It is an arbitrary distinction between cold and hot food, but as I pointed out the exact same program compensates for this by also providing for hot food and other necessities with a separate balance.
The fact that it does just speaks to even them ppl in charge of the program realising how silly it is, but instead of just fixing it they opted to jury-rig something on top of it instead, likely because they're still beholden to the idea of not making it too easy on the poors.
My assumption is that it was deliberately designed this way so as to prevent the recipient from subsisting solely on high-margin, low nutrient value convenience food.
Which could better be done in plenty of other ways.
Plus, it's also easily circumventable by just buying the product frozen and heating it yourself, so other ways would be more efficient anyway.
Well, the nearest system I can compare it to is the Belgian food stamps - these aren't part of poverty aid, they're a part of wages - a compensation for the meals you eat at work or on the road.
Yeah, we had that too, until someone finally realised paying a 3rd party to handle all the extra paper/card manufacturing etc is just wasteful and now they just give us the money straight up (as in where i work, separate food stamps/cards are still around, it depends on your employer).
