This act reforms the Restaurant Meals Program by adjusting eligibility for participating restaurants, restricting eligible purchases to specific prepared meals, excluding spouses of SNAP recipients, and adding new reporting requirements.
Mark Messmer
Representative
IN-8
The Restaurant Meals Program Reform Act of 2025 updates the existing Restaurant Meals Program by revising eligibility standards for participating restaurants and specifying what types of prepared meals can be purchased with benefits. The bill also introduces new restrictions, such as excluding spouses of SNAP recipients, and mandates comprehensive reporting on program participation and costs. These changes aim to refine how benefits are used for immediate consumption meals at authorized retail food stores.
SNAP Meal Program Overhaul: Fast Food Excluded, Spouses Cut, and Mandatory Protein Added
The Restaurant Meals Program Reform Act of 2025 is shaking up how certain SNAP benefits can be used for prepared foods. Currently, the Restaurant Meals Program (RMP) allows elderly, disabled, and homeless SNAP recipients to use their EBT cards at authorized restaurants. This new bill completely changes the rules for who can participate and what they can buy, focusing heavily on shifting the program away from traditional quick-service establishments.
The Grocery Store Takeover: Bye-Bye Fast Food
Under this reform (Sec. 2), the program is getting a new gatekeeper. Only private establishments that are not primarily engaged in selling quick-service or fast-food items can participate. Instead, the bill explicitly favors retail food stores—think your standard grocery store or supermarket—that have a prepared food section, hot bar, or deli counter. If a grocery store is already authorized to accept SNAP benefits, it doesn't need separate authorization for the RMP. This means the program is moving out of the burger joint and into the deli section, which could be a huge shift for recipients who rely on fast-food chains for quick, accessible meals, especially in food deserts.
The New Meal Mandate: Protein and Produce Required
If you want to buy a prepared meal under the new rules, it’s going to have to pass a nutrition test (Sec. 2). Benefits can only be used for meals intended for immediate consumption that contain at least one fruit or vegetable and one protein, as defined by the Secretary. This is a significant change aimed at improving the nutritional quality of purchased meals. For retailers, this means they can’t just sell a sandwich or a slice of pizza; they must ensure every eligible meal meets this specific nutritional composition. This could increase costs or complexity for participating delis, but it does ensure that recipients are getting a more balanced meal.
The Spousal Exclusion: Cutting Off Access
Perhaps the most restrictive change is the explicit Spousal Exclusion (Sec. 2). A spouse of an individual eligible for SNAP benefits is now specifically not eligible to participate in the Restaurant Meals Program. While the primary SNAP recipient—who must be elderly, disabled, or homeless—can still use the benefit, their spouse cannot use the RMP portion of the benefits. This provision directly limits how a family unit can use the prepared meal benefits, potentially creating logistical headaches for couples where only one person meets the RMP eligibility criteria.
Accountability and Administrative Burden
Finally, the bill introduces tough new reporting requirements (Sec. 2). The Secretary must ensure State agencies update their EBT card and retailer coding systems to enforce these new restrictions. More importantly, the Secretary must submit a public report detailing the name and location of every participating establishment, the exact amount of benefits redeemed at each one, and the overall effectiveness and cost of the program. This level of granular detail means massive transparency, but it also means significant administrative work for State agencies and the federal government to track and report every detail of the program.