Uber Eats Taps Forage as SNAP EBT Payment Processor
On-demand app and website Uber Eats and payments company Forage are teaming up to enable payment processing of SNAP EBT. The delivery platform intends to launch the product nationwide late this year.
“At Uber, we believe healthy foods should be accessible to all,” explained Karl Hebert, VP of payments, risk and identity at San Francisco-based Uber. “We are excited to partner with Forage to provide our customers the same seamless payments experience they’ve become accustomed to on Uber when using their SNAP benefits.”
Earlier this year, Forage worked with Thrive Market to make it the nation’s first online-only retailer to accept SNAP EBT. Forage also is the only USDA-approved third-party payment processor (TPP) to provide its software solution in combination with a team of in-house experts to guide platforms and retailers through the USDA authorization process.
While 17 million-plus Americans live in food deserts with limited access to nearby grocery stores, more than 90% of those same Americans have access to digital food delivery services like Uber. In 2021 alone, Uber Eats delivered 226 million orders to these communities across the United States, according to the company.
“We’re incredibly excited to partner with Uber Eats to bring online purchasing and delivery to more SNAP recipients,” said Ofek Lavian, co-founder and CEO of Forage, which is also based in San Francisco. “We know that accepting SNAP benefits online is incredibly important for millions of Americans and are extremely proud that through our partnership, Uber will be able to unlock EBT acceptance for all retailers on their platform and help more Americans put food on their table.”
Uber Eats partners with more than 1 million restaurants and merchants in more than 11,000 cities across six continents. Forage recently expanded into in-store EBT payments, after having processed only online EBT since 2022.
