Mercato, an e-commerce platform for independent grocers, now enables customers to pay for groceries using their SNAP benefits. The company, which has been testing the payment option through partnerships with New York City and Pittsburgh stores, is currently rolling out the program nationwide. Read more here.  

The pandemic upended the way people shop for their everyday needs, including groceries. Online grocery sales in the U.S. are expected to reach 21.5% of the total grocery sales by 2025, after leaping from 3.4% pre-pandemic to 10.2% as of 2020. One business riding this wave is Mercato, an online grocery platform that helps smaller grocers and specialty food stores get online quickly. After helping grow its merchant sales by 1,300% in 2020, …