Food Lion enables online SNAP EBT payments across its stores

Food Lion has gone live chainwide with acceptance of electronic benefit transfer (EBT) payments for online orders from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) customers.

The Ahold Delhaize USA supermarket chain said this week SNAP participants across its 10-state Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic market area can now link their food card information as a direct form of payment when shopping online via the Food Lion To Go online grocery pickup service.

Overall, Salisbury, N.C.-based Food Lion operates more than 1,100 stores.

“We’re excited to now offer all our neighbors using SNAP EBT this new option to shop however they prefer, in-store or online,” Evan Harding, director of digital and e-commerce at Food Lion, said in a statement. “Food Lion To Go allows customers the ability to shop from wherever is most convenient, while still ensuring they have access to fresh, nutritious food to nourish their families. It’s one of the many ways Food Lion makes grocery shopping easy, fresh and affordable for our neighbors.”

Food Lion To-Go personal shoppers pick and bag the orders and then load them into customers’ vehicles when they arrive at the store.

The chainwide rollout comes a few months after an initial deployment of SNAP EBT functionality at more than 350 Food Lion stores in North Carolina under a partnership with Instacart. At the time, SNAP EBT payments were available only via the Instacart marketplace, but the capability has been enabled on the Food Lion site and mobile app.

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Food Lion provides online grocery delivery and pickup under the Food Lion To-Go brand via its website and app, both powered by Instacart Enterprise.

To use the EBT service, SNAP customers go to shop.foodlion.com or open the Food Lion To-Go app, enter their ZIP code, select their local store and start shopping for eligible fresh food, grocery and daily essential products. When done adding items to the virtual cart, they then choose a pickup window — for the same day or up to seven days in advance — and check out. Food Lion To-Go personal shoppers pick and pack the orders and then load them into customers’ vehicles when they arrive at the store.  

Food Lion noted that SNAP customers get the same prices as in stores via the EBT service. They also can link their MVP savings loyalty card to their SNAP EBT account, use digital coupons and redeem Shop & Earn MVP rewards savings. Users see their accumulated Shop & Earn rewards on their checkout screen and can view which clipped digital coupons to apply to their order.

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.

Related:Food Lion launches SNAP EBT payment for Instacart orders