With SNAP in crisis, America’s epic food waste problem has become a lifeline

The government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, makes it much less likely that many Americans will have enough to eat this month.

Last week, before funds for federal grocery benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, ran out due to the shutdown, District Court Judge John McConnell ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funding to keep SNAP operating through the month of November. The administration responded Monday by saying it would return only about half the total amount, and warned that it could be months before recipients receive payments.

On Thursday, McConnell issued a subsequent ruling, ordering that USDA fully fund SNAP benefits for November and immediately distribute that funding to states, setting a deadline of late Friday. “This should never happen in America,” McConnell said during Thursday’s hearing. The administration has already appealed the decision and filed an emergency motion Friday morning asking an appeals court to stay the order on the grounds that the judge exceeded his authority.

“Senate Democrats have voted 14 times against reopening the government. This undermines not only SNAP, but also agricultural programs, food inspection, animal and plant disease protection, rural development, and federal land protections,” a USDA spokesperson told Grist after McConnell’s second decision. Later Friday, USDA officials sent a memo to states saying the agency was preparing to “complete the necessary processes to make funds available” to provide full monthly SNAP benefits. (The memo, the New York Times reported, did not mention the ongoing call.)

As millions of Americans who rely on SNAP dollars wait to see whether the administration will comply with the latest court order, payment delays are almost certain at this point. Some states have warned that once they receive the USDA funds, distribution of these payments for the month of November could take several weeks longer to reach all recipients because of the way the federal government has asked states to distribute them. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania state officials sent a letter to the agency saying the USDA is “directing states to use the most complex and labor-intensive approach possible” to awarding benefits. Other states, including California, Michigan, Oregon and Wisconsin, said they have already started paying full monthly benefits, despite ongoing legal developments.

Across the country, local organizations are working to fill the gaps left by increasingly unreliable government aid. Food banks, community organizations and even famous talk show hosts are launching food drives and collecting donations for the nearly 42 million SNAP recipients affected by the shutdown. And soon, that number of people in need will only increase: New work requirements for SNAP, included in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” just took effect and are expected to result in further benefit cuts for many Americans, while excluding others from the program altogether.

Among these efforts is a cohort of organizations that were founded to support the slow-burn climate solution of reducing food waste and are now joining everyone’s emergency response to the looming food crisis.

Next Monday, Kashi Sehgal and her Retaaza team will begin driving a gutted Sprinter van loaded with locally grown produce, grains, lentils, oatmeal, peanut butter and more around DeKalb County, Georgia. Twice a week, they will distribute their wares to neighborhoods where fresh, whole foods are scarce. Community members using SNAP and EBT cards will be able to receive half off already heavily discounted fresh fruits and vegetables provided by neighboring farms.

“It’s like an ice cream truck, but for vegetables and produce,” Sehgal said. “Access to food doesn’t have to be undignified. You can make it a positive experience to encourage people to come.”

Sehgal founded Retaaza in 2020 to buy surplus produce from area farmers – food that otherwise would have ended up in the compost pile or landfills – and sell it to nearby businesses and individuals. Retaaza’s goal is to reduce food waste before it enters the supply chain, helping to significantly reduce its carbon footprint. About 17 percent of the food grown on farms nationwide each year is lost or wasted. This is due to issues such as overproduction, cosmetic standards, low market prices and high harvesting costs. In Georgia, one of the country’s agricultural powerhouses, huge quantities of food produced each year end up in landfills.

The global impact of this cannot be overlooked: If the state continues to waste food at the current rate, some estimates predict that carbon emissions will increase from 8.3 megatons of CO2 per year to 9.3 megatons by 2030. Nationally, Americans wasted about $382 billion worth of food in 2023, producing global warming emissions equivalent to some 54 million passenger vehicles. Most of this uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills, where organic matter makes up about 17.4 percent of waste. methane broadcasts nationwide. But if Georgia were to go in the opposite direction and, instead, reduce its food waste by 12 percent, this figure could fall to 7.5 megatons of CO2 by the end of the decade. (A single megaton of CO2 is equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 233,255 gas-guzzling cars.) Since beginning operations, Retaaza has redirected approximately 1.1 million pounds of surplus food from Georgia farms.

Over the past month, Sehgal has watched as the Trump administration attempted to halt, significantly delay, and then restrict SNAP benefits — which prompted Sehgal to try to figure out how his company could step in and help address the present moment. More than 127,000 DeKalb County residents, or 16.7 percent of the population, receive SNAP benefits. “In this day and age, no food should be thrown away,” Sehgal said. “So why not donate that excess food in the first place and feed someone who needs help? This keeps food from ending up in landfills, and that is directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions.”

While the shutdown and resulting food affordability crisis in the United States have propelled groups like Retaaza in new directions, the government’s impasse also threatens its core business. Indeed, food retailers who accept SNAP benefits are among those who stand to lose revenue when payments are delayed or reduced. Money from the USDA program supports approximately 388,000 retail jobs and generates more than $4.5 billion in state and federal tax revenue nationwide. Last week, as businesses across the country rushed to help their food insecure SNAP customers, The USDA issued a notice reminding retailers that offering SNAP-specific discounts without a waiver is considered a violation of the program.

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The shutdown is poised to make hunger worse in America — just as the Trump administration stopped following it.

Trump has repeatedly refused to meet with Democrats to negotiate on the big issue driving the shutdown — the expiration of health insurance subsidies that Democrats want to extend and Republicans want to stop paying for. Meanwhile, federal food assistance and many other government services, including those for farmers, continue to be severely disrupted across the country.

“By threatening to withhold SNAP benefits during the shutdown, Trump is acting less like a president and more like a king — using low-income individuals as pawns in his political game,” said Mitch Jones, managing director of policy and litigation at the nonprofit Food & Water Watch. “Trump’s USDA is also defying the law to weaponize hunger. By denying court-ordered benefits, the USDA is leaving families desperate, forced to choose between meals and medicine, food and rent.”

Angel Veza, director of innovation initiatives at national nonprofit ReFED, says Retaaza is one of many food recovery organizations called to the front lines of food insecurity due to the shutdown. “Many of them are just expanding their operations and continuing to move forward with surplus existing produce and other types of food,” Veza said, “while some of them are also pivoting, optimizing their logistics routes so they can reach more people without having to bring in more trucks, more drivers and working with what they have, and others are mobilizing quickly to form new partnerships and put quickly put in place entirely new models to respond.”

In Des Moines, Iowa, one such initiative is helping to keep 62-year-old disabled Matt Chapman and his older sister from going hungry.

At the end of each month, Chapman says they “almost always end up broke,” and that’s where SNAP dollars help ensure they have enough to eat. But even that money has no limit, so Chapman often relies on a local food rescue organization where he gets recently expired surplus food for free. Last month, Chapman got lucky and received two racks of ribs, a pre-packaged bag containing a mix of produce, canned fruits and vegetables, plus eggs, butter and milk.

This month, however, he and his sister face even more uncertainty than usual as the shutdown drags on and public safety nets like SNAP are swept aside by power struggles in Washington. Some expenses are non-negotiable: “Rent weighs first. Housing weighs first. And then what’s your next activity? Medication,” says Chapman. “But I only have enough to buy my medicine or my food. So what are we going to do?”