Increasing Access, Affordability and Choice for SNAP Families Nationwide

Today, we’re incredibly proud to announce that Instacart is the first online grocery marketplace to accept SNAP payments in all 50 states and Washington D.C. Expanding access to food is at the heart of our mission, and this achievement marks a crucial step towards ensuring that everyone has access to the affordable, nutritious food they need to thrive.

In 2020, we launched SNAP as a payment option online for the first time, working closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), state agencies, and our retail partners. At the time, we believed that online grocery and delivery could have a transformative impact on the way people across the country access food, and that belief has only deepened over the past three years. Since that first launch, our teams – led by Sarah Mastrorocco, our Vice President and General Manager of Instacart Health – mobilized with the goal of breaking down access barriers and modernizing the way families put food on the table. With our technology, now any grocer, of any size, in any state, can accept SNAP online for their customers. 

Today, we enable more than 120 grocery banners – including regional favorites like Ahold Delhaize USA, Albertsons Companies, Cardenas Markets, Publix, Raley’s, The Save Mart Companies, Sprouts Farmers Market, Wakefern Food Corp., Wegmans and countless others – to accept SNAP online across more than 10,000 stores. Through our retail partnerships, Instacart now reaches nearly 95% of U.S. households enrolled in SNAP.

Contributing to the importance of this expansion, in 2022, we formally launched Instacart Health and announced several bold commitments to support the White House’s National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Among them, we committed to expanding online SNAP acceptance to all 50 states by the end of 2023 – and with the launch of Alaska, we’re proud to have delivered on that promise. Now, SNAP recipients in every state can shop from a broad selection of local retailers on Instacart, using their benefits in a way that best meets their unique needs, tastes and budgets. 

Research by No Kid Hungry, the University of Kentucky, and Instacart has shown that online grocery shopping helps low-income families, including SNAP households, stretch their food budgets, save time, reduce potential stigma, and purchase more fresh produce without increasing their overall grocery bill. For SNAP families in all 50 states, today’s expansion means more flexibility, convenience, and dignity of choice. 

Bringing SNAP online across the country is a significant achievement, but our work doesn’t stop here. We’re resolute in our commitment to create a world where everyone has access to the food they love. We believe that achieving nutrition security is a collective effort, and we are proud to work closely with public and private partners to better serve our communities.

Dani Dudeck

Author

Dani Dudeck is the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Instacart.