FMI Applauds Passage of Child Nutrition Act

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Food Marketing Institute on Friday praised the U.S. Senate for passing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

“We are pleased the Senate passed legislation to ensure low-income children will continue to receive nutritious meals through the federal food program,” said Jennifer Hatcher, FMI’s senior vice president of government and public affairs, in a statement.

Hatcher also pointed out that the act includes provisions to help lay the groundwork for a smooth transition for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) customers to use an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card for their transactions at grocery stores. “This is a very positive development and we applaud Sens. [Blanche] Lincoln [D-Ark.] and [Saxby] Chambliss [R-Ga.] for their work on it,” she said.

But FMI is disappointed that the Senate cut funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $1.3 billion. “Although this cut is not immediate, taking place in 2013, it is on top of another cut to SNAP [2014-2016] that was made earlier in the day on Thursday [in H.R. 1586, the state assistance bill on teacher pay and Federal Medical Assistance Percentage extension].”