Dive Brief:

• Meijer and Bashas’ separately announced this week that they have started accepting online grocery payments for shoppers enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
• Meijer said it has added the payment capability to all of its stores in Michigan for pickup and delivery service, and said it plans to expand the offering to customers shopping in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Kentucky in the “coming weeks.”
• Bashas’ said more than 100 of its grocery stores across Arizona now offer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) online payment for same-day delivery and curbside pickup orders placed through Instacart. All of the stores under its Bashas’, AJ’s Fine Foods, Eddie’s Country Store and Food City banners offer the capability now through Instacart's marketplace, and Bashas’ is working to roll it out to its Diné stores across Arizona and New Mexico in the "coming months."

Dive Insight:

With these latest announcements, Meijer and Bashas' have added their names to the list of grocers that have recently made e-commerce payment capabilities available to shoppers enrolled in the SNAP program. In recent weeks, Wegmans, Sam's Club and BJ's Wholesale Club have also expanded their digital payment options for SNAP consumers.

Meijer has enabled online payment using EBT cards for both its pickup and home delivery service. Meijer Pickup charges a $4.95 fee that's waived on orders over $35, while its home delivery service charges $7.95 per order.

Both services offer more than 100,000 products spanning grocery, general merchandise, household items and more. SNAP shoppers can use a separate form of payment to cover items not approved under the federal assistance program within the same order.

To incentivize adoption, Meijer is offering new pickup and Home Delivery customers $15 off their first three orders of $75 or more for a limited time.

"We believe all customers should have access to personalized, convenient, digital shopping services and understand the added benefit this new payment capability provides," Derek Steele, Meijer's vice president of customer strategy, said in a statement.

To place pickup and delivery orders through Bashas', SNAP users are required to create a profile through Instacart and enter their EBT SNAP card information. When ordering, they will be required to specify the amount of EBT SNAP benefits they would like to apply. They must also have a secondary form of payment on hand to cover taxes, tips and fees.

After a slow start and backlog during the early months of the pandemic, SNAP online purchasing options are becoming more widespread across a variety of U.S. retailers, including club, discount and traditional grocers. Instacart, which has helped lead the charge, ramped up its SNAP payment service in 2020 and now enables online payments through the program from more than 60 retailers across the country. 

The assistance program is particularly relevant right now as inflation and gas prices continue to rise. However, some states are reducing funding to the program after increasing it early in the pandemic.