The supermarket chain said it would offer over-60s 10% off every Tuesday to support its older customers through the cost of living crisis.

The move comes as supermarkets battle for customers, with prices rising at their fastest rate for 40 years.

Grocery prices were 5.9% higher in April than a year ago, according to research company Kantar.

Iceland’s new discount will be launched from 24 May, with anyone aged 60 or over able to use it every Tuesday in-store at branches of Iceland and The Food Warehouse.

Shoppers will need to show proof of age, such as a driving licence or senior bus or rail pass, and the discount will cover all products, with no minimum spend.

Iceland said it was the first UK supermarket to introduce such a discount and decided to do so after research by Age UK found three-quarters of older people in the UK were worried about the rising cost of living.

Last Christmas, Iceland also ran a regional trial offering £30 vouchers to those receiving state pension and the company said it was now exploring a national rollout ready for this summer.

Richard Walker, managing director at Iceland, said the chain had a “long history” of supporting older customers, including offering dedicated shopping hours for elderly and vulnerable people during the pandemic.

“The cost of living crisis has made support for these customers even more important, which is why I’m proud that we’re finding new ways to support them, including the launch of this discount. We hope it will help all those in this age category to cut costs where they can,” he said.

It allowed everyone over the age of 18 in Northern Ireland to apply for a £100 pre-paid card.

The QUB study also said the scheme should have been designed to help pensioners and those on income support as those measures “would have had a greater economic effect”.

Official figures by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) found that one third of the high street vouchers were spent in businesses that did not have to close during the pandemic.

The Department for the Economy has not yet conducted its final analysis into the scheme.

In an article published in The Economics Observatory, Prof John Turner and Dr David Jordan said: “Given the high proportion spent in supermarkets, it is very likely that a substantial proportion of extra expenditure by consumers leaked out of the local economy.

They criticised the “poor timing” of the scheme, suggesting it should have operated from late August to October, months which have lower retail footfall.

It found the busiest month for transactions on the pre-paid cards was November, a month when retail spending is traditionally high before Christmas.

They suggested these factors meant an increase in spending in Northern Ireland was “much lower than was originally intended or would have been hoped for”.

“A post-scheme evaluation needs to happen to determine whether this policy experimentation was cost-effective and worth repeating,” the assessment concluded.