Numerous states are looking into extending food stamp use to restaurants and prepared meals to keep up with what academics are calling the lack of time, skills, resources, and physical abilities of some SNAP users.

Award-winning food writer Corby Kummer joined Boston Public Radio on Wednesday to share why more states are looking into joining the SNAP Restaurant Meals Program, and where food policy needs to change.

“When it comes down to it, realistically, the people who need and rely on nutrition assistance often work two jobs, they’re supporting families, and they have no time at all to cook and prepare the wholesome food that SNAP was originally designed to restrict them to buying,” Kummer said.

When Restaurant Meals started in 2003, 19 states participated in the program. That number shrank to just four states by 2018. Now, six states — Arizona, California, Maryland, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Virginia — let some people who receive SNAP benefits use food stamps at restaurants. Illinois and New York are both in the process of applying to the Restaurant Meals Program.

Kummer told Boston Public Radio that states have to prove that there are enough high need residents — such as “adults over 60, people with disabilities, and those who are homeless and their spouses” — to get exemptions in the Restaurant Meals Program and SNAP.

While the Restaurant Meals Program has been applauded by food equity advocates and anti-hunger organizations, small restaurants have been slow to participate in the program due to lengthy bureaucratic processes. Instead, large chains like McDonald’s and Subway are often state-certified for the program.

“It's a lot of paperwork on the part of the restaurant, and so this in the beginning seemed like it was going to be a boon for for smaller restaurants, especially with [something like a] high volume, local sandwich shop that opens,” Kummer noted. “But [the paperwork] turned out to be so cumbersome that it discouraged all but the largest chains.”

Kummer is the executive director of the Food and Society policy program at the Aspen Institute, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

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