Family Fund Business Services is the first procurement partner to provide the Sainsbury’s grocery eGift card to customers, helping them deliver essential support to people facing financial hardship.

The new grocery eGift card will be available through Family Fund Business Services (FFBS) and will enable its charity, local authority and housing association customers to provide vital help to beneficiaries. Unlike other supermarket vouchers that are available on the market through other procurement businesses, the Sainsbury’s eGift card is ‘locked down’, meaning that it can then only be used by a recipient to buy food and toiletry items (i.e. it can’t be used to buy alcohol, lottery tickets, tobacco products or electrical goods, etc.) from a Sainsbury’s store.

This key feature will provide the grant giving organisations with the assurance that the eGift cards they award to the most vulnerable beneficiaries will be used as intended.

FFBS is a leading UK business-to-business fulfilment and grant administration service. It works with charities, local authorities, housing providers and other organisations to deliver practical support to people in need. Through its supplier relationships, FFBS provides easy access to thousands of essential products from washing machines and furniture to food and energy vouchers.

Easy to order and use

The Sainsbury’s grocery eGift card is available to FFBS’ clients through its online Portal. Once ordered the digital card is emailed directly to the recipient, ready to be used in one of Sainsbury’s 1,400 UK stores.

As the eGift card is intended to help some of the most vulnerable beneficiaries, the redemption process is simple. Once the eGift card number and pin has been received, it can be used in their nearest store – no need for the recipient to activate the award as can be case with other supermarket vouchers. Each eGift card is valid for two years once issued, giving the beneficiary the option to use their grant-award over a series of food shops.

Financial hardship isn’t something that can be easily planned for. This is why the eGift cards can be issued 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year – even on bank holidays.

Food provision is essential

The impact of Covid-19, rising living costs and increases in inflation have left hundreds of thousands of households struggling to make ends meet. The increased financial hardship this has caused to people across the country was reflected in the rise in FFBS’ order volumes throughout 2021. Overall, customer spend increased by 85% last year as local authority and charity clients worked with FFBS to deliver much-needed support to those affected.

FFBS helped clients to deliver 500,000 essential goods and services last year, including 176,555 supermarket eVouchers.

Jill Wheeler, Managing Director of FFBS, says “Over the last couple of years we have seen a big change in the type of support we have helped our customers to deliver. The provision of food vouchers has become even more important to our clients and the number we have distributed in partnership with our suppliers has increased year-on-year.

“As a business, we are committed to supporting our customers to deliver the right help at the right time to those who need it most, therefore reviewing and refining our range of products and services is key. We are delighted to have been offered the opportunity to provide clients with the Sainsbury’s grocery-only eVoucher, which is the first of its kind in the UK. This is an invaluable addition to our portfolio of support and is likely to be extremely popular with our local authority customers.”

“With food and financial insecurity and the added difficulties of accessing food during the pandemic, our solutions have helped so many people put meals on the table. This is something we feel incredibly passionate about and the FFBS team is committed to continuing to deliver this type of support.”

To find out more about FFBS’ new Sainsbury’s grocery eGift card and how they could help you help others, get in touch with the team: businessdevelopment@familyfundservices.co.uk.

See FFBS’ Sainsbury’s grocery eGift card brochure [via the FFBS website] for further information.