Winter warmers, free food and £1 soup: How supermarkets are helping struggling customers

Temperatures might be getting cooler as we move into the winter months, but everyday expenses are still going up.

With inflation, food and energy prices continuing to rise, incomes are being outpaced. Pensions, pay, benefits and savings are all failing to keep up with the cost of living, leaving households struggling to cope with cost-related pressures.

With attention-grabbing offers making headlines across the UK, supermarkets have been quick to highlight the initiatives they have in place to help cash-strapped customers this winter, from free food and cheap kids’ meals to toy donations and vouchers for veg.

Asda: Winter warmer

Asda’s ‘winter warmer’ initiative – a £1 meal deal including a soup, a roll and unlimited tea or coffee for over-60s – was unveiled last week and aims to go some way towards addressing that. Designed to help struggling customers, it comes as the UK faces cost of living and energy crises this winter, with many elderly people likely to experience fuel poverty.

According to Asda’s latest Income Tracker, those aged 65 to 74 experienced a £163 drop in disposable income in August, compared to the same period last year.

Research from Age UK also estimates that 2.8 million older households will remain in fuel poverty this winter despite the energy price cap being frozen.

“We know that this winter is set to be incredibly hard for thousands of pensioners as they worry about how to keep themselves warm in the face of rising living costs and a fixed income,” said Asda’s co-owner, Mohsin Issa.

“We’ve already been able to serve over half a million meals through our Kids Eat for £1 initiative in our cafes and we’re hoping our new offer of soup and hot drinks for over 60s will prove just as impactful for those who need it most.”

Asda is also running a ‘Kids Eat for £1’ initiative, which it launched in July and runs until the end of the year. The hugely popular initiative has seen more than 557,000 free meals served over the past four months.

Tesco: Kids Eat Free

Tesco is bringing back its Kids Eat Free scheme at all 311 of its in-store cafes during the October half-term.

The popular offer – which also ran during the summer holiday period, when Tesco cafes gave away free meals for over 260,000 children – means parents can spend as little as 60p to claim a free kids’ meal worth up to £3.25 when using their Clubcard at Tesco checkouts.

To cover the half-term dates, the UK’s leading supermarket’s scheme will run on weekdays between 17 and 28 October in England and Scotland and between 31 October and 4 November in Northern Ireland and Wales.

Tesco chief customer officer Alessandra Bellini says Kids Eat Free is “just one of the ways” the supermarket is helping its customers to spend less at a time when energy prices and inflation are hitting record levels.

“We know that costs can add up over the school holidays, so offering free meals to children with any item purchased at our cafés for an adult, is one of the ways we are supporting parents during this time,” she adds.

Sainsbury’s: Healthy Start top-up

Sainsbury’s will be helping to feed more than half a million pregnant women and children as it reintroduces its £2 top-up coupons to run alongside the government-funded NHS Healthy Start scheme.

Running throughout the winter, the programme will see eligible customers automatically receiving a £2 coupon at the checkout each week, when they use their Healthy Start card in-store.

The NHS Healthy Start scheme has been designed to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies and young children under four from low-income households.

The weekly coupon will allow shoppers to put the extra money towards purchasing fresh, frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables, in a move to help families access affordable, nutritious food.

Lidl: Christmas toy bank

Discounter Lidl said that while it doesn’t have a specific winter scheme in place, it has instead put in place a “number of initiatives” to support customers over the coming months.

This includes a new nationwide toy donation drive and a pledge to donate one million meals through its retail partner and giving platform, Neighbourly.

The toy bank initiative – which allows shoppers to drop off new and unopened toy donations to be gifted to children within their local area – was launched following research that 80% of local causes, including food banks and other community groups, would find toy and game donations helpful over the festive period.

Lidl will also be donating one million meals – with a focus on festive food – and making £250k available for local charities, community groups, and food banks.

“This year, we wanted to find a meaningful way to help these communities and so we listened to the 1,500 local charities, food banks and community groups we partner with and heard clearly what they needed: food, toys, and access to funds,” said Lidl GB chief executive officer, Ryan McDonnell.

“Our hope is that by rolling out the toy donation points we are making it easier, for those customers who can, to donate directly to local good causes by giving them a small way to make a real difference and help those that need it the most.”

Neighbourly CEO, Steve Butterworth also commented, saying that: “For many families, Christmas gifts will be something they will struggle to afford, so a scheme like this which alleviates some of the worry for parents will make a huge difference.”

M&S Food: Kids Eat Free

M&S’ Kids Eat Free deal is making a return for the October half-term following its overwhelming popularity over the summer holidays.

The offer – which is available when £5 is spent on adult food or drink – will be launching on Monday 17 October across over 340 M&S Cafés in the UK.

M&S marketing and hospitality director Sharry Cramond said: “We know customers are feeling the pinch at the moment so we’ve worked really hard to make sure we’re not only offering families a great value and welcoming meal in our cafés over the half-term holidays, but a completely delicious one too.”

Morrisons: Kids Eat Free

Morrisons currently has a Kids Eat Free initiative on offer, allowing children to have a free meal with every adult paying £5 or more for their food. Although the initiative is ongoing and not linked to the winter season, it will undoubtedly prove useful for many over the coming months.

Waitrose: Super Savers

Waitrose recently launched a collection of ‘Super Saver Recipes’ designed to give consumers inspiration for meals at under £2 a portion this winter. The supermarket is also working with Home Start to teach its network of 10,000 volunteers essential cooking skills to help families in need cook more affordable meals.

Co-op: Community Pantry

The Co-op has partnered with community pantry initiative Your Local Pantry to help families struggling with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. The scheme will be extended from its current 75 locations across UK to 225 within the next three years.

These pantries will help support over 30,000 shoppers who can save an average of £15 per visit, with members often saving £1,000 or more a year or more on shopping bills.

With UK grocery inflation hitting another record high of 13.9% earlier this week and record-breaking numbers of people seeking support from food banks, the current landscape paints a fairly bleak picture for this winter.

While supermarket schemes may offer some temporary solace, for many households they will simply prove to be too little, too late.