Just thinking aloud here...
Having a special shop where poor people could get just the basics branded foods could be a potential extremely lucrative new market.
After all, the supermarkets have the infrastructure to do it.
They could then use their computer/technological structure to link with, say, a voucher system where the government, perhaps through the system set up for the school holiday voucher scheme (already developed and expanded from a government staff voucher scheme), allocates a certain amount to people for food, types of food, toiletries, even clothing, and other household goods.
This would mean that the government would be able to negotiate with the supermarkets to provide, as they do for the employee rewards and school holiday vouchers, a significant discount for the money. Thus meaning the government could reduce the amount given direct to people 'You're getting food, you don't need cash'. Under the auspices of public health, they could decide what they do or don't agree to pay for; no cigarettes, no alcohol, no high salt/fat/whatever is the trend at the moment 'bad food'. Could feasibly, in terms of technology, set it up so that only a maximum amount of calories/fat/whatever could be chosen. But the supermarkets would fundamentally dictate the prices in that absolutely captive market.
The supermarkets would make billions over time as it would mean they were taking a significant proportion of the benefits bill direct from government instead of letting people have full control over what they choose to eat, drink, wash their clothes in, etc. As there would be decisions made about what poor people were allowed to have, it would be possible for both the supermarkets and major food/chemical/pharmaceutical/etc manufacturers to put pressure on for particular items to be included and for government to make decisions upon what is included in the basket of acceptable items.
It's similar to the ASDA vouchers that were dished out years ago - the 'healthy' choices that the vouchers could be used on were all, almost without exception, more expensive per unit than the items that weren't eligible. Lots of high refined carb, low nutrition, lower quality items and overpriced veg got punted out to people in that 'healthy start' spiel. In this case, it would be 'take food here or go without'. There would be records of everything people bought available to government - why are you saying you aren't working? You've not taken your full allowance, so you must be getting food and money from somewhere. You're spending on men's toiletries for the month when you're female and so is your child - have you got somebody else staying with you under the radar? Been sanctioned? Good luck with getting enough calories now, you can't have saved anything up as you don't get cash to put little bits by. Applying for a disability benefit? But you're overweight - our disability assessment team says you'll be fine if you lose three stone, so a) you aren't getting it or b) we're further restricting the total calories you can buy to 7000/week. Let us know when your BMI is at whatever level we deem is acceptable to still have issues.
What she's wittering on about is essentially introducing an environment where, say, a US company with experience, could operate a Food Stamps system, but wider ranging in its removal of agency from poor people. Or a version of where workers would only be able to buy from the company store with their 'income'. Stick in a requirement to 'give something back' in return for the vouchers and you've got indentured labour.
