Lidl has become the latest supermarket to offer to provide financial spending top-ups for the poorest customers, as retailers look to tackle the cost of living crisis.
As exclusively revealed by The Grocer this week, supermarkets are in “active talks” with ministers over bringing back the top-ups to Healthy Start vouchers, which were offered by a raft of retailers during the Covid pandemic.
However, Lidl echoed the demands of other retailers, saying the government’s switch to a digital payment system for the vouchers was a major barrier which would need to be tackled before a scheme could get off the ground.
Aldi, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have already said they would be open to topping up Healthy Start vouchers, echoing moves in the pandemic when a raft of supermarkets stepped in to boost the government’s funding to help parents of young children and pregnant mums.
However, the scheme was struck with major technical problems which saw families stranded at tills unable to use prepaid cards, whilst retailers were also accused of not doing enough to market the scheme, before the top-ups ended after the pandemic.
Supermarkets have raised fears the current digital system for payments to families would mean they could not link the top-ups with spending on healthy foods, such as fruit and veg.
A Lidl spokeswoman said: “We are open to offering top-ups but need to explore how this could work with current technology at the tills since the vouchers moved to a card format.
“We were proud to be the first retailer to increase the value of vouchers during the pandemic before the move to cards, and are exploring options with industry bodies to see if it might be possible now.”
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