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The 42.2 million Americans who get food assistance through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were dealt a blow last March, when they lost an average benefit of $82 a month when pandemic-related enhanced benefits expired.
A year later, the cuts are still reverberating. Kraft Heinz Co. CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera revealed on a recent earnings call that sales of its mac-and-cheese products have suffered because “it’s a business that is driven disproportionately by our SNAP exposure.”
On a brighter note, for the first time, SNAP recipients across the lower 48 will be able to use the benefit with an online-only grocer, Thrive Market, using electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards. While other e-commerce merchants, including FreshDirect, accept SNAP benefits in certain states or regions under USDA pilot programs, Thrive Market is the first to be greenlighted nationwide. The program begins February 21 in California and the rest of the contiguous states on February 26.
Values proposition: “It’s just extraordinarily fundamental to our mission,” Nick Green, cofounder and CEO of Thrive Market, told Retail Brew. “We’re trying to make healthy and sustainable living easy, affordable, and accessible to anyone.”
The 10-year-old company has always been mission-driven, becoming a Public Benefit Corporation in 2023 and committing to become carbon-negative by 2025. Its ground-shipping-only policy to minimize environmental impact means it doesn’t deliver to Alaska or Hawaii. (The company contends that air-freight has five times the carbon footprint as ground shipping.)
Food supplements: Like Costco, Thrive Market has a members-only model, costing $60 annually. But the company is waiving the membership fee for SNAP users, as it already does for teachers, students, veterans, first responders, nurses, and low-income families. It subsidizes bills for financially needy shoppers—including SNAP recipients—through funds donated by all shoppers when they check out.
To achieve several mission-oriented goals, including disaster relief and subsidizing food costs for the food-insecure, Thrive Market pledged in 2020 to raise $10 million from its customers by 2025, a goal it reached two years early, in 2023, having raised a total of $13.5 million.
While Thrive Market will get a boost by being the first online-only grocer approved to accept SNAP nationwide, Green said it’s a competitive advantage he’ll gladly forgo if his competitors get the go-ahead.
“Honestly, for us, the more the merrier, because that’s all advancing the mission,” Green said. “SNAP EBT should be usable online or off as long as the products qualify.”