Instacart Is Offering SNAP Customers a Discount
Here’s how to redeem it on your next grocery order.
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Instacart is extending a hand to its customers who use SNAP benefits to purchase groceries.
The grocery pickup and delivery service is offering its active SNAP customers 50 percent — up to $50 — off their next grocery order. It’s also tripling the size of its online food drive program, extending its reach to help more than 300 local food banks in a time of surging demand.
“We’re committed to ensuring every family in every community can put nutritious food on the table,” Dani Dudeck, Instacart’s chief corporate affairs officer, says in a statement. “As SNAP funding faces unprecedented disruption and food banks brace for longer lines, we’re focused on practical, immediate solutions: helping families who use SNAP stretch their grocery dollars and helping food banks stock up to support their communities.”
Here’s what you need to know:
How is Instacart helping customers who use SNAP to shop?
Starting this week, Instacart is offering all customers who have placed an Instacart order using an EBT SNAP card at any point in October 50 percent off their next grocery order — up to a $50 discount. Eligible customers will be sent a discount code via email. The code can be redeemed nationwide on orders placed — via the Instacart app or instacart.com — from any of the nearly 180 “retail banners” and 30,000 stores that accept SNAP payments on Instacart.
The company will honor the first 100,000 redemptions, meaning it will provide as much as $5 million total in direct relief to customers who rely on SNAP to help pay for groceries. The offer may be redeemed on only one order per household and, if the 100,000-redemption ceiling is not met, will extend through November 30, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Instacart, which helped bring SNAP benefits online in 2020 and later extended that service to all 50 states and DC, says this initiative is “designed to immediately help families stretch their grocery dollars, allowing them to keep nutritious staples and daily essentials in their carts and on their tables.”
How is Instacart helping food banks?
The grocery service is expanding its Community Carts Campaign, which helps food banks nationwide stock up on the items they most need, adding 200 locations and extending the program’s reach to 48 states across the U.S. The initiative will nearly triple to reach more than 300 Feeding America partner food banks across the country as they struggle to meet escalating current demand.
The Community Carts program, launched in 2022, allows customers to donate items, such as canned fruits and vegetables, pasta, baby food and peanut butter, directly to local food banks. Instacart waives service and delivery fees on all donations customers make through the program.
“This time of year is already a strain on these local organizations, as food insecurity historically intensifies heading into the holiday season,” Instacart notes in a press release. “This year, the lapse in SNAP benefits, coupled with federal employees who may be missing paychecks, could make the lines at food bank doors even longer.”
How can you get Instacart’s SNAP discount?
Instacart is urging anyone who has used SNAP on Instacart in October to watch their email inboxes for a discount code. It should arrive in the next few days. Once you receive your code, use it to receive up to 50 percent off your next grocery order at checkout and save up to $50.
If you’re interested in helping out, find your local food bank and donate to them via Instacart’s Community Carts program. And spread the word and the link to others who may want to help, too.
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