Tim Connors, a venture capitalist, outlines how Walmart's SNAP EBT online payment option and partnerships with suppliers and McDonald's could use technology and supply chains to eliminate food deserts and hunger across the US.
Hi, I'm Tim Connors. I've been a venture capitalist out in California for 23 years and I get to see all kinds of interesting innovations. Sometimes we create them from scratch in Silicon Valley, sometimes they come from elsewhere. Today we're going to talk about one that Walmart has done. An amazing innovation that if applied everywhere, can actually solve hunger in America. So every day in the US there are 42 million people that go hungry. But it's crazy because we throw away about 20% of the food that is created in the U.S. so this is about 15% of people can't afford to pay retail for food, yet we throw away 20% of food. That's crazy. Walmart has come up with a very interesting Solution. So on Walmart.com they now allow you to pay with your SNAP EBT card. So these are the modern version of food stamps. So you get a, you get a debit card, you can pay with it. For many years you could only pay in a store with it. Now the USDA allows you to pay online and Walmart.com has done that connection. So now if you live within 10 miles of a Walmart, which is 90% of the US population, who lives within 10 miles of Walmart, now you can buy your groceries on Walmart.com and you no longer live in a food desert. Now Walmart has also enabled delivery from all of those stores. So if they would make their delivery for free, if you pay with Snap, then those hard working families who have to work the most hours to make ends meet and rely on food assistance could get groceries delivered to their home. And the food deserts are even more eliminated. What I want to see is have Walmart go to their top hundred suppliers who throw away that 20% of food and have them ship it to Walmart. Then when anybody buys on Walmart.com with their snap card, include those extra boxes of food in the deliveries that go to that customer. Take the 20% of food, send it through the most efficient demand and supply chain in the world. For food that Walmart has, we can solve a lot of suffering. Now getting groceries is great and cooking at home is great, but these families tend to be the busiest workers. They have to work 50, 60, 70 hours a week to try to make ends meet. This is where I'd love to see McDonald's follow Walmart's lead. So McDonald's has an awesome app. So let McDonald's customers link their SNAP UT card to, to the McDonald's app. And if they have that verifies they're in this 15% of the population that needs help on food assistance. Then they could come up with a healthy Happy Meal SKU for anybody that links their SNAP card with 1000 calories of USDA food pyramid healthy food and make it available at cost, say a dollar per family member. Now that busy mom who's trying to make ends meet can get groceries delivered at home for free with their SNAP card and can also go through the drive thru at McDonald's and feed their family very cost effectively. The combination would eliminate all food deserts in the US because there's always either a Walmart within 10 miles or McDonald's close by. What's fascinating about this is it's so much better than what we do today with food. The little bit of technology assist is a massive innovation. Today we don't leverage the most efficient food supply and demand chains in the world for the 15% of people that can't pay retail. We create an entirely new structure for them. We have them go to food banks and soup kitchens, which are the least efficient possible for delivering food relative to what Walmart can do and what McDonald's can do. Now if both of those guys lead with this, then let's get all the other grocers to play too and let's get all the other restaurants to play so that these 15% of people, 42 million people, don't need to be hungry. We could completely eliminate hunger in the US with just a little bit of technology and Walmart's showing the way on how to do it.
