Announcement comes as the nation recognizes Hunger Action Month, with the partnership helping organizations deliver, manage, and measure nutrition programs at scale.

Unite Us, the nation's trusted technology partner for integrating health and community-based care, today announced a new partnership with Instacart (NASDAQ: CART), the leading grocery technology company in North America, to expand access to nutritious food nationwide through a connected solution linking closed-loop care coordination to grocery benefit delivery. Together, the two companies are giving payers, providers, and state and public sector organizations an easier way to deliver food-as-medicine programs at scale, from identifying eligible members to distributing benefits and measuring impact.

The partnership comes at a critical moment, as Hunger Action Month brings renewed attention to the role nutritious food plays in supporting healthier individuals and communities, particularly among Medicaid, Medicare, and rural populations. The latest Household Food Security report, released in late 2025, revealed that 47.9M people experienced food insecurity in 2024. Food-as-medicine programs have been expanding to meet this need, but delivering them at scale remains a challenge. Organizations need a more efficient way to identify and reach eligible members, distribute food benefits, and track outcomes to understand what’s working and where programs can improve.

Unite Us and Instacart, through its Instacart Health business, are addressing those gaps with a single food-as-medicine ecosystem. Unite Us' closed-loop referral system identifies eligible members within customer-defined populations, distributes benefits, coordinates care, and captures outcomes data; Instacart Fresh Funds handles the benefit delivery side: grocery stipends that can be customized by need and redeemed directly on the Instacart app or website at any grocer available on its platform.

"We believe nutritious food can be one of the most powerful tools for improving health, but its impact depends on whether people can access it," said Sarah Mastrorocco, Vice President and General Manager of Health at Instacart. "By connecting Instacart Health with the Unite Us network, we can help people access nutritious food through the organizations and care teams they already know and trust. With Unite Us, we’re creating a simpler, more measurable way to deliver nutrition benefits and help more people put healthy food on the table."

The solution can support a range of nutrition-focused use cases across healthcare and government programs, from Medicare supplemental benefits and Medicaid programs to nutrition support for people managing chronic conditions, families with maternal and child health needs, and individuals transitioning home after an inpatient stay. It can also help organizations connect eligible individuals to nutrition benefits or subsidized delivery alongside programs such as SNAP and WIC, creating more ways to integrate food access into whole-person care.

The result is a program organizations can scale quickly and run with confidence: they can reach the right members, distribute Instacart Fresh Funds directly to them through Unite Us' platform, and pay only for what's actually used. Participant members redeem on Instacart, have dignity of choice with Fresh Funds, and can use EBT SNAP and personal funds in the same order. Unite Us can assess the impact of nutrition spending on health outcomes.

“Every community we work with has members who need support putting healthy food on the table, and this partnership finally lets us meet that need at scale," said Adrienne Sherk, Associate VP of National Partnerships at Unite Us. "By connecting the Unite Us platform directly to Instacart Health, we're closing the distance between identifying a need and meeting it. This means more families can get food on the table faster, and more organizations can prove the impact of the work they're already doing."

Since the partnership is built on flexible, configurable infrastructure, it serves several parts of the health ecosystem at once. Payers can launch scalable food-as-medicine programs that improve member health, support value-based care goals, and demonstrate ROI through utilization and outcomes data. State and public sector agencies can operationalize nutrition programs or subsidized delivery programs across large populations, expanding access in rural and underserved communities while centralizing performance reporting. Health providers can extend care beyond the clinic, easily integrating food benefits into whole-person care strategies and tracking whether patients actually utilize the support they're prescribed and how that affects health outcomes.

Get in touch with Unite Us or Instacart Health to learn more about the new solution.

About Unite Us

Unite Us is the nation’s premier technology provider for integrating health and community-based care. Our advanced product suite is used to proactively coordinate services using data-driven insights, streamline referral and case management, and facilitate eligibility assessments and reimbursements across government, healthcare, health plans, and community organizations. The first of its kind, our closed-loop referral system prioritizes privacy and dignity and has integrated data and analytics tools used to measure impact, optimize programs, and shape policy. With over 1.7M services, we host the nation’s largest network of community-based health and economic services dedicated to improving whole-person health. Learn more at UniteUs.com and LinkedIn.

About Instacart:

Instacart is a leading grocery technology company that partners with more than 2,200 retail banners – representing nearly 100,000 stores – to transform how people shop for the groceries they need from the retailers they trust, while creating flexible earning opportunities for shoppers. Through the Instacart Marketplace, Instacart Enterprise platform, and Instacart Ads ecosystem, the company powers ecommerce, fulfillment, in-store technology, AI offerings, and advertising for partners. For more information, visit www.instacart.com/company. Maplebear Inc. is the registered corporate name of Instacart.

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“Every community we work with has members who need support putting healthy food on the table, and this partnership finally lets us meet that need at scale," said Adrienne Sherk, Associate VP of National Partnerships at Unite Us.