Retailers Uneasy About South Dakota’s Effort to Ban Soft Drinks from SNAP

Last spring, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed House Bill 1056 to ban low-income South Dakotans from using their SNAP benefits to buy pop and other soft drinks. South Dakota’s Department of Social Services has asked the feds for permission to implement this exclusion.

South Dakota Retailers’ exec Nathan Sanderson questions the implementation of this SNAP pop ban:

“What exactly constitutes a soft drink is difficult to know. Is orange juice a soft drink? Well, orange juice has a higher sugar content than a lot of products that one might think would be ‘soft drinks,’” Sanderson said [Grant Green, “SNAP Waiver Banning Soft Drinks a Possible Administrative Burden for the State,” KSFY, 2026.09.04].

HB 1056 defines “soft drink” as “a nonalcoholic beverage that contains natural or artificial sweeteners.” HB 1056 exempts “milk or milk products; rice, soy, or similar milk substitutes; [and] juices that have been approved by the Department of Health for eligibility in the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children.” DOH’s WIC juice list includes orange juice of any brand but disallows, among other juices, organic juices or juices in glass bottles.

HB 1056 thus appears to answer Sanderson’s question: orange juice is fine, as long as it comes in a carton or plastic jug and isn’t labeled “organic”.

HB 1056 prime sponsor Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt (R-14/Sioux Falls) says banning SNAP for soft drinks “is about making sure taxpayer-funded programs encourage healthier choices and better outcomes for South Dakota families.” I’m not sure drinking regular Land O’ Lakes orange juice from a plastic jug is a healthier choice than drinking organic O.J. from a glass bottle. And if you’re trying not to fill your body or your kids’ growing bodies with sugar, you’ll get more sugar from LOL O.J. (26 grams per 8-ounce serving…and hey, why do our official nutrition labels mix metric and imperial measurements?) than from Sunny Delight (20g per 8 oz).

Sanderson also frets that his retailers are going to face administrative costs and guff from customers:

“There 100% will be impacts; you’re going to have to figure out how to make this all work, and that’s not even counting the pushback they’re (Retail stores) going to get from consumers who are going to want to know why the product they were able to purchase last week isn’t able to be purchased this week, and so on,” Sanderson said [Green, 2026.09.04].

The state will also incur ongoing administrative costs:

An estimate prepared by the Legislative Research Council said hiring the staff and paying for the software necessary to implement a ban would cost the state $310,000 in the first two years, and about a quarter-million dollars annually thereafter [Makenzie Huber, “South Dakota Seeks to Ban Use of Food Assistance for Soda Purchases as Court Ruling Clouds Issue,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.08.31].

South Dakotans can still swipe their EBT cards for Sunny Delight, 7-UP, and other sweetened beverages. HB 1056’s ban won’t take effect until six months after the feds approve the state’s waiver request. And it might never take effect, since a federal judge blocked five other states from implementing similar SNAP-pop bans earlier this summer:

“Congress defined what ‘food’ is supposed to be, and it did not authorize the agency to amend or waive the definition it enacted. It did not authorize the agency to cut types of food out of SNAP entirely,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in a Monday filing, referencing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“It set out clearly the type of experimental projects that could be tested to address the unquestionably serious health issues attributed to the rise of obesity in the population in general and particularly the low-income population,” she added.

According to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia filing, five states, including Iowa, Nebraska, West Virginia, Colorado and Tennessee, “submitted requests to the USDA to conduct pilot projects” between April and August 2025 attempting to “waive the federal definition of ‘food,’” removing certain items from that definition including soft drinks and soda.

Is the juice worth the squeeze on retailers and the state budget? A working paper from profs from Stanford, MIT, and U. Chicago suggests states that have banned SNAP for sugary drinks have reduced SNAP households’ purchases of the targeted drinks by 12.4%. But until the courts or Congress say otherwise, we won’t be able to test that theory in South Dakota.

Related Refreshments:

• The Department of Health does not allow WIC to pay for vegetable juice. Old Orchard Juicy Juice is o.k., but Original V8 is out.
• The DSS waiver request says SNAP supports about 72,000 South Dakotans in 36,500 households. In FY2026, those South Dakotans spent $175.9 million in SNAP benefits in 4.7 million transactions at 804 retail establishments.