Instacart, ALDI to support SNAP EBT for online groceries

US-based Instacart is making its grocery delivery and pickup services more accessible to lower-income customers by offering them the ability to pay for groceries using their SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits.

When shopping, Instacart users will be able to add ALDI’s SNAP EBT-eligible items to their cart, then select how much of their benefits they want to allocate to their order before checking out. The programme will first arrive at ALDI’s over 60 Georgia stores before expanding to more than 570 stores across Illinois, California, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the US Department of Agriculture had been working to make online grocery more accessible to SNAP recipients through an online purchasing pilot programme with support of retailers including Amazon, Walmart, ShopRite and others.