Wisconsin FoodShare members who lose groceries to a power outage or storm have 10 days to ask the state for replacement benefits. The clock starts on the day the food was lost, not the day the household finds out how the process works.
The state Department of Health Services posted the reminder on Oct. 1, 2026, in its news for FoodShare members. It says members who lost food due to recent storms or power outages can request replacement benefits within 10 days of the food loss.
What counts as a loss, and how to ask
The food has to have been bought with FoodShare or Summer EBT benefits and lost to what the state calls a misfortune or weather event. DHS’s replacement request page gives flooding, a power outage and a fire as examples. The page was last revised on April 24, 2026.
There are three routes. A member can log in to the state’s ACCESS site and choose Food Benefits Replacement Request from the left-hand menu, contact the local FoodShare agency, or send in the paper form, F-00330, by mail or fax. Households that only receive Summer EBT can email the form to the Summer EBT support address listed on the page.
Anyone who tells the agency within the 10 days but cannot finish the request in that time gets a little more room. The page says the request must then be completed within 10 days of that notice.
The practical advice for a household after a bad storm is to write down the date the power went out, which foods were lost, and a rough value, and to start the request as soon as the lights are back. Waiting for the full picture to come together is how people end up past the window.
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The state may ask the member to describe what caused the loss and to send supporting documents, such as records from the fire department, police or a community organization. The page says proof may not be required when a state of emergency has been declared, which can matter after a widespread storm.
What the form asks for
The F-00330 form says it must be completed and submitted within 10 days of losing food. It asks for the member’s name, the case number, a description of what caused the loss, the date of the loss and the estimated value of the lost food, and it needs a signature and date.
The form also asks for documents that show what caused the food loss, and says submitting them helps get replacement benefits faster. It adds that proof of the cause might not be needed when a state of emergency has been declared. Neither the form nor the DHS page says how much will be replaced, only that the household reports an estimated value.
Paper forms go to different places depending on the county. Households in Milwaukee County send them to the MDPU office at 6055 N 64th St., Milwaukee, or fax them to 888-409-1979. Households elsewhere in the state mail them to CDPU, PO Box 5234, Janesville, WI 53547, or fax them to 855-293-1822.
What earlier outages showed about the process
The 10-day rule is not new. In June 2022, DHS announced replacement benefits for members hit by storms, and its release said forms must be submitted within 10 days of the date the food was lost. The state said then that an outage had to last four or more hours, and that members without proof could ask their agency for help.
A 2024 report from Wisconsin Watch, republished by Hunger Task Force, found that only about 6% of the 127,500 households the state identified as potentially affected by January 2024’s outages applied for replacement benefits. It also said many aid recipients do not know replacement is an option, and that a hand-signed form can be hard to turn in without a printer.
The same report put the cost of the benefit in perspective: nearly 26,000 FoodShare households received $3.1 million in replacement benefits from December 2022 to November 2023. Those figures describe earlier years, not the current rules, but they show how much money is at stake and how many households never ask for it.
Replacement is a one-time fix, renewals are the long game
A replacement request covers a single loss. Keeping FoodShare itself going depends on renewals, reporting deadlines and notices that come through the year, and a household that is busy cleaning out a freezer is also the household most likely to let a renewal letter sit.
That is why a calendar of due dates helps, particularly for older members and anyone managing benefits for a parent. A storm can knock out power and slow everything else down at the same time, which makes it easy to lose track of a date that has nothing to do with the storm.
Lost food to a Wisconsin outage and worried about the next FoodShare deadline?
The 10-day replacement window is one date. FoodShare also runs on renewal and reporting dates, and a missed notice after a storm can cost a household more than the groceries did.
The story’s question is a one-time loss, and the related job is keeping the benefit itself on track. The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer does that with 51 state packs and a renewal and reporting calendar, so Wisconsin’s dates sit in one place. It also carries a renewal document checklist for the paperwork a household needs on hand.
More Financial Reading
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
