Tesco is continuing its push towards wellness by teaming up with Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation to form a charity partnership aiming to raise millions of pounds to promote healthy living.

The move marks the latest step in a series of steps towards the health and fitness market in recent years.

Having previously paired up with Xercise4Less to offer an instore gym, and later provided a community yoga space at the Tesco Extra store in Watford, the supermarket chain also recently launched low-fat food range My Fit Lifestyle.

Now, the new partnership aims to take on two of the UK’s biggest killers – cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes – by focusing on ways to encourage healthy eating and healthy cooking habits, including making it easier to choose foods lower in sugar, saturated fats and salt.

The ultimate ambition for the partnership is to be a force for positive change in the health of the nation.It will launch in early 2015 and will see Tesco, its customers, colleagues and suppliers aim to raise millions of pounds for the two charities.

“It’s great to be working with Diabetes UK again, and to be building a new partnership with the British Heart Foundation,” said Greg Sage, community director at Tesco. “We have enormous respect for the work they do, and want to help them do more. Using our collective scale and expertise, we’re going to make a real and positive difference to millions of customers’ lives. Over the next few months we’ll be working on the details of exactly how we’ll do that, so watch this space.”

Following Tesco’s pledge last year to help customers and colleagues live healthier lives, the new partnership forms part of putting that commitment into practice, alongside The Tesco Eat Happy Project, which teaches children about the food they eat and the planned removal of sweets from all Tesco checkouts in January 2015. In the past year, Tesco customers and colleagues have raised £13m for Diabetes UK.