Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits have been in the news a lot recently, and everyone seems to have an opinion. Some argue there should be no restrictions, and others argue there should be many.
I’ve written before that SNAP is a nutrition grant and should function like one. If the stated purpose is nutrition, then the program should prioritize nourishing food, not soda and ultra-processed calories. I still believe that.
But this article is not about theoretical policy. It is about what happens when someone actually tries to make nutrient-dense food accessible to families using SNAP. What I learned firsthand is that the system is not just ineffective—it is designed to fail the very people it claims to serve.
When my family owned restaurants and operated a regenerative farm in California, we decided to apply to accept SNAP benefits. The application process was lengthy and fragmented. Each restaurant LLC, along with the farm, needed its own approval.
After months of paperwork, the restaurants were finally approved, but only if we altered the menus to include items at specific qualifying price points based on the ZIP code demographics. Some locations saw barely any SNAP usage, while others saw significantly more, but the required payment integration was outdated, glitchy, and not worth the administrative burden. And the restaurants weren’t even the point.
The goal was the farm.
At that time, we were already delivering about 500 boxes a week of fresh, organic, regenerative produce to people’s homes across Los Angeles and Ventura County. There was no shortage of interest or need. In fact, we received multiple emails every single week asking the same question: “Is there any way I can use my SNAP benefits to buy produce from your farm?” The demand was clear, consistent, and sincere. The only thing missing was the government’s willingness to make it possible.
All I wanted was for families using SNAP to order and receive food the same way every other customer already could: online, at checkout, delivered to their door. That shouldn’t be innovative. It should be expected.
The first application for the farm was rejected, and the second one stalled. The agencies reviewing it didn’t know where we fit. We weren’t a grocery store, and we weren’t a farmers market vendor. We were something the system wasn’t built for: a farm feeding households directly with real food. Inspectors came to the farm. They photographed cold storage. They reviewed the website. We resubmitted certifications, routing plans, product photos, and delivery records. This process dragged on for two years and three months.
Eventually, we received approval. I called to ask the final step: how to integrate SNAP payment processing into our website so families could finally complete their orders.
That is when I was told, after more than two years, “That’s not possible.”
Despite the fact that the federal agents had repeatedly reviewed our online ordering system and had been walked through our delivery model in detail, the only way SNAP benefits could be used was if the customer physically swiped a card at the farm itself.
The farm was an hour and a half from Los Angeles. So the message was clear: If a family relying on SNAP wanted access to organic, local, nutrient-dense produce, they were expected to drive three hours round-trip, pay California gas prices, arrange child care, take time off work, and hope nothing went wrong.
Meanwhile, Walmart takes SNAP online. Target takes SNAP online. DoorDash takes SNAP online. Instacart takes SNAP online. Multiple fast-food chains take SNAP without friction.
When I asked why the same capability wasn’t available to a farm already delivering fresh food to homes, the response was blunt: “Their sales volume makes it worth it. Yours does not.”
That single sentence reveals the uncomfortable truth: SNAP isn’t structured as a nutrition program. It is structured as an industrial food distribution system.
And it goes deeper.
What we’ve created is a closed economic loop disguised as public service: The government subsidizes the cheap commodity crops and industrial ingredients that make ultra-processed food artificially inexpensive, and then it turns around and funds the purchase of those same products through SNAP.
Both the subsidies and the SNAP program live inside the Farm Bill, which means the same legislation is funding the creation of cheap, low-nutrition food and then paying again to ensure there’s a guaranteed market for it. Corporations profit twice: once from taxpayer-funded subsidies that lower their production costs, and again when taxpayer dollars are used to buy the finished product.
If SNAP is part of the Farm Bill—and it is—then it’s time those dollars also benefit the farmers producing real food, not just the industrial food system built to replace it.
U.S. Department of Agriculture data estimate that sugar-sweetened beverages alone account for approximately $10 billion in SNAP spending every year. That is not an accident—it is a feature of a system in which processed food is subsidized and nutrient-dense food is administratively obstructed. We call this a safety net, but in reality, it functions as corporate welfare with a guaranteed customer base.
There are thousands of farmers in this country who would gladly deliver real food directly to families—if they were allowed to. The infrastructure exists. The demand exists. The need exists. The only barrier is policy—outdated, inflexible, misaligned policy.
Everyone is arguing about whether SNAP recipients should be allowed to buy junk food or whether certain political proposals are fair or unfair. Those arguments miss the larger point: We do not have a nutrition program. Instead, we have a corporate pipeline that shifts public money into private food conglomerates while blocking access to the very foods that would actually improve human health.
If the Farm Bill is going to continue funding food in America, then the conversation needs to evolve. SNAP funds should support both the people who need the food and the farmers capable of producing it—not just the corporations that have learned to engineer calories cheaper than nature can grow them.
I spent more than two years trying to bring nutrient-dense food to families who needed it, and the system made sure that never happened. Not because it was impossible, but because the system is not designed to make nutrition accessible—it is designed to make processed food profitable.
Until that changes, the debate is not about restrictions.
It’s about priorities.
And right now, the priorities are not on nutrition, health, or dignity—they are on scale, compliance, and corporate benefit.
The system isn’t broken.
It’s working exactly as intended.
