The Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act aims to kill two birds with one stone: affordability and nutrition.
A bipartisan group of senators wants to expand access to hot rotisserie chicken via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Currently, SNAP benefits cannot be used to purchase any prepared food that is hot and ready to eat, like a hot rotisserie chicken, because federal rules restrict purchases to foods intended for home preparation. Federal regulations do, however, allow the purchase of cooked rotisserie chicken that has been cooled down.
The bill would allow SNAP participants to purchase hot rotisserie chicken with their benefits by adding the item to the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, which oversees SNAP.
The bill is co-sponsored by West Virginia GOP Sens. Jim Justice and Shelley Moore Capito, who say allowing SNAP recipients to purchase hot rotisserie chicken is both common sense and practical.
“It’s as basic as you can get to help busy parents or grandparents put something as simple as this on the table to feed their families,” Mr. Justice said in a statement. “We have to give people the option to put a healthy, protein-dense choice on the table that actually tastes good and doesn’t take an hour and a half to cook.”
Ms. Capito said that this would be a “practical step to make the program work better for the people it serves.”
“For seniors, working families, and those without reliable access to cooking equipment, this is about convenience and dignity,” she said in a statement. “With multiple states — including West Virginia — already requesting flexibility in this area, this bill brings SNAP in line with real-world needs while making smart, efficient use of taxpayer dollars.”
Harrison Kircher, president of the National Chicken Council, which advocates for companies that raise and process chickens for meat, said the bill is a “solution to an unnecessary problem.”
There is no nutritional or logical difference between allowing SNAP recipients to buy cold but not hot rotisserie chicken, he said, but only an “outdated technicality that forces grocery stores to heat chickens and cool them back down just to comply, wasting energy, degrading quality, and adding cost.”
At a low of $5 in some stores, rotisserie chicken is the “most affordable complete protein in the grocery store,” he said.
The bill is also backed by Sens. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania Democrat, and Michael Bennet, Colorado Democrat.
Similar efforts, such as the bipartisan Hot Foods Act introduced by Rep. Grace Meng, New York Democrat, have aimed to broaden SNAP benefits to include hot sandwiches and soups.
