Little Red Box Grocery Introduces SNAP EBT Online, Double Up Food Bucks

Houston-based community market Little Red Box Grocery (LRB) has joined forces with Forage to offer SNAP EBT as a payment option on the independent grocer’s website, and with Grocerist and Texas’ Sustainable Food Center (SFC) to launch Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB) in the store, allowing SNAP recipients to double every dollar spent on fresh and frozen fruits and veggies. 

“Oftentimes, our customers are just coming in for one or two essential items – a loaf of bread, milk or some vegetables – and if we weren’t here, they tell us they’d need to take two buses to get to a store or they’d just go without,” said Samuel Newman, owner of LRB, one of only five indies in Texas providing online access to SNAP EBT recipients. “I believe implementing solutions like SNAP EBT online and Double Up Food Bucks will contribute to improving the health outcomes of Second Ward residents.” 

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Online customers can browse LRB’s website for a variety of fresh food and everyday staples, and upon checkout they can use their EBT card, while in-store SNAP customers can double every dollar spent on fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables.

“With 14% of Texas households considered ‘food insecure,’ it's never been more important to have community markets such as LRB,” said Hannah Thornton, food access director at Austin-based SFC. “Our mission at the Sustainable Food Center is to transform the food system to nourish our health, land and livelihood. By partnering with LRB, we're able to increase the purchasing power of families on SNAP and expand access to fresh, nutritious food.”

Forage, a government benefits payment processor, and Grocerist, a grocery-specific e-commerce solution built on Shopify, are enabling LRB to take a technology-first approach to its grass-roots food retailing.

“We want healthy, affordable groceries to be a reality for all families, and partnering with Grocerist, and enabling grocers like LRB, to accept SNAP EBT online gets us one step closer,” noted Ofek Lavian, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Forage. “We’re incredibly proud to be partnering with independent grocers who are working tirelessly to combat food insecurity within their communities.” 

“Grocery e-commerce has emerged as a lifeline for many consumers in areas without easy access to fresh, affordable food,” observed Matt Smith, co-founder and COO at Toronto-based Grocerist, adding that the company “has helped many independent grocers build or improve their online presence. This project with LRB and Forage was particularly rewarding due to its incorporation of SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks, and its resulting impact on the local Houston community. We’re proud to be a part of it.”