Updated Staple Food Stocking Standards for Retailers in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Food and Nutrition Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Parts 271 and 278</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FNS-2025-0018]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0584-AF12</RIN> <SUBJECT>Updated Staple Food Stocking Standards for Retailers in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), Department of Agriculture (USDA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In response to section 765 of the Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2017 and subsequently enacted appropriations, this rule proposes to codify a new framework for determining distinct staple food varieties and accessory foods (such as snacks, desserts, and foods meant to complement or supplement meals, which do not themselves count as staple foods) for purposes of meeting the staple food requirements for retailer participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The rulemaking is necessary to implement the codified stocking requirements of the Agricultural Act of 2014, which increased the minimum number of staple food varieties and perishables SNAP retailers must carry. A summary of this notice of proposed rulemaking is posted on <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FNS-2025-0018.</E> </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by November 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), USDA, invites interested persons to submit comments on this proposed rule. Comments may be submitted by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Preferred method; follow the online instructions for submitting comments on docket FNS-2025-0018 or enter “RIN 0584-AF12” and click the “Search” button. Follow the instructions at this website. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Comments should be addressed to SNAP Retailer Policy Division, Food and Nutrition Service, USDA, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Virginia 22314. All comments submitted in response to this rulemaking will be included in the record and will be made available to the public. Please be advised that the substance of the comments and the identity of the individuals or entities submitting the comments will be subject to public disclosure. FNS will make the comments publicly available on the internet via: <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> We encourage commenters to include supporting facts, research, and evidence in their comments. When doing so, commenters are encouraged to provide citations to the published materials referenced, including active hyperlinks. Likewise, commenters who reference materials which have not been published are encouraged to upload relevant data collection instruments, data sets, and detailed findings as a part of their comment. Providing such citations and documentation will assist us in analyzing the comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> James C. Miller, Administrator, Food and Nutrition Service, at (703) 305-2060, or <E T="03">James.Miller@usda.gov</E> with a subject line of “RIN 0584-AF12”. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Agricultural Act of 2014 (2014 Farm Bill) amended the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (herein referred to as “the Act”) to increase the number of staple food varieties that certain SNAP authorized retail food stores must have available on a continuous basis in each of four staple food categories. The standards were increased from requiring a minimum of three (3) varieties to seven (7) varieties in each of the four (4) staple food categories and increased the number of varieties that must be perishable from one (1) variety in each of two (2) different staple food categories to one (1) variety in each of three (3) different staple food categories. The Department promulgated regulations to implement the increased breadth of stock requirements in the final rule, “Enhancing Retailer Standards in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)” (81 FR 90675), published on December 15, 2016 (the “2016 final rule”). That rule also outlined what constituted a variety in all four staple food categories. However, after the regulations were finalized, section 765 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017 and provisions in subsequent appropriations acts have in effect prohibited the Department from implementing, administering, or enforcing the retailer “Breadth of Stock” and “Variety” provisions of the 2016 final rule until the Department makes regulatory modifications to the definition of “variety” that would increase the number of food items that count as acceptable staple food varieties for purposes of SNAP retailer eligibility. To meet this directive, the Department published a proposed rule, “Providing Regulatory Flexibility for Retailers in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)” (84 FR 13555) on April 5, 2019. An overwhelming majority of the almost 9,000 comments received were opposed to the provisions as arbitrary and confusing and many argued the provisions would impact SNAP households' access to a variety of healthy food options and make it easier for fraud-prone retailers that do not primarily sell food to enter the program. Additionally, the 2019 proposed rule did not incorporate specific criteria described in the preamble into proposed regulatory text. Supportive comments, from retail food stores and industry groups, generally advocated for more flexibility overall. For these reasons, and because of the length of time that has passed since comments were received, the Department is issuing this new proposed rule to solicit fresh comments on a new proposed framework to determine distinct staple food varieties that would be codified in regulatory text. The Department also proposes to add and codify food categories that count as accessory foods, which are generally considered snacks or dessert foods or are meant to complement or supplement meals. Accessory foods do not count towards meeting the staple food stocking or sales requirements for retailer eligibility. While the “Accessory Food Items” provision of the 2016 final rule did go into effect, the specific criteria that determined what qualifies as an accessory food were not incorporated into regulatory text but were, instead, implemented through agency guidance Retailer Policy Management Division Policy Memo 2020-05 and SNAP Accessory Foods List. USDA is now proposing to codify, with modifications, these two guidance documents. This proposed rule does not modify any other provisions or components of the 2016 final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Breadth of Stock</HD> In order to be eligible to participate in SNAP, a retail food store must meet either Criterion A (staple food stock) or Criterion B (staple food sales) requirements under SNAP regulations at 7 CFR 278.1(b)(1)(ii) and (iii), respectively. Most stores are authorized under Criterion A, which requires a minimum breadth of staple food stock in each of the four staple food categories, which are (1) meat, poultry, or fish; (2) dairy; (3) bread or cereals; and (4) vegetables or fruits. Specialty food stores, such as butcher shops or fruit and vegetable stands, are typically authorized under Criterion B, which requires that at least 50 percent of a store's gross sales be for staple foods in at least one staple food category. Currently, (pursuant to the conditions of Section 765 of the 2017 appropriations language Act and the repeated conditions in subsequent appropriations language) stores authorized under Criterion A must carry at least three (3) varieties of staple foods in each of the four (4) staple food categories where at least one (1) variety in at least two (2) staple food categories is perishable. For each variety, stores must carry at least three (3) stocking units. Upon finalization of a new staple food variety framework through this rulemaking, the SNAP retailer stocking requirements in Section 3(o) of the Act would also go into effect because the conditions of the appropriations language will have been satisfied. Those stocking requirements, which have already been codified at 7 CFR 278.1(b)(1)(ii) but not enforced, would require SNAP retailers to stock seven (7) varieties of staple foods in each of the four (4) staple food categories, of which at least one (1) variety in each of three (3) different staple food categories is perishable. The requirement to carry at least three (3) stocking units for each variety, as currently implemented and codified in regulations, will remain the same. The increased number of staple food varieties required under Criterion A is non-discretionary. While this proposed rule would not make any changes to the minimum breadth of stock stores are required to carry, this part of the previously codified standards would be implemented for the first time upon publication of a final rule under this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Definitions of Accessory Food, Prepared Food, Retail Food Store, and Staple Food</HD> The Department proposes to remove the discussion of accessory foods, variety, and main ingredient from the “Staple Food” definition at 7 CFR 271.2 for greater clarity. Instead of addressing all four terms in one definition, this proposed rule would add a separate definition for “Accessory Food.” The definition of main ingredient and the expanded frameworks for staple food varieties and accessory foods would be codified separately at 7 CFR 278.1(b). In line with the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), 2020-2025, the definition of “Staple Food” at 7 CFR 271.2 would indicate that the meat, poultry, or fish staple food category would be referred to as the protein category ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 74k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━