The Agriculture Department is tightening the rules for stores that accept SNAP, requiring authorized retailers to stock a broader mix of nutritious foods starting this fall. Under the usda snap retailer rule changes, participating stores must carry seven varieties of items across four staple food categories: protein, grains, dairy, and fruits and vegetables.
The new standard more than doubles the current requirement, and it also raises the bar on perishable foods while ending the practice of counting certain snack foods toward staple food obligations. Brooke L. Rollins said the goal is to make sure nutrition assistance emphasizes “real food first,” adding that retailers taking in more than $90 billion a year, or $236 million a day, in taxpayer dollars should actually be selling food.
The move lands in a program that is already under intense scrutiny. SNAP is the largest federal anti-hunger program in the United States, and the USDA is also ramping up efforts to crack down on food stamp fraud nationwide. Rollins said the department made more than 1,000 arrests in the crackdown, including 895 different people in the last year for illegally using the food stamp system.
She also said the USDA found 500,000 people getting more than one benefit illegally and 244,000 dead people in the system, though she said the examples she cited were from “red states.” The department is working to close a loophole under the Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility policy, which Rollins has tied to cases where wealthy individuals may qualify for SNAP benefits despite having the money to buy expensive cars.
One state alone, she said, has 14,000 individuals on SNAP benefits who also drive luxury vehicles such as Ferraris, Bentleys and Lamborghinis. USDA data also showed 4.2 million fewer food stamp recipients during President Trump’s first year in office, a figure Rollins cited as evidence that tighter oversight can sharply reduce rolls. The question now is whether the new retailer rules, paired with the fraud crackdown, will change not just who gets benefits but what those benefits can actually buy.