The cost of SNAP restrictions
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What changes are happening to the SNAP program?
A holiday does not necessarily equal a light news day, these days at least. We've got IPOs, homebuyer stats, and the lowdown on a somewhat mysterious retailer that's trending by copying trends. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.
In New York, I'm Kristen Schwab in for Kyra's doll. It's Monday, May 25th. Good to have you with us on this Memorial Day. Over the weekend, it seemed like the Trump administration and Iran were maybe getting closer to ending the war. Now progress seems to have slowed down. Of course, all of it continues to impact trade routes and the price of oil. And American businesses are left with little to do but follow the twists and turns. Though twists and turns might just be a part of doing business in America now. To get a temperature check, we called up Daniela Velasquez de Leon, general manager of Organics Unlimited, a fruit importer in San Diego. Daniela, it's great to talk with you again. Great to talk to you, too.
So it's been a few months since we've caught up. Tell me, how's business? What's happening? It's good. It's been a good year. As always, there's stuff going on out in the world, but business has been good this year. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world. What is sort of the thing that rises to the top for you? I mean, I think the biggest thing on a lot of people's minds is what's going on in the I mean, just from an overall humanitarian perspective, but also just the way it affects every single industry. And of course, the tariffs, which will hopefully start getting the refunds here soon. Yeah, let's start with tariffs. Have you applied for that refund yet? So we're in the process of doing that through...
our customs brokers, we are qualified to do the phase one refunds.
So that would cover everything pretty much from April onward, though we do have some entries that came in from Mexico when there was like that 25% tariff for a few days in late March that are unfortunately not within that window. When you get that money, do you know what you're going to do with it?
It's going to help with the cost increases this year. I guess with what's happening in the Middle East, there's been increases in fuel costs from both Ecuador and Mexico. And so far, we've been absorbing that because, I mean, we understand that it's very hard for our customers as it is to try and maintain fuel. food prices at a good spot. So we definitely don't want to be contributing to the inflation that people are seeing in their groceries. So that's definitely what we have planned for right now.
What does that mean? How do you make the math work on your end? I mean, it definitely means that our margin is tighter, which... is hard on bananas that are already a very tight margin item.
So we're just getting creative on where it is that we can get a little bit leaner so that we're able to absorb those costs. And I think ultimately in the long run, what's better for our customers and our partners is better for us in the long run as well.
You know, you're talking about bananas being a low margin fruit Are you thinking about expanding into other products? Yeah, so bananas are our bread and butter. It's what my family has always done.
It's how we got started in the organic industry.
We ventured into papayas in 2024, and that's been really great. We're hoping to have organic coconuts in the mix in the coming month or so. So that's pretty exciting.
We're trying to focus on more of a tropical organic offering, trying to see what makes the most sense logistically, what's available locally in our growing regions already.
You run a family business. How do you feel about its future? How do you feel about it now versus a year ago or as you look into the year ahead? That's a complicated question. It's always scary owning a family business.
Especially when you're leading it because what you want more than anything is for it to succeed because you feel responsible for the well-being of all of the people that work for the business. You know, it's not just the employees.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What changes are happening to the SNAP program?
0:01–8:24
2
How are convenience stores adapting to SNAP restrictions?
8:24–10:16
3
What challenges do smaller stores face with new SNAP requirements?
10:16–10:52
4
How is SNAP impacting consumer purchasing behavior?
10:52–13:02
5
What does the USDA aim to achieve with SNAP changes?
13:02–16:48
6
What is Quince and how does it operate in the retail market?
16:48–21:18
7
How does Quince utilize data to inform its product offerings?
21:18–26:45
8
What future trends might emerge in retail based on Quince's model?
26:45–26:51