USDA stocking standards fail to increase access to healthy food for SNAP shoppers

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) staple food stocking standards final rule released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture represents a missed opportunity to help SNAP participants “eat real food” by failing to tie the standards to any kind of nutrition requirements and offering no technical assistance for retailers, putting thousands of retailers at risk of disqualification from the program. 

USDA’s announcement of the rule begins with a celebration of the large number of retailers that USDA has recently disqualified from accepting SNAP for failure to meet stocking requirements, calling into question the true intent of the updated standards. Is it an honest attempt to improve food access for SNAP shoppers? Or another vehicle for slashing SNAP? 

Staple food stocking standards are minimum food inventory requirements that ensure SNAP-authorized retailers carry a variety of foods in four different staple food categories (fruits and vegetables, grains, dairy, and protein). With more than 260,000 retailers participating in SNAP, stocking standards could be used as a key lever for promoting access to healthy foods in communities across the country. 

While today’s final rule will increase the variety and number of different types of foods that SNAP retailers must carry in each of the four staple food categories, it does not ensure these foods will be healthy. The rule does establish a new list of non-nutritious “Accessory Foods” that will not be allowed to count toward staple foods. For instance, jerky cannot count as a staple meat, butter cannot count as a staple dairy, and so on. But the rule does not include limits on added sugars, sodium, saturated fat, and refined grains, for foods to count towards minimum inventory requirements.  

Retailers will be allowed to comply with updated stocking standards by simply offering a wider variety of unhealthy and harmful ultra-processed foods such as canned fruit in heavy syrup, sugary cereal, and SPAM. 

The new requirements will hit small retailers, like corner and convenience stores, the hardest at the exact time that retailers in many states are struggling to navigate the implementation of SNAP waivers that restrict previously allowable SNAP purchases such as sweetened beverages and candy. Without a robust technical assistance plan to help retailers comply with the new rules, this could potentially lead to more retailers dropping out of the SNAP program. 

The irony is not lost on us that the Trump Administration says "eat real food" but won’t require stores to stock it.