McKeever's Market & Eatery became the first grocer to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, payments directly on Instacart's AI-powered smart shopping carts.

The Kansas City-area grocer enabled the feature on its Caper Carts in partnership with payments provider Forage, Chain Store Age reported on June 30. SNAP participants can pay for eligible items with their electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, card at the cart itself. The system uses end-to-end encryption to protect card data and PIN entry.

McKeever's operates two locations: Lee's Summit, Missouri, at 840 NW Pryor Road and Lenexa, Kansas, at 8800 Maurer Court. Published reports place the carts only at the Lee's Summit store.

McKeever's first deployed Caper Carts at its Lee's Summit store in June 2024. At the launch, Tim Cosens, chief technology officer at McKeever's, described the company as "a home-grown grocery business" and said the carts help customers "effortlessly discover new products and stay on budget, all during a single visit," Supermarket News reported.

McKeever's launched the carts alongside Price Chopper, which debuted them at its Parkville, Missouri, store. Both grocers planned a broader deployment, according to Supermarket News. Price Chopper has 52 stores in the Kansas City area and has partnered with Instacart since 2017, according to Grocery Dive.

The carts use cameras, a built-in scale and location sensors connected to Nvidia Jetson hardware to recognize items as shoppers drop them in the basket. Shoppers pick up the carts at the store entrance, according to Fox4KC. An interactive screen displays coupons, loyalty-program deals and personalized product recommendations. The screen also rewards shoppers who pass a spending threshold.

Shoppers skip the checkout line. The bill is charged directly to a linked payment method.

"Caper Carts have been an excellent way to make shopping more efficient for our customers, from helping them maximize their budgets with real-time budget tracking to showing our SNAP customers what items are eligible for benefit use," Cosens said in a statement reported by Chain Store Age.

"Customers using Caper Carts tell us they love tracking their spending, discovering deals right in the aisle, and skipping the unload at checkout," David McIntosh, Instacart's chief connected stores officer, said in comments reported by Chain Store Age.

The smart-cart rollout is part of a broader push by Instacart into physical grocery technology. Instacart acquired Caper AI, the cart's manufacturer, for $350 million in 2021, according to Grocery Dive. Thousands of Caper Carts are live in more than 100 cities, and the business tripled year over year, Instacart told Forbes in an Aug. 21 article.

More than 80% of North American shoppers are shopping to a budget, McIntosh said in the Forbes article.

Instacart's platform has helped U.S. grocers generate more than $22.5 billion in additional revenue and create more than 237,000 grocery jobs since 2012, according to the company's 2025 Economic Impact Report, released in November 2025. The report, which includes an analysis by NERA Economic Consulting, says nearly 1 in 3 of those jobs have been at small, independent grocers.

The report also says people shopping for Instacart orders have earned more than $24 billion through the platform, and customers saved more than $3 billion through deals, discounts and loyalty programs between January 2023 and June 2025. Instacart says its reach extends to 98% of U.S. households, including nearly every home enrolled in SNAP.

EBT SNAP payment on Caper Carts is available at McKeever's, with additional retailers expected to add the feature.