What You Need to Know
Missouri requested to classify the following food and beverages as restricted SNAP food. Missouri will eliminate the items outlined below as no longer being SNAP or SuN Bucks (SEBT) allowed. Additionally, Missouri would explore a request to allow for the purchase of hot, ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken –an affordable source of protein.
Excluded Food Items
- “Candy” means a product that involves the preparation of sugar or artificial sweeteners in combination with chocolate, fruits, nuts, caramels, gummies, and hard candies or other ingredients or flavorings in the form of bars, drops, or pieces.
- “Prepared Desserts” means a processed, shelf-stable, ready-to-eat, pre-packaged sweet food intended for immediate consumption without any further preparation. This would include foods mostly made out of “chemically” modified substances extracted from foods, along with additives to enhance taste, texture, appearance, and durability, with minimal whole foods.
Excluded Beverages
- Carbonated and noncarbonated soft drinks, including but not limited to colas, ginger ale, near-beer, root beer, lemonade, orangeade
- All other drinks or punches with natural fruit or vegetable juice which contain 50 percent or less by volume natural fruit or vegetable juice
- Beverage mixes and ingredients intended to be made into taxable beverages; liquid or frozen, concentrated or non-concentrated, dehydrated, powdered, granulated, sweetened or unsweetened, seasoned or unseasoned
- Concentrates intended to be made into beverages which contain 50% or less by volume natural fruit or vegetable juice
Missouri SNAP-authorized retailers will update their Point of Sale (POS) systems to exclude the purchases of “Soft Drinks" and “Energy Drinks" using SNAP benefits.
Contact Information
To send a public comment on the Healthy SNAP Waiver, email DSS.DirectorsOffice@dss.mo.gov.
For questions on Missouri's SNAP program, please contact 855-373-4636. For more information on the SNAP program, please visit: mydss.mo.gov/food-assistance.