In the UK, approximately 7.5 million people are living in food poverty, and the cost-of-living crisis continues to put many through the wringer.
There are several schemes in place to try to help those suffering the most, including Healthy Start by the NHS, which supports pregnant women and low-income families to buy healthy foods such as milk or fruit.
During Covid, supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, helped to boost the scheme, offering £2 vouchers per week on top of the allowance.
These top-ups ended after the pandemic, but now supermarkets are considering offering a helping hand once again.
Here’s everything we know so far…
What have supermarkets said about Healthy Start top-ups?
Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury’s, and Asda have revealed to MPs that they are ‘in talks’ to bring back top-up vouchers for struggling parents using the Healthy Start scheme.
Health and sustainability bosses from the four supermarkets were recently grilled by the Health and Social Care Committee about healthy food and affordability.
During this conversation, they were asked if they would consider offering £2 top-ups again, and the bosses claimed they were involved in ‘active conversations’ to see what was possible.
Nilani Sritharan, Sainsbury’s head of healthy & sustainable diets, tells Metro it is ‘working’ to make a top-up possible, and told MPs it would offer £2 vouchers again if the scheme returned to the original paper-based system used during Covid.
Paper vouchers were originally used, but from March 2022, the scheme switched over to use prepaid cards.
Technological issues with these cards are what led Sainsbury’s to stop offering a top-up in the first place, but Nilani is keen to bring it back.
She said: ‘We have a long-standing commitment to helping families access healthy, affordable food, which is why we previously offered a £2 top‑up for customers using the Government’s Healthy Start scheme. We know how impactful that support was for those who needed it most, so we are actively working with the Government to find solutions that would make a top‑up possible under the new digital system.
‘While these discussions continue, we remain focused on being a leading voice for measures that improve access to nutritious food for families across the country.’
Am I eligible for Healthy Start?
If you are more than 10 weeks pregnant or have children under the age of four, you might be entitled to get help.
You can also apply if your family’s monthly take-home pay is £408 or less from employment.
Applicants will only qualify if they receive certain benefits, such as income support, jobseeker’s allowance, or pension credit.
If you are accepted onto the scheme, you’ll be sent a prepaid card to use in shops that accept Mastercard. Money will be added onto this card every four weeks, and you can use this money to buy:
- plain liquid cow’s milk
- fresh, frozen, and tinned fruit and vegetables
- fresh, dried, and tinned pulses
- infant formula milk based on cow’s milk
You can also use the card to collect Healthy Start vitamins and vitamin drops for babies and young children.
How much money do you get?
- £4.25 each week of your pregnancy (from the 10th week of your pregnancy)
- £8.50 each week for children from birth to 1 year old
- £4.25 each week for children between 1 and 4 years old
Your money will stop after your child’s 4th birthday, or if you no longer receive benefits.
Over at Tesco, Oonagh Turnball, the retailer’s head of health and sustainable diets campaigns, said it was ‘actively involved in conversations with industry bodies to see what is possible’.
And it was a similar story at Asda and Aldi.
Beth Fowler, the senior manager for healthy and sustainable choice at Asda, claimed top-up vouchers were something it would consider if the scheme returned to paper vouchers.
‘We would need to consider that, because it would obviously require investment, but it is certainly something we would consider,’ Beth said.
Similarly, Liz Fox, Aldi’s national sustainability director, said it would be a ‘maybe’ for the budget retailer, as it would need to ‘understand how [top-ups] would work in their systems’.
She added: ‘Aldi does accept Healthy Start vouchers and we would be open to adding value at the till [but] we would need to understand how we would be able to make that work. We have been talking with the NHS team recently on this.’
Metro has contacted other retailers, such as Lidl and Waitrose, to see if they too would consider offering top-ups like these.
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Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.