M&S draws up food store of the future

Marks & spencer has unveiled its new-look food store as it battles to arrest falling sales.

The High street retailer has almost doubled the size of its Hempstead Valley food hall in kent and added 1,100 lines as it tries to get more families to do their weekly food shop at its stores.

It has slashed the amount of plastic packaging, increased the amount of fresh produce on offer and brought in child-size trolleys to make shopping more fun for families.

M&s’s frozen food offer in the store is 75pc larger and boasts 291 lines.

staff will be offering free food samples across the store and the retailer will even offer free wine tasting at the weekends. The store spans 16,900 sq ft, compared with the 7,000 sq ft of an average M&s Food Hall.

The revamp is being led by M&s’s managing director of food stuart Machin who was hired last year by chairman archie Norman, his mentor at asda.

since the 47-year-old’s appointment, M&s has secured a £1.5bn joint venture with Ocado, which will make its food available online for the first time. He has also slashed prices across almost 500 of its most popular food items as it tries to broaden its appeal with families. Food sales at the group fell 0.6pc last year.

Just 12 M&s stores offer its full food range, but Machin is keen to extend this further.

He said: ‘On arriving at M&s just over a year ago, I was very clear that there is so much more to us than ready meals and sandwiches. My job is to protect the magic of M&s, but modernise the rest of it. We want to take our food seriously, but don’t want to take ourselves seriously.

‘We want to be more than special occasions and we think we can attract a more family-based customer. If we continue to innovate in range and invest in price, then we’ve got a bigger opportunity and therefore need bigger stores.’ Machin plans to open three or four revamped stores in the run-up to Christmas and will consider rolling out some of the most popular concepts further.

He is under pressure to turn around the division weeks after Jill McDonald, who headed up M&s’s clothing and home business, was shown the door.

McDonald was forced to step down after chief executive steve rowe expressed frustration over a buying error that saw a popular denim range sell out.