Marks & Spencer (M&S) is expanding its food retail business with the opening of its largest standalone M&S Food store and the expansion of its Remarksable Value range to 175 products, as the retailer steps up efforts to attract more families to complete their weekly grocery shop in its stores.
The new M&S Food store will open in Godalming, Surrey, on 16 July. Located on the site of a former Homebase store, the new location forms part of the retailer’s wider investment programme to modernise its estate with larger food stores offering a full grocery range.
At the same time, M&S is adding 29 new products to its Remarksable Value range, increasing the line-up to 175 everyday products across bakery, dairy, grocery, meat, soft drinks, household and health essentials.
The expansion reflects M&S’s strategy to become a stronger destination for weekly grocery shopping by combining value-focused pricing with the retailer’s existing quality and sourcing standards.
The Godalming store has been designed around family shopping habits, with a wider fresh produce department, dedicated multi-temperature displays for herbs, organic products and fruit, an expanded in-store bakery, a rotisserie chicken counter and a new kitchen shop selling cookware and cooking utensils. The store also includes children’s mini shopping trolleys.
Unlike a traditional entry-level private label range, Remarksable Value consists of existing M&S products that are benchmarked against competitor pricing while maintaining the company’s established ingredient, sourcing and animal welfare standards.
New additions to the range include everyday grocery items such as cereal flakes, bread finger rolls, pork shoulder steaks and microwavable rice, alongside existing value products including British beef mince, free-range eggs, milk, fresh fruit and vegetables, and Oakham Gold chicken.
According to Worldpanel by Numerator data cited by the retailer, M&S is currently the fastest-growing retailer among family shoppers by both value and volume over the latest measured period.
The latest investment supports M&S’s long-term ambition to double the size of its food business by expanding larger-format stores capable of carrying the retailer’s complete grocery assortment.
M&S is increasing investment in larger food stores and expanding its value-focused own-brand range as competition for weekly grocery shoppers continues to intensify across the UK supermarket sector.
Looking ahead, M&S is expected to continue opening larger-format Food stores while strengthening its value proposition through further expansion of its own-brand grocery ranges, supporting its strategy to become a more significant destination for complete weekly food shopping.
