Sainsbury's is offering cash-strapped young families £2 in coupons each week to help them buy more fruit and vegetables.

The offer, beginning this Wednesday, will be available to all customers using a Healthy Start card.

The supermarket giant is the latest retailer to announce plans to help its customers through the cost of living crisis - last week Asda unveiled a £1 meal deal for over 60s alongside the offer of unlimited tea and coffee.

The NHS-issue cards, available to women who are more than 10 weeks pregnant or families with a child under 4, offer financial help to low-income households to help them buy enough healthy food and milk.

Money is added onto the cards automatically every four weeks and can range from just over £4 for every week of pregnancy, £8.50 a week if your baby is under one and £4.25 a week for children aged one to four.

Those using their cards to shop in Sainsbury's will be given an extra £2 each week from the supermarket, which they can put towards fresh, frozen and tinned fruit or vegetables sold in its aisles.

Handed-out as printed coupons, the extra £2 can be spent in both supermarkets and smaller Sainsbury's convenience stores.

The retailer says it expects its cost-of-living policy to support around half a million pregnant women and children every week as costs rise this winter and the offer will continue every week until Tuesday, April 11 next year.

Similar schemes have been used by Sainsbury's on two previous occasions. The additional £2 coupon was found, according to research, to have a significant change on customer eating habits with analysis by Leeds Institute for Data Analytics revealing that as a result of offering the top-up coupon, the number of fruit and vegetable portions purchased per customer significantly increased year on year.

Sainsbury’s customers redeeming an NHS Healthy Start scheme voucher purchased 13 more portions of fruit and vegetables per basket compared to those that didn’t, proving says the supermarket, that the scheme allows low-income families greater access to nutritious food.

Ruth Cranston, Director of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at Sainsbury’s said: "We know that times are tough for millions of families across the country, and that the rising cost-of-living is causing uncertainty for many of our customers, so today we’ve announced that we’ll be topping up the government funded NHS Healthy Start scheme by £2 for the third time.

"As part of our brand promise Helping Everyone Eat Better, we believe that everyone deserves to eat well, and the cost of healthy food shouldn’t be a barrier to this. We hope this additional support will ensure that good, quality food is accessible for everyone."