Date: April 23, 2025
To: Senator Jill Carter and Members of the Senate Families Seniors and Health Committee
From: Christine Woody, Food Security Policy Manager, Empower Missouri
Re: Our opposition to SB 662
My name is Christine Woody. I am the Food Security Policy Manager for a statewide non-profit organization called Empower Missouri. We lead a statewide coalition working to end hunger in our state. Thank you for hearing my testimony today.
I am asking you on behalf of all the food pantries, food banks and non-profit organizations involved in our coalition to please vote on Senate Bill 662.
This is not a change that should be made on the state level. The SNAP program is a federally funded program that helps over 41 million people each month, and over 600,000 people in Missouri alone. By making these types of changes just in Missouri will cause more challenges, burdens, and stigmas for SNAP participants, our local grocery stores and our local economies.
Imposing purchasing restrictions on what a family can buy at the grocery store with their SNAP dollars causes so much confusion and stigma on low income families. It would make sense for many of those SNAP families to just cross the border and do their shopping where they will not have to sort through their shopping cart or ask the cashier which items can be purchased with SNAP dollars and which ones can not.
Additionally, this change will harm our local grocers.
Let’s look at Newton County, the county of Senator Carter, over $14 million dollars in SNAP benefits were spent in that county in 2023 at the 65 retailers that accept SNAP. There is a Walmart supercenter over the border in Oklahoma about 45 minutes away from Neosho. It would be an easy drive for a family to take once every couple of weeks for a large shopping trip to purchase groceries and other necessities for their family without having the scrutiny and stigma this bill would bring to them in Missouri.
While the bill is intended to prohibit the use of SNAP for unhealthy foods it doesn’t provide a workable list of what “those foods” are. The job of deciding that is harder than it seems. The presence or absence of certain nutrients, or ingredient lists, offers no clear answer as to whether a
food is “healthy’’ or “junk.’’ Some granola bars have more fat and sodium than soft drinks. Some brands of potato chips have less sodium than some of the most popular brands of breakfast cereal. Some candy bars have less saturated fat than a serving of cheddar cheese. Additionally, classifying certain foods as “good” or “bad” runs contrary to consensus among researchers, public health experts and registered dietitians about a healthy diet. According to USDA, no clear standards exist for defining foods as good or bad, or healthy or unhealthy. This bill would be pitting one product against another product.
The best way to encourage healthy eating and increased nutrition consumption would be to strengthen SNAP and other safety net programs, not restrict them. For example, instead, Missouri could look to Increase funding for the Double Up Food Bucks Program or increase support for the WIC and Seniors Farmers Market Programs or even increase funding for the very successful SNAP Nutrition Education Programs in our State. I am happy to talk to any of you more about any of these great programs. Instead of policing grocery carts, let’s focus on real solutions by expanding access to affordable healthy foods. For these reasons, I am asking you to NOT pass SB 662 through this committee.
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