Waitrose: Major supermarket brings back free coffee for shoppers who buy nothing - which customers does it apply to, how to redeem and when does it start

The company has told those signed up to its myWaitrose scheme that from 27 January they can get one complementary hot drink a day with no purchase needed. All they have to do is bring a reusable cup.

The freebie was introduced in 2013 but the terms were changed four years later to apply to customers who had shopped in-store, before being completely scrapped during Covid and then gradually reintroduced. A spokesperson for Waitrose said: "Some of our members like to have their free coffee before or during their shop, rather than afterwards, so we are just offering a bit of flexibility in response to customer feedback."

After being stopped in the early months of Covid, Dame Sharon White, the former chair of the John Lewis Partnership, which operates Waitrose, slowly reintroduced it for loyalty scheme members who made a purchase. She was replaced in September last year by Jason Tarry, who worked at Tesco for more than 30 years.

Labour had previously criticised Waitrose's free coffee offer. In 2014, the then shadow communities minister, Andy Sawford, asked fellow MPs to write to Waitrose's managing director to say that the scheme could "further destroy the British high street" and take business away from small firms.

At the time, the UK's prime minister, David Cameron, said he didn't know what "people were complaining about". The reintroduction of the hot drinks offer is likely to annoy many independent coffee shops who claimed their businesses were hit by the scheme.

In 2013, one café, the Gelateria Gazzeria, which was located only 20 yards from a Waitrose in Buckingham, filed a complaint with the Office of Fair Trading although the regulator took no action. The terms and conditions say the free hot drinks offer is “subject to availability” and not available at petrol station stores.