Bringing Double Up Food Bucks Online: A 2023 Milestone
Learn how Grocerist, Forage, Field & Fork Network and The Hub on the Hill brought automated Double Up Food Bucks to online grocery in 2023.
Grocerist
June 30, 2023
In 2023, Grocerist worked with Forage, Field & Fork Network, and The Hub on the Hill to bring an important nutrition incentive into ecommerce.
The result was the first automated online implementation of Double Up Food Bucks in the United States—allowing eligible shoppers to earn and redeem nutrition incentives through an online grocery experience.
Later that year, the partners presented the project at the 2023 NTAE Nutrition Incentive Hub National Convening in Arlington, Virginia. The event provided an opportunity to share what the organizations learned and discuss how technology could help nutrition incentive programs reach more shoppers.
From online SNAP EBT to online nutrition incentives
The project built on another significant milestone.
In January 2023, Grocerist and Forage helped The Hub on the Hill become the first community food hub in the United States approved to accept SNAP EBT payments online.
Bringing payments online improved access, but another affordability challenge remained.
Double Up Food Bucks helps participating SNAP shoppers stretch their food budgets by matching SNAP dollars spent on eligible fruits and vegetables. Before this project, shoppers generally needed to visit a participating physical location to access the program.
Grocerist and its partners set out to bring that same benefit into The Hub on the Hill’s online grocery experience.
How Double Up Food Bucks worked online
The automated experience connected the online storefront, eligible products, SNAP EBT payments, and nutrition incentive balances.
A shopper could:
Shop for groceries through The Hub on the Hill’s online store.
Add eligible fruits and vegetables to their order.
Complete the eligible portion of the purchase using SNAP EBT.
Automatically earn a matching Double Up Food Bucks benefit.
Redeem the earned benefit on a future eligible produce order.
The customer’s earned benefit was tracked digitally, removing the need for a separate manual process.
Program rules, eligible products, matching amounts, and redemption limits can vary by participating location.
Four partners, one online experience
Delivering the experience required several organizations to connect their expertise.
Grocerist provided the food ecommerce technology and online shopping experience.
Forage enabled the online SNAP EBT payment experience and supported the retailer through the approval and implementation process.
Field & Fork Network brought its experience administering Double Up Food Bucks New York and helped ensure the online workflow supported the program’s requirements.
The Hub on the Hill provided the operating environment as a local food hub and online merchant serving communities across New York’s North Country.
Together, the partners created an automated model that connected online food shopping, SNAP EBT payments, and nutrition incentives.
Collaboration made the breakthrough possible
Nutrition incentive programs involve more than adding another payment option at checkout.
Moving a program online requires coordination across:
Eligible products
SNAP EBT payments
Incentive earning and redemption
Merchant operations
Program reporting
Online customer experience
Fulfillment and delivery
Each organization approached the project with different expertise, but the shared objective remained the same: protect the program’s requirements while creating a straightforward experience for shoppers.
“The willingness to be flexible and find the best path—balancing program needs with a great consumer experience—was inspiring to see.”
— Matt Smith, COO and co-founder of Grocerist
Why the milestone mattered for food hubs
Food hubs help connect consumers with food produced by local and regional farms.
However, the communities they serve can extend well beyond the immediate area surrounding a physical market.
Online ordering and delivery can help food hubs serve shoppers who face transportation, distance, mobility, or scheduling barriers.
Combining online grocery ordering with SNAP EBT and Double Up Food Bucks also helps make locally produced fruits and vegetables more financially accessible to qualifying shoppers.
For food hubs, the model demonstrated how ecommerce could support both sides of their mission:
Expanding access to healthy food
Creating demand for local farmers and suppliers
A model for broader online food access
The 2023 project showed that online grocery, SNAP EBT, and nutrition incentive programs could work together through an automated customer experience.
It also created a model that other independent retailers and food-access organizations could learn from when considering similar programs.
The achievement depended on close collaboration between ecommerce technology, payment infrastructure, program administrators, and the food hub operating the storefront.
Grocerist was proud to contribute the food-commerce technology that helped bring those pieces together—and to help demonstrate how ecommerce could support broader access to healthy, locally produced food.
Bring nutrition incentives online
See how Grocerist can connect food ecommerce, SNAP EBT, and nutrition incentive workflows for your organization.