The cost of living crisis has sent shelf prices spiralling, with many people cutting back on essentials to save money to pay skyrocketing energy bills.
In response, many supermarkets and other retailers have put special measures in place to help customers.
Here, Which? rounds up the kinds of offers you can find, and where you’ll find them, to help you save as much as you can at this difficult time.
Free and cheap meals
‘Kids eat free’ wasn’t invented as a direct response to the current crisis, but some shops have expanded, tweaked or highlighted their children’s meal offers in light of it.
Currently, you can find meal discounts at the following places but more may be confirmed for October half-term.
- Asda has been running a 'kids eat for £1' offer which has no requirement to buy an adult meal at the same time. The supermarket will also launch a scheme where those aged 60 and over can enjoy soup, a roll and unlimited tea and coffees for £1 in any of its 205 cafes throughout November and December.
- Morrisons has a permanent 'kids eat free' offer for every adult meal purchased over £4.99.
- Sainsbury’s has ‘feed your family for a fiver’ advice, which provides customers with cheap meal ideas.
- Tesco will bring back its 'kids eat free' scheme allowing parents to claim a free kids meal worth up to £3.25 over weekdays during the upcoming half-term. The meal can be claimed with any purchase in the cafe, but you must be a Clubcard holder to take advantage of the offer.
Listen: the Which? Money Podcast talks about how to save on food shopping.
Targeted discounts and vouchers
You might start to see targeted discounts from supermarkets, to provide help to certain groups of customers that need it more than others.
In Iceland, over-60s can get 10% off their shop on Tuesdays. Iceland also offered £30 vouchers to people receiving pension credit earlier this year.
This week Sainsbury’s announced it would top up the Government funded NHS Healthy Start scheme by £2. The NHS scheme encourages a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies and young children under four from low-income households.
From Wednesday 12 October, eligible customers in England who use a Healthy Start card when shopping at Sainsbury’s will automatically receive a printed coupon worth £2 to use towards fresh, frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables during their next shop.
These are the only targeted discounts we know about so far, but we’ll update this story if we hear of any others.
- Find out more: which was the cheapest supermarket in September?
Christmas discounts
As we approach the festive season, some supermarkets have announced sales and bonus points on their loyalty schemes for Christmas.
For example, Tesco’s Clubcard Christmas Savers Scheme offers a bonus voucher of up to £12 when you use your vouchers towards your big Christmas shop. It also launched a toy sale, running until 2 November, offering savings of up to 50% on favourites such as Lego and Sylvanian Families.
Meanwhile other stores have made changes to their returns policies for Christmas. For example, John Lewis customers will have until January 28 to exchange or return unwanted gifts, and that includes items purchased now as customers look to spread the cost of Christmas.
New or expanded value ranges
In the wake of food writer and activist Jack Monroe’s campaigning, many supermarkets announced they’d expand (or in some cases re-expand) their value ranges to give low-income customers more options.
Iceland launched a 'Value Essentials' budget range which includes everyday items such as bread, milk, and fruit as well as meal staples.
The question is, how do you find them? Different supermarkets have different names for the budget ranges. They might be called 'Everyday Essentials', 'Greengrocer' or 'Simply'.
There's also the issue of shortages. Due to increased demand, budget own-label groceries might be more likely to sell out at the moment. We found that value products were out of stock on three times as many days from December 2021 to February 2022, compared with two years previously.
But own-brand essential ranges were affected less by inflation than standard and premium-priced goods in supermarkets, according to our research.
- Find out more: the truth about food inflation
Price locks on essential items
With inflation getting out of hand, customers will be relieved to hear some retailers are locking down prices on certain products for the foreseeable future.
- Boots says it will keep more than 1,500 products ‘affordable’.Currys locked down prices for several electrical items, promising RRPs lower than in 2021.
- Iceland has promised to keep more than 60 essential items at £1 until the end of the year.
- Morrisons has cut and frozen the prices of over 100 essentials until the end of the year.
- Superdrug has frozen prices on more than 130 own-brand essential items.
- Tesco has locked the prices on thousands of items in its Low Everyday Prices range until 2023.
Find out more: the best Black Friday deals and what to expect
Interest-free food loans
Iceland has launched an interest-free loan scheme to help families pay for groceries over the school holidays.
Iceland Food Club allows customers on a low income to apply for a pre-loaded card of between £25 and £75, with repayments set at £10 a week. However, it's important to understand there are risks associated with taking out credit so you should make sure you understand how repayments work.
Tips on cooking
Iceland has also introduce new energy-saving cooking guidance on packaging from September in a joint partnership with energy firm Utilita.
Utilita's Shop Smart, Cook Savvy research claims households can save £287 by using more energy-efficient appliances, with air-fryers, microwaves and slow cookers revealed as the most efficient.
What else are shops doing to help with the cost of living?
There’s more going on behind the scenes, with supermarkets investing hundreds of millions to battle price inflation. They’re also donating money and food to charities to help the worst-off through the crisis.
Lidl’s Good to Give trustmark highlights long life items with nutritional benefits that can be donated to food banks.
But with inflation at a record high and energy bills expected to rise even further, you may still be struggling to buy the essentials you need.
If you need help with food and essentials, you can search for your local food bank on the Trussel Trust website. You can contact food banks directly, or you can be referred to one by Citizens Advice, Jobcentre Plus, a social worker, a medical professional or your local authority.
Your local council might be able to help in other ways, through small loans or food vouchers.
You can read all our cost of living tips and advice for more help and guidance from our experts.
This article has been updated since it was first published. The last update was on 10 October 2022.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/what-supermarkets-and-shops-are-doing-to-help-with-the-cost-of-living-aNpUU5E5AbYr