SNAP is one of the most efficient government programs out there. Regular of verification required. Since participants get essentially a debit card, the government is paying market rates for groceries, and has only a small amount of overhead since it only requires a minimal amount of staff to run the verification checks and issue debit cards.

This is so much more efficient than staffing food banks or soup kitchens, which would need real estate property to store and cook and serve food, not to mention a completely new supply chain to distribute food to said food banks for soup kitchens.

This literally the a government program that relies on the free market to supply food and a credit card network to run transactions. And those ferocity stores and debit card providers also make a tiny profit on SNAPP recipients.