Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service is proposing changes to strengthen the stocking requirements for retailers participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
These changes, according to Rollins would protect the program, participants, and taxpayers by mitigating fraud, waste, and abuse and ensuring additional healthy food options for recipient families.
She says retailers participating in SNAP need to sell real food, plain and simple.
“Right now, the bar for stocking food as a SNAP retailer is far too low, allowing people to game the system and leaving vulnerable Americans without healthy food options,” Rollins said. “These commonsense changes are designed to minimize benefit tracking and skimming, among other fraudulent activities.”
Among other changes, the proposal requires retailers to stock seven varieties of food in each of the four staple categories, including dairy, protein, grain, and fruits and vegetables, which is up from the current requirement of three.
