M&S stores in Northern Ireland roll out surplus bread food waste scheme

They are among 60 new stores to begin selling delicious frozen garlic bread, made from unsold bakery loaves, baked in-store daily.

At the end of each day, unsold loaves are prepared and filled with garlic butter by in-store bakery colleagues, before being frozen so as to extend shelf life by 40 days.

Customers can choose from a Garlic Baguette or Boule, San Francisco sourdough Garlic Bread or West Country Cheddar and Red Leicester Garlic Cob.

Ryan Lemon, Regional Manager for M&S in Northern Ireland said: “We are delighted to now be able to offer this initiative in four of our stores here. It’s the perfect way to use the surplus fresh bread made each day and the loaves make really delicious garlic bread that offers great value.

“We’re really passionate about minimising food waste in our stores and this is just another step in the right direction. Our customers have been asking for it and we’re delighted to see the response now that it is finally here.”

The introduction of the initiative in selected stores in Northern Ireland brings the total number of stores participating across the UK to 450. Last year, the retailer sold 1.4million of the re-purposed loaves across all its stores.

The initiative is part of M&S’ Plan A commitment to halve food waste by 2029/30. The retailer is targeting becoming a net zero business across its operations and entire value chain by 2040 – ten years earlier than the Government’s UK wide strategy.

Andrew Clappen, Technical Director at M&S Food, said: “When we launched this scheme back in 2020, we had no idea how popular it would become. We’ve had such a fantastic reaction from customers the more stores we’ve launched in. Our delicious loaves, baked in-store daily, really are too good to waste and to be able to repurpose them by offering customers a fantastic product that doesn’t compromise on quality while tackling food waste is what M&S is all about.

“We’re always on the lookout for innovative ways to tackle in-store food waste, alongside our existing partnership with Neighbourly, which has seen the equivalent of over 70 million meals donated to local causes and charity groups by our store network We’re determined to keep going and keep trialling new things to meet our Plan A target.”

As part of its efforts to tackle food waste in-store, M&S launched 25p banana bags in 2021 to encourage customers to buy ripe bananas perfect for baking.

The retailer also has a partnership with Neighbourly, whereby any edible food surplus from stores is redistributed to local causes and community groups. Since 2015, the equivalent of 80million meals have been redistributed to local causes and charity groups.