Grocery shoppers on food assistance in South Carolina and North Dakota were bracing to lose the ability to buy candy and soda with their benefits within days. Instead, the federal agency that runs the program told both states, plus Ohio, to stand down. The reason traces back to a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., not a change of heart in any state capitol, and it means the diet sodas and candy bars that were about to disappear from SNAP purchases are, for now, still fair game.
What USDA Actually Told the Three States
South Carolina’s Department of Social Services had been counting down to an Aug. 31 start date for its Healthy Food SC project, which was set to remove candy, energy drinks, soft drinks and other sweetened beverages from the list of items SNAP households could buy. Days before that date, the state agency instead posted a notice saying the U.S. Department of Agriculture had asked it to push the start back to Nov. 1, 2026, so the federal government could first collect public comment on the change. North Dakota received a similar directive by letter in late August, days ahead of its own Sept. 1 target date for excluding soft drinks, energy drinks and candy from SNAP purchases. Ohio, whose restriction on sugar-sweetened beverages and fountain drinks had been aimed at an Oct. 1 start, got the same kind of request, though without a specific replacement date attached.
None of the three states chose this on their own. In each case, the request came from Washington, and in each case, the given reason was the same: the agency wants to publish a formal notice and gather public comments before letting a restriction take effect, something it says it did not do the first time around.
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The June Court Ruling That Triggered the Pause
The pause did not come out of nowhere. On June 22, 2026, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. vacated a set of SNAP food-restriction waivers that USDA had approved for five other states: Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia. USDA’s own SNAP Food Restriction Waivers page now displays that court order directly next to each of those five states, noting that the waiver’s implementation “may not proceed.” The court found that the agency had exceeded its authority under the SNAP pilot-project statute and, separately, that it had skipped a required step: publishing a notice in the Federal Register at least 30 days before starting a pilot project likely to have a significant effect on the public.
South Carolina, North Dakota and Ohio were not parties to that lawsuit, and their waivers were not directly struck down. But the same missing step applies to their programs too, which is why USDA is now asking all three to wait while it works through the same public-notice process the court said was required in the first place.
South Carolina and North Dakota Now Target November 1
Of the three states, South Carolina and North Dakota have an actual replacement date on the calendar: Nov. 1, 2026. South Carolina’s waiver, approved by the Agriculture Department in December 2025 at Gov. Henry McMaster’s request, would still bar SNAP purchases of candy, energy drinks, soft drinks and other sweetened beverages once it takes effect. North Dakota’s version, approved the same month, targets soft drinks, energy drinks and candy. Both states say they plan to use the extra two months to keep briefing retailers and SNAP households on exactly which products will no longer ring up on an EBT card, according to South Carolina’s Healthy Food SC notice.
Neither state has walked back its restriction. The Nov. 1 date is a delay, not a cancellation, and both waivers remain formally approved by USDA while the agency works through its public-comment step.
Ohio’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Ban Has No New Date Yet
Ohio is in a different spot. Its waiver, approved in March 2026 and later expanded in scope, was built to keep SNAP benefits from being used on beverages where sugar, corn syrup or high-fructose corn syrup is a top ingredient, along with fountain drinks. That was supposed to start Oct. 1. Instead of a new target date, Ohio’s Department of Job and Family Services has only said the change is on hold while USDA works through the same Federal Register and comment process it applied to South Carolina and North Dakota. Retailers who had already been asked to sign forms promising not to sell those drinks to SNAP shoppers are now waiting along with everyone else.
What Still Changes at the Checkout Line
For now, nothing changes at the register in any of the three states. SNAP cards in South Carolina, North Dakota and Ohio still work on candy, soda and the other items each waiver was designed to exclude, exactly as they did before any of this started. That will not stay true forever. USDA’s own waiver approvals for all three states are still active on paper, and the delay is explicitly framed as a timing fix, not a reversal of policy. The Nov. 1 dates in South Carolina and North Dakota are the numbers to watch first, since Ohio’s restart depends on a Federal Register notice that, as of this week, USDA has not yet published.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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