Forage Streamlines Online EBT Onboarding
Justin Intal, CEO of Forage, on helping online grocery platforms process EBT
This approval path matters because it turns SNAP from a store by store feature into a growth lever for pure online grocers. Once USDA allows merchants that have no physical stores to take EBT online, companies like Farmstead can serve low income customers directly on their own sites instead of relying on marketplaces. That expands demand in delivery deserts and gives Forage a wedge as the compliance and payment layer that gets these merchants through approval faster.
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The bottleneck is not basic payments code, it is government onboarding. USDA requires a letter of intent, a business requirements document, item level eligibility controls, and checkout flows that separate SNAP eligible food from fees and other non eligible items. Forage productized that work, shrinking BRD prep to five to seven days versus months for early entrants like Instacart.
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Early online SNAP mostly flowed through giants and marketplaces. Amazon and Walmart were among the first pilot participants, and Instacart later enabled grocers across nearly every state. An approved online only grocer changes the model, because the merchant can own the customer relationship, basket, and fulfillment economics on its own storefront.
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Farmstead is a useful example because its model is built around wide delivery coverage from centralized facilities rather than neighborhood stores. That makes SNAP acceptance especially valuable in food deserts, where the main unlock is not faster checkout but the ability to reach households that could not previously use benefits online with that merchant at all.
The next step is a broader shift from pilot era exceptions to standard infrastructure for digital grocery. USDA now has a formal onboarding process for internet retailers and lists Forage among approved third party processors, which sets up more online first grocers, specialty retailers, and delivery platforms to add SNAP as a normal payment method rather than a one off project.