brother Mike relaunched the business as FreezPak Logistics. They took it out of wholesale food and into third-party logistics, storing, handling and moving temperature-sensitive food for other companies.

The brothers share the top job. FreezPak’s leadership page gives both of them the same Co-Founder/CEO title, and the press describes them as co-CEOs. Dave’s part of the business, according to his ACG New Jersey biography, is the commercial and physical side: sales operations, transportation strategy, end-to-end solutions for customers, and choosing and designing the sites the company builds. That last role grew in importance as FreezPak began developing its own warehouses rather than leasing space. In 2022 Mike Saoud told FreightWaves that speculative cold storage was not built for the automation and material-handling equipment the company needed.

In August 2022, when FreezPak ran five facilities (four in New Jersey and one in Philadelphia), the company announced a partnership with BG Capital. Its stated target was $1 billion of cold storage development and more than 200 million cubic feet of warehouse space nationwide. Dave Saoud said at the time that the partnership made FreezPak “the developer, operator, integrator and logistics provider.” A later FreezPak news headline reports a BG Capital project on a 30-acre site outside Houston. FreezPak also committed to hydrogen: in October 2022 Plug Power announced that FreezPak, a customer since 2014, would add fuel cells and hydrogen infrastructure at nine more sites. In that release Dave Saoud linked the move to efficiency and to cutting carbon emissions.

Development now runs through Saoud Development, which FreezPak describes as the division that designs, develops and builds its facilities. In a 2026 announcement of a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with up to 9.8 million cubic feet of temperature-controlled capacity, he is quoted as co-owner of both FreezPak Logistics and Saoud Development. FreezPak has also announced facilities in Fall River, Massachusetts; Jacksonville, Florida; Los Angeles; and Suffolk, Virginia. Its site lists 14 locations: New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts and California.

Education

Seton Hall University

Business management, cum laude