Grocery company Hello Fresh has become one of the first UK businesses to take part in Facebook’s 'offers' service.

The service, soft-launched at the end of February, allows brands to offer discounts to consumers free of charge. After clicking on the deal on the brands’ homepage, users are then sent an email with the voucher code to redeem the offer.

Hello Fresh launched an offer on its Facebook brand page this week, giving UK customers £20 off their first order. At the time of writing, 346 users had claimed the offer, which is publicly viewable on the page. 

Pit Karbe, MD of Hello Fresh, said: "As a young, growing business, Offers provides us with a great, cost-effective way to reach new customers interested in our service – leveraging a potential customers’ social network has been much more effective than other mass-distribution models." 

Facebook's Offers service follows the network's previous discount platform Deals, which was axed at the the end of 2011. It was announced recently via a YouTube video (below).