What are Healthy Start vouchers, how can you apply and what can you buy?
IF you're a parent or soon-to-be mum on a low income or benefits then you're entitled to extra help with food and milk.
Under the government's benefits for families, if your kids are under four years old and you receive certain payments, you can get one voucher a week worth either £4.25 or £8.50 depending on your child's age.
It comes after the value of the Healthy Start food vouchers increased from £3.10 to £4.25 in April.
We explain what the Healthy Start scheme is, how it works and how to apply.
What is the Healthy Start scheme?
The Healthy Start scheme was introduced in 2006 to replace a previous welfare food scheme.
You must be pregnant or have a child under the age of four and receive any of these benefits:
- Child Tax Credit (only if your family’s annual income is £16,190 or less)
- Income Support
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
- Pension Credit (which includes the child addition)
- Universal Credit (only if your family’s take-home pay is £408 or less per month from employment)
- Working Tax Credit
They can be used to buy either plain cow’s milk, plain fresh or frozen vegetables, infant formula, and fresh, dried, and tinned pulses.
You can also get free vitamins too.
Those who are eligible can get one voucher a week, which are sent out once a month.
How much do you get?
If you fit the eligibility criteria, you can get one voucher a week £4.25 each week from the 10th week of your pregnancy.
Freepost RRTR-SYAE-JKCR
Healthy Start Issuing Unit
PO Box 1067
Warrington
WA55 1EG
If you don’t have a printer, you can call the Healthy Start helpline on 0345 607 6823 and get one sent to you.
Alternatively, you can request one from your GP or midwife.
You then fill it in and post it back.
Once your application is approved, you’ll have the vouchers posted out to you every four weeks.
What can you buy with the vouchers?
As the limits of what you can buy are restricted (so no alternative milks, condensed milk, vegetables without seasoning or sauces, pre-cooked vegetables or fruit, chips/onion rings or dried, canned, juiced fruit and veg) we’ve created a list of what you can buy at the major supermarkets below.
While Lidl and Aldi don’t list all their goods online, we’ve asked what their cheapest options are for the Healthy Start program.
We’ve calculated the prices below using the online shopping tool on each supermarket’s website and found the cheapest versions for each of the below using the low to high sorting tool.
Where they’ve requested an address, we’ve used The Sun’s address in central London.
This means that your local store could have cheaper prices. We’ve contacted all the supermarkets to double check the prices too and will update this article when we hear back.
It’s worth noting as well that all online supermarkets have a minimum spend to shop online (which varies between £25 and £40), plus delivery fees, so if you want to just shop using your vouchers, you should head to your nearest branch instead.
Asda
- 240g bag of salad - 65p
- Pint of semi skimmed milk - 59p
- 200 ml carton/bottle of formula - 70p
- 1kg bag of mixed frozen vegetables - 68p
- 500g bag of pulses - 55p
Total: £2.17
With £1.08 to spare, you can stock up on more that one of the products, or even go for a more expensive option.
Morrisons
- 185g bag of salad - £1
- Pint of semi skimmed milk - 55p
- 200 ml carton/bottle of formula - 70p
- 1kg bag of mixed frozen vegetables - 85p
- 500g bag of pulses/grains - 60p
Total: £3.70
You'll still have 55p left over at Morrisons so you could pick up another pints of milk.
Tesco
- 250g bag of salad - 79p
- Pint of semi skimmed milk - 50p
- 200 ml carton/bottle of formula - 80p
- 1kg bag of mixed frozen vegetables - 75p
- 500g bag of dried pulses - 55p
Total: £3.39
Tesco’s shop leaves you with £1.11, so you could get more than one of a couple items or stock up on single fruit and veg items like a lemon, lime, orange or kiwi (all 30p each), a bulb of garlic (25p), a head of broccoli (35p) or 1kg bag of carrots (41p).
Sainsbury's
- 250g bag of salad - £1.25
- Pint of semi skimmed milk - 55p
- 200 ml carton/bottle of formula - 70p
- 1kg bag of mixed frozen vegetables - 69p
- 215g can of pulses - 44
Total: £3.63
Sainsbury’s leaves you with 62p leftover from your shop above.
This means you can buy another pint of milk or even go for a bigger can of pulses, spending 55p on 400g of black beans, still leaving money to spare.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
If you're looking for some supermarket bargains while you're at it, Morrisons has slashed the price of cooked breakfasts by 50%.
We also explain how you can get free food from Tesco through the app Olio.
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