The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced new requirements for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program retailers Thursday morning that could affect access for recipients in Nebraska.
Eric Savaiano, Nebraska Appleseed’s food and nutrition access program manager, said the new rules, which are set to take effect in the fall, may result in changes to which Nebraskans have access.
The new rules, which are a part of the Make America Healthy Again initiative, require retailers who accept SNAP benefits to provide seven varieties of items across four categories of staple foods: protein, grains, dairy and fruits and vegetables.
“If the SNAP retailer can’t keep up with those stocking standards, that means that they will drop the program, and that means that people participating in SNAP will have to travel 45 minutes, hour longer, maybe shorter, to get the food that they need,” Savaiano said.
According to the USDA’s press release, the changes more than double the requirements for available foods, emphasize more whole goods, increase perishable food requirements and eliminate loopholes that allowed retailers to count some snack foods toward staple food requirements.
“To turn the tide on our nation’s health crisis, we need to ensure our nutrition assistance programs emphasize real food first, and that’s exactly what these updates to SNAP retailer requirements will do,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in the press release.
Savaiano said the stocking standards were introduced during the Biden administration and that the Trump administration is finishing them.
“We do want to see more people have access to different varieties of food and more whole foods. If the SNAP can pay for it, that’s even better,” Savaiano said. “But if the enforcement actions mean that those SNAP retailers can’t sell SNAP anymore, or accept SNAP, that means that those people have much less access to food than before.”