Restaurants and SNAP: The Next Grocerant Opportunity Is Inclusion

 

For decades, restaurants have talked about convenience, accessibility, value and serving every consumer. Yet one of the largest food-assistance programs in America has historically stopped at the restaurant door.

That may be changing — and restaurants should be paying attention.

The USDA’s Restaurant Meals Program (RMP) allows participating states to let certain SNAP recipients use their EBT benefits to purchase prepared meals from participating restaurants. The program is specifically designed for SNAP households in which everyone is elderly, disabled, homeless, or an eligible spouse. USDA currently lists nine participating states: Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia.

At the same time, a new federal bill would eliminate the program entirely.

H.R. 10268, the Ending Restaurant Purchases with SNAP Act of 2026, was introduced in the House on September 3, 2026, and referred to the House Agriculture Committee. The bill would abolish the federal statutory authority for the Restaurant Meals Program. It has not become law.

Steven Johnson the Grocerant Guru®, at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® believe that the larger food-marketing story isn't simply about legislation.

It is about whether restaurants understand that the consumer has already erased the traditional walls between grocery, restaurant and foodservice.

The consumer doesn't live in foodservice silos

Consumers don't wake up thinking:

"Today I am a grocery consumer. Tonight I will become a restaurant consumer."

They think:

What's for dinner?

And the answer can be a supermarket deli meal, a convenience-store sandwich, a restaurant takeout order, a grocery-store rotisserie chicken, a delivery meal or a ready-to-eat product.

USDA's Economic Research Service reports that U.S. foodservice sales reached $1.41 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2025, up 73% from 1997. Foodservice also accounted for 56.3% of total U.S. food expenditures in 2025, compared with 43.7% for food at home.

That is an enormous consumer migration.

And it creates an equally enormous question:

Why shouldn't eligible consumers be able to use their SNAP benefits wherever they can legally and practically obtain an appropriate meal?

The current Restaurant Meals Program is one answer.

Singles are part of the opportunity

One of the biggest changes in American food marketing has been the shrinking household.

Smaller households fundamentally change the economics of food preparation.

Buying ingredients, cooking a complete meal, managing leftovers and cleaning up can make less economic sense for one person than purchasing a reasonably priced prepared meal.

USDA specifically identifies smaller U.S. households, convenience and the growing availability of fast food and other food-away-from-home options among the factors contributing to increased food-away-from-home consumption.

That matters enormously for restaurants.

The restaurant industry shouldn't define its market exclusively around the traditional four-person family.

The opportunity increasingly includes:

·       Singles

·       Seniors

·       People living with disabilities

·       Individuals without kitchen access

·       People experiencing homelessness

·       Caregivers

·       Parents buying meals for children

·       Households purchasing individual meal components

This is exactly where the Grocerant mindset becomes important.

The product is not simply "restaurant food."

The product is a solution to the consumer's immediate food need.

Seniors don't necessarily need ingredients — they need meals

Consider an older consumer living alone.

A grocery store may offer inexpensive ingredients, but ingredients still require transportation, storage, preparation, cooking and cleanup.

A restaurant can provide something fundamentally different:

a finished meal.

For a senior who has difficulty standing for extended periods, handling cookware, lifting pots or preparing food, that distinction can be substantial.

USDA's Restaurant Meals Program exists specifically because certain SNAP recipients may not be able to prepare meals for themselves or may lack permanent housing in which to store and prepare food.

Restaurants therefore aren't simply another place to spend a food benefit.

For some consumers, the restaurant can become part of the food-access infrastructure.

That is a very different way of looking at foodservice.

Disability changes the meaning of convenience

Restaurant marketing has spent years selling convenience.

Drive-thru.

Takeout.

Delivery.

Mobile ordering.

Curbside pickup.

Ready-to-eat meals.

Yet convenience has different meanings for different consumers.

For a person with a disability, "convenience" can mean:

I don't have to cook.

It can mean:

I don't have to stand in a grocery checkout line with ingredients.

It can mean:

I can purchase a complete meal in one transaction.

And it can mean:

I can eat the same type of meal that other people are eating.

That last point is particularly important.

Kids don't want to feel different

Food marketers sometimes underestimate the emotional importance of belonging.

Children notice differences.

They notice what their friends eat.

They notice where their families shop.

They notice restaurant bags, branded cups, kids' meals and familiar menu items.

Food is not merely nutrition to a child.

It is also social participation.

That makes access to restaurant food a particularly interesting issue when a household is using food assistance.

A child shouldn't have to understand the economics of food assistance in order to understand that his or her family is different.

The most powerful food-marketing experience can be extraordinarily simple:

Everybody gets a meal.

That is one reason universal approaches to children's meals can reduce stigma.

California's experience with universal school meals provides an important food-marketing lesson. The state reports that nearly 3.5 billion free school meals have been served since implementation began, with officials specifically pointing to reduced stigma as one benefit of universal access.

Whether the setting is a school cafeteria or a restaurant, the consumer psychology is similar:

When participation is normalized, stigma can diminish.

Restaurants understand this instinctively when they design kids' menus.

The child doesn't want a "special assistance meal."

The child wants the same experience as everyone else.

The kids' meal is becoming a bigger food-marketing battleground

This is also why restaurant children's meals deserve greater strategic attention.

California already requires restaurants serving children's meals with beverages to make water, sparkling water, unsweetened flavored water, unflavored milk or qualifying nondairy milk the default beverage.

And in 2026, California lawmakers advanced SB 977, legislation concerning children's meals at chain restaurants. The measure would require qualifying large chains offering children's meals to provide at least one option meeting specified nutrition standards.

This follows the earlier SB 764, which would have required a qualifying healthy children's meal but was vetoed in 2025.

The marketing lesson is bigger than California:

Children's meals are no longer simply a value bundle with a toy.

They are becoming a strategic intersection of:

nutrition + affordability + convenience + choice + family experience.

And restaurants accepting SNAP through an authorized Restaurant Meals Program can potentially bring those same consumer values into a population that has historically had fewer prepared-food options.

Foodservice has already become mainstream

The restaurant industry should also recognize just how much American eating behavior has changed.

USDA reports that full-service and limited-service restaurants collectively accounted for more than two-thirds of U.S. food-away-from-home spending in 2023, with limited-service restaurants holding the largest share.

Limited-service restaurants are particularly relevant to SNAP and the Grocerant opportunity because they already specialize in:

speed + portability + predictable pricing + immediate consumption.

Those are precisely the attributes that define much of today's Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat consumer economy.

The restaurant industry has spent billions of dollars teaching America that food can be:

ordered, paid for and consumed immediately.

Now the industry needs to recognize that payment flexibility is also part of convenience.

SNAP acceptance can be a Grocerant strategy

Restaurants that operate in states with a Restaurant Meals Program have another potential strategic advantage.

They don't necessarily have to reinvent their menu.

They can examine the food they already sell and ask:

·       Which meals provide strong value?

·       Which meals are easy to order?

·       Which meals travel well?

·       Which meals work for individuals?

·       Which meals can serve seniors?

·       Which meals work for families?

·       Which children's meals offer nutritional balance?

·       Which menu combinations create a complete meal at a compelling price?

That is classic Grocerant thinking.

Mix-and-match meal component bundling can become particularly powerful here.

A consumer may want:

entrée + side + beverage

rather than a traditional restaurant "meal."

Or:

protein + vegetable + carbohydrate

rather than a conventional entrée.

Or even:

two smaller items

instead of one large meal.

The winning restaurant may ultimately be the one that stops thinking exclusively in terms of menu categories and starts thinking in terms of consumer food missions.

There is also a nutrition responsibility

There is an important caveat.

More restaurant access does not automatically mean better nutrition.

USDA research has found that food prepared away from home can affect children's calorie intake and diet quality. Earlier ERS research found particularly significant effects among adolescents.

That means restaurants participating in programs serving vulnerable consumers have an opportunity — and a business reason — to make their value propositions better.

Affordable doesn't have to mean nutritionally careless.

A strong SNAP-compatible restaurant strategy could emphasize:

affordable protein + produce + whole grains + water or milk + reasonable portions.

That isn't charity marketing.

It is good food marketing.

The biggest mistake would be thinking this is only about SNAP

It isn't.

The bigger story is the continued collapse of the artificial boundary between:

Grocery. Restaurant. Convenience Store. Delivery. Foodservice.

The Grocerant consumer doesn't care which industry association claims the meal.

The consumer cares about:

Price. Quality. Convenience. Portability. Availability.

And increasingly:

Can I get what I need, when I need it, where I need it?

The Restaurant Meals Program is currently a limited state option, not a nationwide SNAP restaurant entitlement. USDA says eligible SNAP clients must be in a participating state and meet the program's eligibility criteria; restaurants must separately obtain state approval and federal authorization.

But that limitation shouldn't obscure the larger strategic question.

Restaurants have spent years asking how to increase traffic.

Perhaps one answer is to become accessible to more consumers.

Three Insights from the Grocerant Guru®

1. Access is the next dimension of restaurant value.

Restaurants have traditionally competed on Price + Quality + Service.

Today's consumer increasingly evaluates value through a broader equation:

Price + Quality + Service + Convenience + Portability + Access = Value.

Accepting an authorized payment method that expands access for eligible consumers can therefore be viewed as another component of the restaurant value proposition.

2. The future belongs to restaurants that sell meals, not menus.

The consumer isn't looking for a menu category.

The consumer is looking for breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, a mini-meal or something for the kids.

Restaurants that design affordable meal solutions around consumer missions — including seniors, singles, families and people with disabilities — can expand the market beyond traditional restaurant occasions.

3. For kids, inclusion is part of the meal.

The food on the tray matters.

But so does the experience.

A child who can sit with friends, choose from a familiar kids' menu and eat a meal that looks and feels like everyone else's isn't thinking about food policy.

They're just being a kid.

And perhaps that is the most important food-marketing lesson of all:

The best restaurant experience is the one that makes every consumer feel like they belong.

That is the Grocerant Guru® view.

If You Can’t Beat Costco, Join Costco: Walmart’s Rotisserie Chicken Copycat Strategy Shows Where Grocerant Growth Is Going

 

There is an old business saying: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

Walmart’s latest rotisserie-chicken marketing move may be one of the most entertaining examples of that strategy I have seen in food retail according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

But beneath the limited-edition $5.97 Chicken Purse, the bag charms and the social-media fun is a much bigger food-retailing story.

It is about Costco, packaging, price, prepared food, convenience, brand identity and the growing power of fresh-prepared meal components.

And from my perspective as the Grocerant Guru®, Walmart has learned an important lesson: when a competitor owns a consumer food ritual, sometimes the smartest strategy is not to invent a new ritual. It is to make your version better, cheaper, easier and more culturally relevant.

Costco Didn't Invent the Bag — But It Made the Packaging Change Strategic

Let's get one food fact straight.

Costco was not the first retailer to put rotisserie chickens into flexible bags. Walmart, Whole Foods and other grocers were already using similar packaging. When Costco began transitioning its famous Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken from rigid plastic clamshells to flexible bags in 2024, it was actually following an established packaging direction.

But Costco did something much more important.

It made the packaging part of the conversation.

Costco said the flexible packaging could reduce its plastic use by roughly 75%, or about 17 million pounds of plastic annually, while eliminating the need for an estimated 1,000 freight trucks and reducing carbon emissions by approximately 4,000 metric tons.

That is not simply a packaging change.

That is food merchandising economics meeting supply-chain economics meeting sustainability.

And Costco had something most retailers don't have:

A $4.99 product with cult status.

The $4.99 Costco rotisserie chicken has remained essentially unchanged for years despite inflation and higher operating costs. In fiscal 2025, Costco sold approximately 157.4 million rotisserie chickens globally—more than 431,000 per day.

That is an extraordinary number for a single prepared-food item.

The lesson is equally extraordinary:

Packaging doesn't have to make the food more expensive. Packaging can actually become part of the value equation.

Why Costco Will Continue to Lead Whole-Rotisserie-Chicken Sales

I see three reasons Costco will remain exceptionally difficult to dislodge in whole rotisserie chicken.

1. Costco owns the value benchmark

At $4.99, Costco has created a consumer reference point.

Once consumers know they can purchase a large, ready-to-eat whole chicken for $4.99, every other retailer has to explain why its chicken costs more.

That is enormously powerful.

Costco isn't merely selling chicken.

It is selling a definition of value.

2. Costco has vertically integrated the chicken equation

Costco's Nebraska poultry operation was created specifically to help control the economics and supply of its rotisserie chicken program. The facility processes enormous volumes of poultry and gives Costco a level of supply-chain control that most supermarket competitors simply cannot replicate.

That matters because the real battle isn't just over the price on the deli sign.

It is over:

bird cost + processing + labor + packaging + transportation + shrink + merchandising + margin.

Costco has spent years building the infrastructure around the chicken.

3. The chicken is a traffic driver, not merely a deli item

This may be the most important point.

Costco doesn't necessarily need to make its money on the chicken.

The chicken gets the consumer into the warehouse, and the warehouse then gets the opportunity to sell everything else.

That is the classic loss-leader/grocerant traffic-driver strategy.

And it works particularly well because the product solves an immediate meal problem.

“What's for dinner?”

Costco has an answer.

For $4.99.

Walmart's Response: If You Can't Beat the Packaging, Join It

Here is where the story gets interesting.

Walmart has long had an enormous rotisserie-chicken business of its own. The retailer has reported selling 103 rotisserie chickens per minute, and Walmart says approximately one in every 12 Walmart customers purchases at least one rotisserie chicken each year.

So Walmart does not have a chicken problem.

It has a brand-positioning problem.

Costco owns the narrative of the inexpensive, oversized, iconic rotisserie chicken.

Walmart has the scale to compete—but it needs to make its own chicken culturally relevant.

And that is where the packaging—and now the purse—comes in.

Three reasons Walmart was effectively forced toward Costco-style packaging economics

First: cost pressure.

Flexible packaging can use substantially less material and occupy less space than rigid clamshell packaging. Costco's own packaging analysis demonstrates the potential scale of those savings.

For a retailer selling chicken at enormous volume, pennies matter.

Second: operational efficiency.

Flexible packaging is easier to store and transport and takes up less space than rigid containers. That can influence transportation, storage, handling and refrigeration economics.

When you are operating at Walmart scale, small efficiencies become big numbers.

Third: consumers increasingly want food that travels.

This is the larger Grocerant lesson.

Today's fresh-prepared food isn't necessarily eaten standing next to the deli counter.

It is taken home.

It is carried to work.

It is used in another meal.

It becomes sandwiches, salads, tacos, casseroles, soups and snacks.

FMI reports that 53% of consumers describe their typical meal preparation as a mix of scratch-cooked and semi- or fully prepared foods.

That is precisely where rotisserie chicken becomes more than dinner.

It becomes a meal component.

Walmart's Chicken Purse Is Actually More Strategic Than It Looks

At first glance, Walmart's new Chicken Purse is just fun.

The retailer launched limited-edition purses in Traditional and Lemon Pepper "flavors" for $5.97—the same price as its rotisserie chicken. It also introduced chicken-themed charms and Great Value hot-sauce and seasoning charms.

The purse reportedly generated enough demand to sell out quickly, creating a secondary-market buzz almost immediately.

But the real marketing genius isn't the purse.

It is this:

Walmart is taking a food product and turning it into a brand asset.

Walmart says its rotisserie chicken generated more than 15,000 social mentions during the previous year.

That is exactly what food retailers want.

A product that consumers don't merely purchase.

A product consumers talk about.

But Walmart Is Now Stuck in the Middle

And this is where I believe Walmart needs to be careful.

Walmart has successfully joined the rotisserie-chicken conversation.

But it risks becoming stuck in the middle.

There are three reasons.

1. Costco owns the extreme-value halo

Costco's $4.99 chicken is almost impossible to attack directly without attacking Costco's entire business model.

Walmart's $5.97 chicken is still an exceptional value, but it isn't the same value proposition.

Costco says:

“Look how much chicken you get for $4.99.”

Walmart says:

“Look how much fun our chicken is.”

Those are different messages.

2. Walmart cannot win the specialty-food experience simply by being cheaper

This is where Walmart encounters retailers such as Publix, Kroger and Albertsons.

These competitors can emphasize fresh-food quality, deli merchandising, meal solutions, regional preferences, prepared sides and broader supermarket meal occasions.

The battlefield is therefore moving from:

“Who sells the cheapest chicken?”

to:

“Who owns the entire meal occasion?”

That is a much more interesting battle.

3. Walmart risks becoming famous for the chicken without owning the meal

The chicken purse proves Walmart understands the power of the product.

But the next step is more important.

What does Walmart sell with the chicken?

Potato salad?

Fresh vegetables?

Macaroni and cheese?

Bakery rolls?

Salad?

Dessert?

Beverages?

A family meal bundle?

A two-person dinner?

A lunch solution?

A next-day sandwich solution?

This is where Walmart has an enormous opportunity.

Because the future of retail food isn't necessarily selling more whole chickens.

It is selling more meals built around the chicken.

The Real Grocery Battle Is Becoming Grocerant

FMI's research makes the opportunity particularly clear.

Its 2025 Power of Foodservice at Retail report found that consumers choosing deli-prepared foods instead of restaurant meals more than doubled from 12% in 2017 to 28% in 2025. More than half of Americans—53%—now take a hybrid approach to meals, combining deli-prepared foods with items prepared at home. Retail foodservice dollar sales reached $52.1 billion, up 1.6% over the prior 12 months.

That is the Grocerant Revolution in one paragraph.

The grocery store is no longer simply competing with the restaurant for ingredients.

It is competing for the meal occasion.

And rotisserie chicken is one of the best weapons in that battle.

FMI also points directly to rotisserie chicken as an example of how consumers use a prepared food as the foundation for multiple meals—including salads, sandwiches and casseroles.

That is why I believe Walmart's Chicken Purse is amusing—but the real opportunity is sitting in the deli.

Three Grocerant Guru® Insights for Walmart

1. Stop selling the chicken. Start selling the meal ecosystem.

Walmart should build highly visible “Build Your Meal Around Our Chicken” merchandising.

The chicken becomes the protein anchor.

Then Walmart sells the sides, salad, bread, beverage and dessert.

That transforms a $5.97 transaction into a much larger basket.

2. Make the packaging part of the brand—not just part of the operation.

Costco demonstrated that packaging can influence cost, logistics and consumer conversation.

Walmart should make its rotisserie packaging instantly recognizable and use it consistently across its ecosystem.

The Chicken Purse demonstrates that Walmart already understands the power of visual recognition.

Now apply that thinking to the actual food.

3. Own the “tonight + tomorrow” meal occasion.

This is perhaps Walmart's biggest opportunity.

A rotisserie chicken should generate multiple consumption occasions.

Tonight: chicken + two sides.

Tomorrow: chicken sandwich.

Next day: chicken salad.

Later: chicken soup, tacos or casserole.

That is how fresh-prepared food becomes a grocery growth engine rather than simply a deli department.

The Bottom Line

The Walmart Chicken Purse may look like a novelty.

I see something different.

I see a retailer recognizing that food can become culture, packaging can become marketing, and a prepared-food item can become a brand.

Costco didn't invent the rotisserie chicken.

It didn't invent the flexible packaging bag, either.

But Costco did something more important:

It built one of retail's most powerful food-value propositions around the chicken.

Walmart now appears to be saying:

“If you can't beat them, join them—and then make it Walmart.”

The question is whether Walmart stops at the chicken purse.

Because the real money isn't hanging from a shoulder.

It is sitting in the shopping cart next to the chicken.

And that is where the next great grocerant battle will be fought.

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideas look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how our Grocerant Guru® can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit: us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter