Missourians on the state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would no longer be able to use it to buy certain products, including candy and soda, under a proposed change.
Gov. Mike Kehoe's office announced in late September that it submitted a waiver request to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to change Missouri's SNAP program. The goal, according to the governor, is to focus more on healthier food — and subsequently discontinue SNAP eligibility for certain products.
"We are looking to promote and prioritize healthy foods that have higher nutritional value, focusing on whole and minimally processed foods," Melissa Wolf with the Missouri Department of Social Services said.
Wolf said another goal through the change is to better promote local food.
"We feel like this is a great way to support Missouri agriculture with those fresh fruits, with our farmers, ranchers," Wolf said.
The waiver filed to the USDA states Missouri will classify certain food and beverages as restricted. Those products will no longer be SNAP eligible.
Six categories of food and beverages are listed as ineligible. They are: candy, prepared desserts, soft drinks, drinks with 50% or less natural fruit or vegetable juice, beverage mixes and drink concentrates with 50% or less natural fruit or vegetable juice.
Christine Woody, food security policy manager with Empower Missouri, said that while promoting healthier food is a good goal, this change isn't the best way to accomplish that.
"Restricting purchases through SNAP is going to really cause a huge challenge and headache for all parties involved, be that the Department of Social Services, the grocers, or even the SNAP recipients themselves," Woody said.
Woody said since the waiver is broad in what it's prohibiting, the department will have to specifically state what items can be purchased and which ones cannot.
"I think that kind of broad stroke of what they say is healthy or not healthy, there's a lot of room for decisions that should be made individually or by doctors or nutritionists or dieticians," Woody said.
Dan Shaul, executive state director of the Missouri Grocers Association, said he's supportive of the goal to promote healthier food. He also said that logistically, the definitions of what is going to be allowed or not under SNAP need to be clear.
"When you get into prepared desserts, there's a way, and we've seen this in Florida, that that can also lead over into protein bars and different healthy foods that would inadvertently be knocked off the list because of the definition. So I think we need to be very careful of that. The definitions are at the heart of this," Shaul said.
Shaul also said the changes would likely affect accessibility of products.
"When you have different rules in different states, production and manufacturing of the food will certainly be altered, and I think the logistics of warehouses that serve several states are now going to have to implement further levels of technology to make sure that something doesn't get delivered to Missouri by mistake," Shaul said.
Another hurdle to this change, according to Shaul, is how it would affect the consumer.
"The consumer is going to have to work with us and understand that the person at the checkout isn't the one making the rule," Shaul said. "These rules will have been made many times several 100 miles from that cash register, and that person at the cash register is the one that's going to have to deal with the confusion."
There's also the matter of price. Woody said healthier can be more expensive.
"The price point of nonhealthy foods compared to healthy foods is, I'm sure, a lot of the challenge, and the reason people make those decisions when they're in the grocery store is the goal is to make sure that your children are fed is the baseline goal," Woody said.
Wolf said the state has several initiatives aimed at making fresh food more affordable, like the "Double Up Food Bucks" program.
"How do we expand that, and how do we make that SNAP dollar go further to purchase your fresh fruits and vegetables, your meat, your poultry, your dairy, your whole grains," Wolf said.
Expanding programs like that, Woody said, are what the state should be focusing on.
In addition to the SNAP change, the state announced it will explore a waiver request to make ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken SNAP eligible.
Wolf said greater details on what will qualify will be announced as the waiver goes through the approval process. The state's goal is to implement the changes in October of next year.
There is a comment period on the changes that is now open until Oct. 29. Comments can be sent to the Department of Social Services at DSS.DirectorsOffice@dss.mo.gov.
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