CINCINNATI — Families who rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will now be able to use those benefits to pay for grocery orders from Kroger online, the company announced on Tuesday.
Online grocery orders placed through a Kroger app or on their website can be paid for using Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) starting immediately, according to a press release from Kroger.
The change provides a way for families throughout the Greater Cincinnati region and beyond to make online orders for pick-up or delivery and still pay using their federal benefits.
"Thousands of Cincinnati/Dayton division shoppers place digital orders every week," said Jenifer Moore, corporate affairs manager for the Cincinnati/Dayton division of Kroger, in a press release. "Now, we are opening our digital grocery shopping experience to more people with fresh, affordable food conveniently available through pickup or delivery."
Shoppers gathering their groceries inside a Kroger location have been able to pay for their food using EBT for years, but the payment method is only now available for SNAP users who want to take advantage of online ordering that allows for pick-up and delivery.
Orders can be made through Kroger's website or through their app — families can upload their EBT account number as a new card in the "My Account" section. When checking out after putting together a grocery haul for pickup or delivery, just select the EBT card as the payment method. Shoppers will be prompted for their pin and after inputting it the order will be filled.
Many grocery stores began providing expanded grocery pickup and delivery services when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, though many SNAP users were still left unable to utilize these services, since EBT could not always be accepted for online payments.
Why was EBT not accepted for online grocery orders before?
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this was because the 2014 Farm Bill "mandated a pilot be conducted to test the feasibility and implications of allowing retail food stores to accept SNAP benefits through online transactions."
Applications for that pilot program were due in 2016, and in 2017 the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service announced eight grocery stores that had been approved for the pilot's initial launch that would take place in eight different states; Kroger was not among the stores approved and neither Ohio, Kentucky nor Indiana participated.
That first pilot saw expansions into other states through 2019 and early 2020 — just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to settle into the region. Since then, several grocery stores in the Tri-State region have begun accepting EBT as a payment option for online grocery orders.
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