Hornbacher’s Accepting EBT SNAP for Same-Day Delivery via Instacart

Upper Midwest grocery store chain Hornbacher’s is now accepting Electronic Benefits Transfer Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (EBT SNAP) for same-day delivery and curbside pickup orders placed via Instacart. This move enables EBT SNAP recipients to use their benefits to access fresh food and pantry essentials online from Hornbacher’s eight locations in the Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn., markets.

The launch follows the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service’s approval of Moorhead-based Hornbacher’s to accept EBT SNAP payments online via Instacart. With transportation often serving as a barrier to the grocery store for low-income shoppers, Hornbacher’s and San Francisco-based Instacart aim to make accessing food easier for these customers.

“We are pleased to finally have this program available as part of our online shopping platform, allowing our guests to use their EBT cards to make purchases and have faster access to fresh and nutritious foods via our home delivery or free store pickup service,” said Hornbacher’s President Matt Leiseth. “It is an important part of our ongoing commitment to provide fresh foods and best-in-class service to our guests.”

Where available, EBT SNAP participants can now shop from Hornbacher’s using the Instacart website and mobile app. Once an Instacart customer profile is created, customers can enter their EBT food card information as a form of payment in their profile. Customers will need a secondary form of payment for nonfood items such as taxes, tips and fees, per federal SNAP guidelines. Customers can then enter their ZIP code to determine whether they’re near a participating retailer and begin shopping and selecting items from the retailer’s EBT-eligible products. Once items are added to their cart, customers can select how much of their benefits they’d like to allocate to the order. Orders for delivery and pickup can be placed by customers for receipt in as fast as an hour, or scheduled several days in advance.

Founded in 1951, Hornbacher’s is a wholly owned subsidiary of St. Cloud, Minn.-based Coborn’s Inc., a 101-year-old employee-owned grocery retailer with nearly 10,000 employees and 66 grocery stores across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin and Michigan under the Coborn’s Cash Wise Foods and Marketplace Foods, as well as Hornbacher’s. Coborn’s also owns liquor, fuel and pharmacy locations. To support its 130 various retail business units, Coborn’s Inc. operates its own central bakery, dry cleaning facility and grocery distribution center. The independent grocer is No. 82 The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. It was also named a 2022 Top 10 Regional Operator to Watch by the publication.