Marks & Spencer has price locked 140 popular food products until after Christmas, while also cutting the price of cheddar and butter.
The price locked lines include RSPCA Assured outdoor-bred British pork sausages (£2 for a pack of eight), Homestyle frozen chips (£2.50 for 1kg), Braeburn apples (£1.70 for six), Select Farm easy peelers (£2), Traditional Coleslaw (£1.25 for 225g) and chickpeas (60p).
The cheddar and butter lines are part of M&S’s ‘Remarksable Value’ range. British mature cheddar (350g) has been reduced from £2.80 to £2.65, while British salted butter (250g) has been cut from £1.90 to £1.80.
Improving its value perception amongst shoppers has been credited by analysts with helping drive strong sales growth for M&S Food, and for paving the way for it to achieve its ambitions to grow its grocery market share in the next five years by a percentage point, taking it to about 4.5%. Its food sales were up by over 11% in 19 weeks to 12 August, according to a recent trading update.
A surge in its share price since the trading update saw M&S re-enter the FTSE 100 last week, four years after it dropped down to the FTSE 250.
The retailer launched its Remarksable Value campaign, spanning swathes of popular grocery lines, in 2019. It has also been running a series of price locks on popular grocery lines since November last year, each lasting about three months. The last one ran from April this year until July.
M&S said its price competitiveness did not come at the expense of farmers, thanks to the M&S Milk Pledge, made in 1999, to pay a fair and leading milk price to every dairy farmer. The retailer’s latest ‘Farm to Foodhall’ TV ad featuring celebrity chef Tom Kerridge, which hits screens today (4 September), showcases M&S dairy farmers who supply its RSPCA Assured fresh milk.
M&S also lays claim to having more RSPCA Assured products than any other retailer.
Read more: How big can M&S get in food – and how will it get there?
“This week we’re delivering big investments in value on the shelf by extending the price lock on over 100 products and investing in our Remarksable range, and while customers continue to prioritise value, they also don’t expect any corners to be cut,” said M&S Food MD Alex Freudmann.
“Our latest Farm to Foodhall campaign champions dairy farmers like David Irwin who go the extra mile for M&S to deliver products of outstanding quality, and raise the bar to meet our leading RSPCA Assured animal welfare standards.
“As part of the M&S Milk Pledge we’re committed to paying a fair and leading milk price to every dairy farmer. So when shopping at M&S customers can be confident that great value on the shelf will also mean great support for British farmers.”
A number of major grocers have been announcing rounds of price cuts on popular food staples since May this year, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and M&S itself, in a battle to be seen to be passing on easing inflationary pressure to shoppers. M&S’s last round was in June, when it cut the price of over 70 ‘family staples’.
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