Sainsbury’s is offering £2 boxes of fruit and vegetables in a bid to cut waste and help customers cope with rising food prices.

The boxes will be available in more than 200 selected supermarkets across the country, following a successful trial last month.  

The ‘Taste Me, Don’t Waste Me’ boxes will include a variety of surplus fresh fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be thrown away. All products included are carefully selected to ensure they are still fresh. They are likely to include packs in which one piece of fruit may be damaged but the others are fine to be sold.

The initiative is part of the retailer’s commitment to halve food waste across its value chain by 2030. Last year, Sainsbury’s also began removing ‘best before’ dates from over 100 product lines, including pears, onions, tomatoes and citrus fruits, with over 130 lines to follow, to help customers reduce food waste at home.

Richard Crampton, director of fresh food, at Sainsbury’s said: “We believe that everyone deserves to eat well at an affordable price, and we hope this additional support will ensure that good quality food doesn’t go to waste.”

Sainsbury’s is also offering £2 top-up coupons as part of the Government-funded NHS Healthy Start scheme, to help low-income families in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to purchase fresh, frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables. 

Meanwhile, as part of its commitment to helping customers manage the rising cost of living Sainsbury’s has committed to invest £550 million by March 2023 in value, ensuring the products that customers buy most are affordable.