Blue Apron for food stamps already exists. And some recipients hate the powdered milk. [View all]

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On a recent Friday afternoon, under the watchful gaze of local food bank staff, 68-year-old John Samuel pawed through a box of government-sourced canned goods and found little inside that he wanted.

Canned carrots? “I wish we had peas,” he said.

Grape juice? “Well — it’s okay.”

Powdered milk? “Horrible.” He tossed the bag on a growing pile of identical bags, each abandoned by a food-box recipient earlier that day.

Such are the trade-offs of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, a limited federal initiative for low-income seniors — and the model for the Trump administration's controversial pitch to radically transform the food stamp program.

The administration last week proposed halving the monthly benefit of most participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and replacing it with a “Harvest Box” of shelf-stable government-sourced foods, a system that White House budget director Mick Mulvaney compared to Blue Apron.

The proposal was directly modeled after the existing senior food-box program, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman said, and will include similar features. States will order boxed foods from a preset list and develop their own delivery and distribution networks, including through partnerships with nonprofit groups.

The administration argues its plan would cut costs while improving the diets of the estimated 43.6 million low-income Americans who use SNAP.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/21/blue-apron-for-food-stamps-already-exists-and-some-recipients-hate-the-powdered-milk/?utm_term=.27122b71286d&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1