FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

RFI SOLICITATION INSTRUCTIONS

PMT-07 1 Rev. May 19, 2025

SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 TITLE

Healthy SNAP Evaluation

1.2 RFI NUMBER

DCF RFI 2627 011

1.3 DESCRIPTION

The Department of Children and Families (Department), Office of Economic Self Sufficiency, is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to gather market intelligence from qualified vendors regarding available data sources, analytical capabilities, methodologies, and technology solutions for the analysis of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) purchasing data.

The Department seeks information regarding solutions that may assist in evaluating the impact of SNAP policy changes on household purchasing behavior across SNAP-authorized retailers. The Department is particularly interested in approaches that can support analysis of item-level or category-level purchasing trends, product substitution, retailer implementation patterns, and changes in purchasing behavior over time.

The goal of this RFI is to gather information from vendors regarding:

1.3.1 Available data sources and data-acquisition strategies for evaluating SNAP purchasing trends;

1.3.2 Analytical tools, methodologies, and evaluation designs that can measure policy effects over time;

1.3.3 Approaches for assessing the influence of policy changes on household purchasing behavior while accounting for external factors;

1.3.4 Vendors’ experience conducting similar analyses for government agencies, public-benefit programs, retailers, public-health initiatives, or other large-scale programs;

1.3.5 Data-governance, privacy, security, integration, reporting, and implementation considerations; and

1.3.6 Potential solutions that could support evidence-based policy development and program decision making.

Information received through this RFI will assist the Department in better understanding the available market and in developing program requirements for potential future procurement activities.

This is an RFI as defined in §287.012(22), Florida Statutes (F.S.), for planning purposes only.

This is not a solicitation for offers. The information gathered from this RFI may be used to develop a future competitive solicitation. It is the responsibility of the Vendor to check for any changes or notices on the Vendor Information Portal (VIP).

SECTION 2. PURPOSE

Rule 60A-1.042, Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.), provides that an agency may request information by issuing a written RFI. Agencies are authorized to use an RFI in circumstances including, but not limited to, determining whether or not to competitively procure particular commodities or contractual services; determining what solicitation process to use for a particular need; or researching general, special, and/or technical specifications for a solicitation. A Vendor’s https://vendor.myfloridamarketplace.com/

PMT-07 2 Rev. May 19, 2025 response to an RFI is not an offer and the agency may not use the Vendor’s submission to justify a contract with that Vendor without otherwise complying with chapter 287, F.S. and Rule 60A-1.042, F.A.C. Vendors submitting a response to an agency’s RFI are not prohibited from responding to any related subsequent solicitation(s).

Any future purchase of the services will be conducted in accordance with chapter 287, F.S. The Department may use responses from this RFI to prepare one or more competitive solicitations, refine technical or performance requirements, estimate the scope and complexity of future services, and determine whether follow-up vendor meetings or demonstrations would be useful. Any request for cost information is for budgetary and planning purposes only and does not constitute a request for an offer or commitment.

SECTION 3. PROCUREMENT OFFICER

The Procurement Officer is the sole point of contact for communication regarding this RFI. All communications must be in writing and submitted by email.

Alicia Reifinger

Alicia.Reifinger@myflfamilies.com and CC: hqw.procurement.team.activities@myflfamilies.com

All emails to the Procurement Officer shall contain the RFI number (DCF RFI 2627 011) in the subject line of the email.

SECTION 4. BACKGROUND

As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen program integrity, improve nutrition outcomes, and align purchasing behaviors with public health goals, the Department implemented Florida’s Healthy SNAP waiver, approved by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA). The waiver restricts the purchase of certain products, including soda, energy drinks, candy, and ultra-processed prepared desserts when using SNAP funds.

The Department currently faces limitations in its visibility into household purchasing behavior.

Existing data sources do not consistently contain item-level purchase detail, and available datasets may require complex collection, linkage, normalization, categorization, and analysis before meaningful insights can be produced. This lack of actionable data makes it difficult to fully assess how policy changes influence purchasing decisions, retailer patterns, product substitution, or overall household food choice trends.

To effectively evaluate the implementation and impact of current and future SNAP policy changes, the Department is exploring industry capabilities and best practices related to the analysis of SNAP transaction data and related information. Specifically, the Department seeks information on methodologies, tools, data sources, and implementation approaches that could help the Department:

4.1 Establish baseline SNAP purchasing patterns before policy implementation;

4.2 Identify changes in purchases of restricted and nonrestricted product categories;

4.3 Assess potential product substitution and changes in transaction composition;

4.4 Measure changes over time while accounting for factors such as seasonality, inflation, retailer promotions, economic conditions, and household changes;

4.5 Evaluate variation in retailer implementation and operational readiness;

4.6 Produce transparent, reproducible, and decision-useful findings; and

4.7 Support evidence-based program management and future policy development.

mailto:Alicia.Reifinger@myflfamilies.com mailto:hqw.procurement.team.activities@myflfamilies.com

PMT-07 3 Rev. May 19, 2025

The Department is interested in solutions that can be implemented at scale, appropriately protect sensitive information, and accommodate variation among SNAP-authorized retailers. The Department is also interested in approaches that can support required evaluation and reporting associated with the Healthy SNAP waiver, including the development of evidence-based findings suitable for Department and federal review.

SECTION 5. RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS

5.1 SUBMISSION LAYOUT

Please organize your responses to this RFI as follows:

TAB TITLE REQUIRED CONTENT

TAB 1 INTRODUCTION

Cover letter, Vendor identification, point of contact, organizational overview, and relevant experience summary.

TAB 2 DETAILS

Responses to the requested information in Section 5.2.2. Vendors should use the numbered headings below and clearly identify the question addressed.

TAB 3 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Optional supplemental material, assumptions, limitations, demonstration information, and general pricing information.

Responses should be concise but sufficiently detailed to enable the Department to understand and compare the approaches available in the marketplace. Vendors may include appendices, diagrams, sample reports, case studies, or other supporting materials when useful.

5.2 REQUESTED INFORMATION

5.2.1 TAB 1: INTRODUCTION

Please provide a cover letter that includes:

5.2.1.1 The Vendor’s legal name, principal business address, and website;

5.2.1.2 The name, title, telephone number, and email address of the primary point of contact;

5.2.1.3 The RFI number and title;

5.2.1.4 A brief description of the Vendor’s organization, history, ownership or corporate structure as relevant, and core lines of business;

5.2.1.5 A summary of the Vendor’s experience relevant to SNAP, nutrition-assistance programs, retail transaction data, consumer-purchasing analytics, public-sector data analytics, or similarly complex large-scale programs; and

5.2.1.6 Identification of any proposed subcontractors, data providers, or material partners and a brief description of their anticipated roles.

5.2.2 TAB 2: DETAILS

PMT-07 4 Rev. May 19, 2025

The Office of Economic Self Sufficiency seeks the following information. Vendors may propose alternative approaches and should identify any assumptions, dependencies, limitations, or risks associated with their responses.

5.2.2.1 Organizational Experience and Qualifications

5.2.2.1.1 Describe the Vendor’s experience designing, implementing, or operating analytics solutions involving retail transaction, food-purchase, benefits, public-health, or consumer-behavior data.

5.2.2.1.2 Describe any experience with SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, TANF, other public-benefit programs, food retailers, grocery loyalty data, point-of-sale data, or product-catalog data. If direct SNAP experience is limited, describe comparable work.

5.2.2.1.3 Provide up to three relevant examples or case studies. For each example, identify the client type, objective, data used, analytical methods, scale, deliverables, outcomes, and the Vendor’s role. Do not disclose confidential client information.

5.2.2.1.4 Describe the proposed team’s relevant roles, qualifications, and experience, including expertise in data engineering, data science, evaluation design, retail product classification, privacy, security, and public-sector implementation.

5.2.2.2 Data Sources, Availability, and Quality

5.2.2.2.1 Identify data sources that could support this evaluation, including transaction, item-level, product-catalog, retailer, geographic, household-demographic, program-administrative, nutrition, price, or external contextual data. For each source, describe the data owner, availability, coverage, refresh frequency, geographic scope, level of detail, and known limitations.

5.2.2.2.2 Describe approaches for obtaining item-level or category-level purchase information from SNAP-authorized retailers. Address large and small retailers, independent retailers, online retailers, and retailers with differing point-of-sale capabilities.

5.2.2.2.3 Explain how the proposed approach would distinguish SNAP-funded purchases from purchases made using other tender types when a transaction contains multiple payment methods.

5.2.2.2.4 Describe methods for linking transaction data to product identifiers and for mapping products to policy-relevant categories. Address UPC or GTIN matching, retailer-specific stock-keeping units, private-label products, changing assortments, ambiguous products, and product bundles.

5.2.2.2.5 Describe data-quality controls, including completeness checks, duplicate detection, validation of transaction amounts and quantities, product-category validation, treatment of missing or delayed files, and audit trails for data transformations.

5.2.2.2.6 Describe the minimum data elements, historical lookback period, data-refresh cadence, and retailer participation necessary to produce meaningful results.

Identify any thresholds below which results may not be representative or reliable.

5.2.2.2.7 Describe the feasibility, availability, and limitations of using the following data sources for a Healthy SNAP evaluation: SNAP-authorized retailer transaction data;

PMT-07 5 Rev. May 19, 2025 retailer loyalty-card purchase records, when available and authorized; EBT utilization and macro-spending data; out-of-state and online purchase data; and SNAP-recipient survey data, if available or authorized. Identify any required agreements, permissions, data elements, retailer participation, or Department support.

5.2.2.2.8 Describe the approach to classifying products and measuring changes in purchases of nutrient-dense foods, restricted items purchased with non-SNAP funds, out-of-state transactions, and online transactions. Identify data limitations that could affect the validity or interpretation of those measures.

5.2.2.3 Evaluation and Analytical Methodology

5.2.2.3.1 Propose one or more methods to establish baseline purchasing patterns before policy implementation and measure changes after implementation.

5.2.2.3.2 Describe how the approach would assess whether observed changes are reasonably associated with the policy rather than seasonality, inflation, retailer promotions, local economic conditions, changes in household composition, or other confounding factors.

5.2.2.3.3 Describe potential comparison strategies, such as pre- and post-policy analysis, matched comparison groups, difference-in-differences, interrupted time series, synthetic controls, or other quasi-experimental designs. Explain when each approach is appropriate and its limitations.

5.2.2.3.4 Describe how the analysis would evaluate product substitution. For example, explain how the solution could identify shifts from restricted products to other beverages, snacks, desserts, or food categories.

5.2.2.3.5 Describe how results could be segmented while maintaining appropriate privacy protections. Potential dimensions include retailer type, retailer size, geography, urban or rural location, household characteristics available to the Department, transaction size, product category, and time period.

5.2.2.3.6 Describe how the solution would measure retailer implementation patterns, including product-eligibility configuration, transaction declines, exception or override activity where available, and variation in compliance or operational readiness.

5.2.2.3.7 Explain how the approach would identify uncertainty, bias, representativeness limitations, and statistically or practically meaningful changes. Describe quality-assurance and independent-review processes.

5.2.2.4 Technology, Integration, and Deliverables

5.2.2.4.1 Describe the proposed technology architecture, including data ingestion, storage, processing, analytics, visualization, reporting, and interfaces. Identify commercial products, open-source components, and proprietary capabilities.

5.2.2.4.2 Describe integration options with Department systems, retailer systems, third-party data providers, and secure file-transfer or application-programming-interface environments. Identify anticipated dependencies and integration risks.

5.2.2.4.3 Describe the extent to which the solution can support batch, near-real-time, or periodic reporting. State the recommended reporting cadence and rationale.

PMT-07 6 Rev. May 19, 2025

5.2.2.4.4 Describe standard and optional deliverables. Examples may include cleaned analytic datasets, data dictionaries, methodology documentation, dashboards, recurring reports, ad hoc analysis, executive summaries, retailer-facing reports, and reproducible code or workflows.

5.2.2.4.5 Provide examples or descriptions of dashboards and reports that would be useful to program leadership. Address accessibility, exportability, drill-down capability, user roles, and the ability to explain results to nontechnical audiences.

5.2.2.4.6 Describe implementation phases, estimated timeframes, key milestones, Department and Vendor responsibilities, and the activities needed to move from discovery to initial reporting and ongoing operations.

5.2.2.4.7 Describe the ability to develop reusable evaluation tools, including methodology documentation, templates, data-classification guides, reproducible models or workflows, and training or orientation materials that could enable Department staff to conduct future analyses.

5.2.2.5 Privacy, Security, and Data Governance

5.2.2.5.1 Describe the Vendor’s approach to protecting personally identifiable information, confidential program information, and sensitive retailer or transaction data.

5.2.2.5.2 Identify applicable security standards, certifications, policies, and controls, including encryption, access management, logging, monitoring, vulnerability management, incident response, backup, and disaster recovery.

5.2.2.5.3 Describe proposed data-governance practices for data ownership, permitted use, retention, destruction, lineage, access approvals, quality stewardship, and auditability.

5.2.2.5.4 Describe methods for de-identification, pseudonymization, aggregation, suppression, and disclosure avoidance. Explain how the approach would balance analytic utility with privacy requirements.

5.2.2.5.5 Identify any data-sharing agreements, data-use restrictions, legal considerations, or third-party permissions that may be necessary. Describe how these requirements could affect implementation timeline, scope, or available analyses.

5.2.2.6 Risks, Constraints, and Recommendations

5.2.2.6.1 Identify the principal risks and constraints that could affect the feasibility, quality, cost, schedule, or interpretability of a Healthy SNAP evaluation.

5.2.2.6.2 Recommend practical mitigation strategies, including phased implementation, pilot programs, retailer sampling, data-standardization activities, or alternative analytic approaches.

5.2.2.6.3 Describe the Vendor’s recommended minimum viable scope for an initial evaluation and an expanded mature-state scope.

5.2.2.6.4 Identify decisions the Department should make early to support a successful future procurement, including preferred data ownership, hosting model, procurement structure, performance measures, and stakeholder engagement.

PMT-07 7 Rev. May 19, 2025

5.2.2.6.5 Identify innovations, emerging data sources, or industry practices that the Department should consider.

5.2.3 TAB 3: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Please provide any additional information the Vendor considers relevant, including demonstration materials, sample deliverables, implementation assumptions, limitations, recommended performance measures, or information that may assist the Department’s market research.

Pricing: Please do not provide any specific cost or pricing information at this time; this is not a solicitation for an offer. However, Vendors may provide general, nonbinding pricing information, such as indicative price ranges, pricing models, key cost drivers, and assumptions that materially affect cost. This information is requested solely for planning and budgetary purposes.

5.3 SUBMISSION FORMAT

Vendors must submit responses via email in PDF format to the Procurement Officer using the contact information in Section 3. Responses must be received by the date and time specified in Section 6. The email subject line must include the RFI number.

5.4 TRADE SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL, OR PROPRIETARY INFORMATION

5.4.1 Article 1, section 24, Florida Constitution, guarantees every person access to all public records, and §119.011, F.S., provides a broad definition of “public record.” As such, the entirety of the Response is public record and is subject to disclosure unless exempt from disclosure by law. The Department defines “confidential information” as information that is trade secret as defined in §688.002, F.S., or otherwise confidential or exempt from disclosure under Florida or federal law.

5.4.2 If the Vendor considers any portion of the Response to be confidential information, the Vendor shall then submit two copies of the Response. In both copies, any portion of the Response considered confidential information shall be clearly labeled within the text of the Response as “CONFIDENTIAL”. For each portion of the Response that is labeled “CONFIDENTIAL”, the Vendor shall provide a written statement of the basis for exemption applicable to each provision identified by the Vendor as “confidential”, including citation to a protection created by statute, and state with particularity the reasons the provision is confidential.

5.4.3 By submitting a Response, the Vendor agrees to protect, defend, and indemnify the Department for all claims arising from or relating to the Vendor’s determination that the redacted portions of its Response are confidential information. If a Vendor fails to submit a Redacted Copy in accordance with these instructions, the Department is authorized to produce the entire material submitted to the Department in response to a demand for discovery or disclosure of these records or a public records request.

5.5 PRESENTATIONS

After the Department receives and reviews responses to this RFI, the Department may, in its sole discretion, invite one (1) or more Vendors to demonstrate or present their products, services, data sources, methodologies, or capabilities. The purpose of any presentation is to assist the Department in understanding current market solutions and implementation considerations.

Any presentation or follow-up discussion is for market research and planning purposes only. It does not constitute a competitive procurement, negotiation, commitment by the Department, or selection of a Vendor for a future contract.

PMT-07 8 Rev. May 19, 2025

SECTION 6. TIMELINE

EVENT DATE TIME LOCATION

Release of RFI 10/8/2026 https://vendor.myfloridamarketplace.com/

Submission of Questions

10/22/2026 11:00 a.m. ET Section 7

Department’s Response to Questions

11/3/2026 https://vendor.myfloridamarketplace.com/

Responses Due 11/19/2026 11:00 a.m. ET Section 3

Presentations, if applicable

TBD TBD

SECTION 7. WRITTEN QUESTIONS

7.1 All questions must be received by the Procurement Officer at the email addresses listed in Section 3, no later than the date and time specified in Section 6, Timeline.

7.2 Vendors are strongly encouraged to review the RFI in its entirety before submitting questions.

7.3 The Department will not accept questions by telephone, postal mail, hand delivery or fax.

7.4 All questions should be submitted in a single communication whenever practicable, rather than in multiple communications.

7.5 The Department reserves the right to respond to questions received after the written question submission deadline. It is the sole discretion of the Department to consider questions received after the written questions submission deadline.

SECTION 8. CAVEATS

8.1 Vendor Costs

Vendors are responsible for all costs associated with the preparation, submission, and any potential meeting(s) to discuss this RFI. The Department will not be responsible for any Vendor-related costs associated with responding to this request.

8.2 Special Accommodations

Any person with a disability requiring special accommodation to participate in the RFI process shall contact the Procurement Officer at the email provided in Section 3 at least five (5) working days prior to the applicable event. If you are hearing or speech impaired, please contact this office by using the Florida Relay Services which can be reached at 1 (800) 955-8771 (TDD). Certified Business Enterprises are encouraged to participate in the RFI process.

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