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When Payments & Veggies Collide

Posted by guest blogger Liz Benditt, Vice President - Marketing Multi Service Corporation

I think it is VERY cool when our personal passions coincide with our professional pursuits. I love to cook and find ways to sneak vegetables into my family’s meals.  I participate in the Multi Service CSA program and frequent many local Farmer’s Markets here in the Kansas City metro. (Let me know if you are interested in my pesto pizza or chocolate-beet cake recipes – popular fare at the Benditt house!)

This past spring I became involved in a community organization that is using vacant commercial property to grow organic vegetables to sell at a local farmer’s market - The Rosedale Farmer’s market. The Rosedale Farmer’s Market participates in a program called, “Beans & Greens”. The concept is simple: Participants in various state-and-federally funded food-assistance programs like SNAP and FMNP can get double the value of their food-assistance dollars when they shop at select local farmers markets. Program participants swipe their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards at a kiosk at the market and earn 2x their value when they are redeemed for fresh fruit and vegetables sold at the Farmer’s Market.

I think this is one of the most interesting and innovative ways to use PAYMENTS to solve a complex problem. Local farmers need local buyers; residents in urban areas need access to fresh and healthy food sold by merchants who accept EBT credits; individuals need incentives to buy more zucchini and less mac-n-cheese. By tying an incentive program to an existing electronic payments vehicle, the Beans & Greens program has simplified the equation considerably.

It gives me tremendous pride to be part of the commercial payments industry, especially when examples of “Innovation Where It Matters” make the world a better place, one cucumber at a time.