Marks & Spencer : M&S OFFERS A BIGGER AND BETTER RANGE OF DELICIOUS, GREAT QUALITY FOOD AS HUNDREDS OF NEW PRODUCTS LAND IN STORES AND ONLINE AHEAD OF OCADO LAUNCH

M&S has expanded its delicious, great-quality M&S Food range to offer customers even more choice for their weekly shop. And from today, customers can view the full range of M&S Food products on the Ocado website, ready to add to their baskets when delivery slots from 1^st September become available.

Over 750 new products will make M&S Food's existing delicious, great-quality range even bigger and better. Hundreds of the new products (more than 70%) have started to land in stores across the UK with more arriving throughout August and September.

Stuart Machin, the Managing Director of M&S Food, has today written to customers to tell them that from 1^st September, the full M&S Food range of over 6,000 products will be available for the very first time for home delivery on Ocado - meaning customers shopping online and in-stores will benefit from a bigger range of delicious, great quality M&S Food at great value.

Through a product matching exercise against the 4,000 Waitrose products, M&S's expert team of buyers and product developers identified opportunities to create new loved products as well as finding any potential gaps. As a result, M&S's new products focus on bigger family pack sizes, a larger range of groceries and household cleaning products and a bigger range of Organic products.

M&S has significantly broadened its family pack sizes to complement its existing range, such as 1kg packs of dried pasta and rice, 450g packs of vegetables and 750g blocks of cheese. Additional new products include more scratch cooking and baking ingredients, as well as an increased range of household and grocery staples with new lines across its frozen meat, fruit and vegetables and an expanded soft drinks offer with nine new flavours of juices, cordials and squashes.

Working with M&S's Select Farmers it knows and trusts, the retailer will provide customers with a greater choice of fresh meat and produce, including more organic options than ever before. There will also be more organic choices across M&S's tinned goods, nuts and dried fruits and preserves.

The new products help to build on M&S's new product development over the past year, including its Cook With M&S range that provides simple meal solutions and its vegan-friendly Plant Kitchen range, which has helped to attract over 500,000 new customers.

M&S Food Managing Director Stuart Machin said: 'One year ago today, we began the joint venture with Ocado so that customers can access the full range of delicious, great quality M&S Food products online. The team has worked really hard to make this happen and from today, customers can view the existing range of M&S products on the Ocado website as well as hundreds of new ones. Our customers can be confident that they will enjoy even better choice and even better value, whether they are shopping in-store or online.'

M&S is introducing even better value on the everyday products customers buy the most under the Remarksable Value banner. Hundreds of M&S quality groceries are at better value and prices than ever before, from sliced bread with added fibre and vitamin D for 65p, to 100% free range eggs at 90p and responsibly farmed Scottish salmon at £4 for two fillets. With a bigger and better range in-stores at trusted value, customers will be able to do even fuller, more regular shops at M&S - supporting its strategy of being more relevant, more often.

Through the Covid crisis, there has been a huge growth in demand for online food shopping. This means, the last few months have been particularly busy for Ocado, and while every effort is being made to increase capacity, the extra demand may mean customers won't be able to secure a delivery slot straight away. As demand eases, more slots should start to become available, so more customers can start to enjoy the brilliant combination of M&S' great quality and value food and Ocado's market-leading service.

-ENDS-

For further information, please contact:

M&S External Comms

0208 718 1919

Notes to editors:

• Customers can be confident they can shop a bigger, better range at even better value as M&S has matched and improved on the 4,000 Waitrose products with 6,000 M&S Food products available.
• There will be over 5,000 M&S food lines and over 800 clothing and home lines available for delivery from Ocado from 1^st September, growing to 6,000 and 1,600 respectively over the coming months.
• Examples of new product development launching on Ocado and in stores:
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 1L - £5.25
  • Orange Double Strength Squash, 750ml - £0.95
  • Medium West Country Cheddar, 750g - £5.00
  • Fine Green Beans, 450g - £2.75
  • Organic Strawberries, 300g - £3.00
  • Organic Raspberry Conserve, 340g - £2.00