Comment: Shoppers’ growing appreciation of better food
While visiting my family in Doncaster before Christmas we popped into the food hall of the newly-expanded Marks & Spencer store, which very much gave me hope for the UK population’s appetite for better food.
This was a pleasant turn of events because over many years – amid an ongoing cost-of-living crisis – I’d become a tad disillusioned. it has almost felt like we have been in a spiral to the bottom with supermarkets stripping out food counters, reducing lines, and fighting it out on cost and not a lot else. Quality had taken a back seat.
Subscribe to TRBWandering the aisles of the M&S food hall, with its smart cheese section, large bakery area alongside a coffee counter, and the dedicated rack of pretzels (a personal favourite) it was a very enjoyable experience. Very different to the anodyne backdrop I’d all too often endured when shopping for food in the major supermarkets.
It’s not just the people of Doncaster who have been receptive to the richer food experience within the M&S stores. The company has been on a national roll-out of refurbishments and new stores. There has been £90 million investment in London alone and across the UK the company has announced plans for 500 new and renewed locations as it expands its food presence. As part of its growth and transformation plan, over half of the stores in the M&S portfolio (including its convenience outlets) are in the process of renewal – that runs through to spring 2028.
The appetite for M&S food fuelled strong Christmas trading, with sales up 6.6% – that pushed up its share of the grocery market to a creditable 4%. And there is more to come, according to City analyst Clive Black at Shore Capital, who reckons that if M&S hits its full year 2027 expectations then the company’s shares are currently “grossly undervalued”.
M&S is not the only company that has identified a growing number of UK shoppers with a taste for better food – who are willing to pay for it – because Waitrose has developed a new ‘Home of Food Lovers’ concept store that is being trialled in Newbury. The outlet is an all-bells-and-whistles affair where the plan is to roll out the new features to existing stores and also incorporate them into new outlets.
The store incorporates counters aplenty including a five-metre cheese island, along with a ‘Meal Maker’ service where fishmongers and butchers prepare cuts, and a deli counter. There is also an upgraded fruit & veg department and a ‘Food Lovers Hub’ that seeks to inspire shoppers across food and drink. The in-store bakery is also a new concept created in collaboration with Ole & Steen.
There are also set to be more upmarket Whole Food Stores in the UK following the decision by parent company Amazon to close its 19 UK grocery stores – whose sole point of interest seemed to be the Just Walk Out in-store tech because the food offer inspired little appetite from UK shoppers. Although 14 of these units will sadly close entirely, the positive story is that five of them are to be converted to Whole Foods stores, which are a welcome feature on UK high streets, with their focus on the quality end of the market.
While I enjoy shopping in these more upmarket food stores I’m arguably a more frequent visitor to my local Lidl and Aldi stores where I find there is invariably plenty of interesting and decent quality products – that seem to change frequently, which keeps the offer fresh. They are proof that having an interesting offer is absolutely not predicated on higher prices.
Where I’ve continued to have an issue is with those bland stores in the middle that seem to have lost what they stand for. Meanwhile, I’m hoping the UK population’s new found appreciatlon of better food continues to grow.
