Arkansas launches mobile app to navigate new food stamps junk food ban

The Arkansas Department of Human Services launched a new mobile app Monday to help food stamp beneficiaries navigate a new ban on junk food purchases that will go into effect this week.

Arkansas is one of several states that received federal permission to ban the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds to purchase soda, candy, juices with less than 50% natural juice and other highly processed foods. The ban will be enforced Wednesday, the start of the state’s new fiscal year.

AR SNAP Companion allows users to scan grocery items with their phone cameras to learn whether a product can be purchased with food stamps or whether it’s deemed too unhealthy. The app will include information about why a product is ineligible for SNAP and give suggestions of what to buy instead, DHS Division of County Operations Director Mary Franklin said.

“By combining technology, education and beneficiary support, we are working to make this transition as simple and successful as possible for Arkansas families,” Franklin said in a Monday news conference at Edward’s Food Giant in North Little Rock.

More than 220,000 Arkansans in about 118,000 households received SNAP benefits as of April.

AR SNAP Companion is available on Apple and Android devices. DHS created the app with the help of Sifter Solutions, a Chicago-based consultant that provides regularly updated lists of restricted products to retailers in states with SNAP junk food bans. The state entered a $1.2 million contract with Sifter in May.

The app will include a series of videos called “Make It Snappy,” instructing SNAP users on budget-friendly healthy recipes, produced by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ Culinary Medicine program, Franklin said.

The Arkansas Retailers Association worked closely with grocery stores and DHS to make sure the junk food ban can be implemented smoothly, Director Steve Goode said.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the ban is necessary to reduce rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease statewide.

“On one floor of DHS, our state has been approving food stamp purchases for soft drinks and candy, while on another floor, our state’s Medicaid program is paying to treat the chronic diseases those products can help create,” Sanders said.

SNAP recipients in five states sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture in March, alleging that the “practical effect” of the junk food bans is “to destabilize food access for every SNAP participant in the affected states.”

The lawsuit also claims that people with chronic illnesses are “losing access to products they need to manage blood sugar or sustain diets they need to maintain baseline health care needs.”

A federal judge sided with the plaintiffs last week and blocked Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia from enforcing the SNAP junk food ban, but the ruling does not affect Arkansas.

Advocates for food assistance have said the ban will further stigmatize the use of SNAP and that beneficiaries do not make unhealthy foods a priority when they already have a limited amount of funds. Experts have also raised concerns that the increased digitization of SNAP, including the use of apps, makes food aid more difficult for senior citizens and other technologically challenged groups to access.

Looming federal cuts prompt concerns about food aid in Arkansas

Arkansas will be on the hook for an additional $24 million in SNAP administrative costs within the next couple years thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025. State leaders have not increased DHS’ budget, raising more concerns from advocates that the agency will not have the resources to handle the extra work.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act also incentivizes states to keep their rates of overpaying or underpaying SNAP benefits below 6% in order for the federal government to continue to pay 100% of the cost of assistance. States with error rates above 6% will pay at least 5% of SNAP benefit costs starting Oct. 1, 2027.

Arkansas’ error rate has consistently been above that threshold. It was 7.43% as of April, an increase from December. For fiscal year 2025, which ended Sept. 30, 2024, Arkansas’ error rate was 8.81, according to USDA data.

The national SNAP error rate for FY 2025 was 10.62%. The rate accounted for $10.1 billion in erroneous payments nationwide, according to a Wednesday USDA news release that calls the errors proof of “significant waste at the state level.”

Millions of Americans eligible for SNAP in 2023 were not enrolled in the program, according to a data analysis released earlier this year.

Arkansas grocers will have to implement another federal rule in November in order to be allowed to continue accepting SNAP benefits. Most grocery stores will be required to stock at least seven different products in each of the four major food groups and offer perishable products in at least three groups. Specialty stores such as butcher shops and farm stands will be exempt from the rule.