Harps Food Store on Friday kicked off electronic benefits transfer (EBT) SNAP ((Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) payment for same-day delivery via Instacart. With this program, EBT SNAP participants are now able to use their benefits to access fresh food and pantry staples online from 67 Harps locations across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.
The launch of the program follows the USDA Food and Nutrition Service’s most recent approval allowing Harps and Instacart to launch their SNAP online partnership. With transportation often serving as a barrier to the grocery store, Harps delivery via Instacart hopes to make accessing food easier for customers, the Springdale, Ark.-based retailer said.
“We appreciate the efforts of both the DHS and Instacart in helping us to add SNAP benefits for our customers,” said David Ganoung, vice president of marketing and advertising for Harps Food Store, a 100% employee-owned company that operates 115 stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas.
To help subsidize costs for EBT SNAP participants, Instacart will waive delivery or pickup fees through Dec. 31, 2021, on up to the first three EBT SNAP orders for each customer with a valid EBT card associated with their Instacart account. For more information about EBT SNAP on Instacart, visit www.instacart.com/ebt-snap.
Where available, EBT SNAP participants will now be able to shop from Harps via shop.harpsfood.com, the Instacart website and/or Instacart mobile app. Once an Instacart customer profile is created, customers can enter their EBT food card information as a form of payment in their profile. Customers will need a secondary form of payment for non-food items such as taxes, tips and fees per federal SNAP guidelines. Customers can then enter their ZIP code to determine if they are near a participating retailer, and begin shopping and selecting items from retailers’ EBT-eligible products. Once items are added to their cart, customers will be able to select how much of their benefits they would like to allocate to the order. Orders for delivery and pickup can be placed by customers for receipt in as fast as an hour or scheduled several days in advance.
Under the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot, launched by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in April 2019, 47 states and the District of Columbia now allow SNAP beneficiaries to shop and pay for groceries online.
A growing number of grocery chains have signed on to offer SNAP EBT online purchases this year, including Ahold Delhaize USA supermarkets and retailers ranging from Schnuck Markets, Tops Markets and Publix Super Markets to Save Mart, Price Chopper and more.
