Feds May Force SNAP Retailers to Stock Healthier Foods

Ramirez Meat Market, a small grocery in East Los Angeles, was never your average neighborhood store. Even before it started stocking more fresh, healthy foods and got a newly painted façade in 2013 as part of a public health program, owner Celia Ramirez didn’t sell alcohol. She believed that not putting beer and liquor on her shelves was best for her neighborhood, even if selling them could have made her more money. So it was not surprising that when she was offered the opportunity to overhaul her store as part of a public health initiative led by researchers at UCLA, Ramirez jumped at the opportunity.

“It’s good to offer people fruits and vegetables because in these days, there are lots of people with high blood pressure and diabetes,” she told Salud America, a public health nonprofit focused on Latinos, about upgrading her store. Not all proprietors of small groceries and convenience stores are so focused on the public well-being, but that could change with a rule change announced Tuesday by the USDA. The proposal would force the smaller stores to stock up on healthier food options or risk losing their ability to accept SNAP money, which would inadvertently take away some of the limited food retail resources in neighborhoods that major supermarkets have long ignored.

William McCarthy, a professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, was one of the leads on the corner-store makeover project in East Los Angeles—an area notable for its large minority population, high rates of diet-related disease, and generally poor food access. Stores like Ramirez Meat Market started stocking healthier food products, and store owners received new equipment and know-how to help them store and sell the often perishable goods.

“I think that’s the kind of model that the USDA wants to use,” McCarthy said in an interview on Wednesday, “but in their case, instead of offering something extra, they’re offering to take away the authority to take SNAP benefits from patrons.”

“We were using a carrot. They’re proposing to use a stick,” he added.

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The proposed rule change, which Congress requested when the most recent farm bill passed in 2014, would set a higher bar for the amount of both staple and healthy food items retailers should stock to be eligible to accept SNAP benefits.

SNAP retailers are required to sell three types of food in four categories: fruits and vegetables, dairy, bread and other grains, and meat products (including poultry and fish). That number would be upped to seven for each food group if the rule change goes through, with perishable items required for three out of the four food types. The overall stock at an authorized retailer would have to include 168 foods deemed “healthy” by the USDA.

“USDA is committed to expanding access for SNAP participants to the types of foods that are important to a healthy diet,” Kevin Concannon, the undersecretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services at the USDA, said in a release. “This proposed rule ensures that retailers who accept SNAP benefits offer a variety of products to support healthy choices for those participating in the program.”

For certain SNAP retailers, being hit by that proverbial stick could hurt. More than a third of authorized retailers are convenience stores, and 20 percent of SNAP purchases are made at either convenience stores or small grocery stores, according to a 2011 USDA report. While the rule change would have no effect on Walmart—the nation’s largest grocery retailer and, by some estimates, the recipient of around 18 percent of all SNAP dollars—smaller markets and corner stores could be facing a significant overhaul to meet the requirements.

The National Association of Convenience Stores, an industry trade group, is not thrilled with the change, which it says goes “significantly beyond” what was laid out in the 2014 farm bill. Anna Ready, the group’s director of government relations, said that NACS is still reviewing the plan but pointed toward a brief sent to its membership on Wednesday. It reads, in part: “The proposal will make it increasingly difficult for convenience store owners and operators to participate in SNAP,” adding that a loss of SNAP retailers would “negatively impact” food-stamp recipients who shop at convenience stores.

Research has shown that in urban places, supermarkets tend to serve areas with predominantly white populations, while smaller retailers are more common in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. So not only is the burden higher for small SNAP retailers, but there is also more at stake from a public health perspective, with minorities suffering from many diet-related diseases at higher rates than whites. In terms of weight, for example, nearly half of African American adults are obese, compared with about one-third of white adults.

But simply increasing access to healthy food in neighborhoods deemed food deserts doesn’t have a great track record of improving public health outcomes in those areas. For example, dropping a state-subsidized grocery store into the Bronx “did not result in significant changes in household food availability or children’s dietary intake,” according to a 2015 New York University study. However, more hands-on efforts like the UCLA study in East L.A. and programs in Philadelphia and elsewhere have shown limited success in increasing the availability and sale of healthier foods.

A new mandate from the USDA likely would not come with funding to provide 480 hours of training for store owners adding new, healthy products to their shelves, as the Philly program did for 660 corner stores between 2010 and 2012.

McCarthy is hoping that the USDA will learn from the work that he and his colleagues have done. Others in his field, he said, have made comments on the proposed rule change: “What some of us are recommending is government advice and support during the transition so that the shop owners who understand the merits of this proposal can make it work effectively.” Without that kind of support, he added, “I don’t see this being very successful.”

The USDA will accept public comments on the rule change for the next two months.