Marks & Spencer news

Marks & Spencer is set to boost its Ocado food delivery business, with a review of the service currently underway. This is the latest step by Stuart Machin to increase Marks & Spencer’s share of the UK’s food spending in stores and online by more than 25% in the next five years. Alongside Hannah Gibson, the new Ocado Retail CEO, Machin is looking for ways to make the business more efficient. S...

Stuart Machin’s nine point plan aims to accelerate M&S’s food growth and rebalance the overall business amid ongoing cost pressures. It ranges from cutting the cost base to improving the omnichannel experience. 10-15% increase in space for food While closure of 67 M&S department stores (including food) has made the headlines, the retailer is simultaneously planning to open 104 Simply Foo...

M&S continues to look for ways to provide a seamless shopping experience for its shoppers and extend its reach, through new partnerships. M&S launches Sparks Pay In its quest to provide a more personalised and seamless customer experience, M&S has launched Sparks Pay for its members, in conjunction with M&S Bank. Sparks customers have exclusive access to Sparks Pay, which offers digital cre...

As the retailer acquires Gist and partners with Benefit Cosmetics, we round up these and other developments. M&S to acquire Gist to support its supply chain transformation M&S will acquire Gist, its principal contract logistics provider, as part of its on-going programme to modernise M&S Food’s supply chain network. The retailer said the investment was made given the ‘ substantial opportuni...

As Sainsbury’s relaunches its ‘Great Fruit & Veg Challenge’ and M&S and The Co-op introduce new campaigns, we round up initiatives from UK-based retailers. Sainsbury’s ‘Great Fruit & Veg Challenge’ returns Sainsbury’s has brought back its ‘Great Big Fruit and Veg Challenge’ following its success over the last two years. The campaign will run from 18 July to 2 September, an extension of thre...

As M&S and The Co-op look to limit food waste and Sainsbury’s adapts one of its products to reduce plastic use, we round up three initiatives from the retailers. M&S removing best before dates from fruit and vegetables range Following a successful trial M&S is to remove best before dates from more than 300 fruit and vegetables SKUs, which the retailer says is 85% of its produce offer. The i...

As the UK’s retailers invest further in their sustainability initiatives, we round up developments from M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Iceland. M&S trials private label refillable homecare products M&S is trialling a fixture to enable shoppers to buy pre-filled cleaning and laundry products in six stores. The solution, which has been created in partnership with Re, will see shoppers pay an ini...

M&S has announced the appointment of Alex Freudmann as the next managing director of its food division. He will take up the post on November 1 st and sit on the executive committee. Alex Freudmann will fill the vacancy created by Stuart Machin’s promotion to M&S CEO. This in turn follows Steve Rowe’s stepping down from that role last month. Who is Alex Freudmann? Alex Freudmann has an exte...

M&S has announced its 2021/22 financial results, reporting group revenue rose 6.9% versus 2019/20, which it said was more comparable than the 2020/21 year given the pandemic’s effects on its business. Revenue reached £10.9 bn, while profit before tax rose 29.7% to £522.9m. Key figures for Food The retailer reported that M&S Food grew revenue by 10.1%, while excluding the performance of its ...

Marks & Spencer (M&S) launched an impressive new concept store in a former Debenhams department store site. The M&S ‘store of the future’ was opened on the Roaring Meg retail park in Stevenage on Thursday 28 April 2022. The 75,000 sq. ft M&S store overs two floors, with the food hall, women’s clothing and a beauty department on the ground floor and homeware, baby and kids wear, an opticians, a...