M&S add two new items to food waste scheme & transforms unsold baguettes into £1 frozen garlic bread

M&S is expanding its frozen garlic bread scheme to 125 more stores this April. The scheme, which was first introduced in 2020 was launched to help reduce food waste at its M&S stores.

At the end of each day, unsold baguettes and boules which have been freshly baked in stores will be prepared and filled with garlic butter to be turned into frozen garlic bread. Customers can then buy the bread for £1 with an extended 30-day shelf life.

The scheme is currently live in 253 M&S stores following a successful trial. Since then, M&S has sold 2.1m of the re-purposed loaves with the best-selling store M&S Nottingham Giltbrook. The scheme is not only being extended to more stores but two new products will be available.

Customers will now have a choice of San Francisco Sourdough Garlic Bread (£3) and West Country Cheddar and Red Leicester Garlic Cob (£3), alongside the existing choices of a Garlic baguette (£1 single pack or £2 twin pack) and a boule (£2.50). M&S’ upcoming Family Matters Index, based on interviews with over 5,000 UK adults, reveals that 7 in 10 adults are making an effort to live more sustainably due to the cost of living crisis. Of those, 85% are prioritising reducing their food waste.

Andrew Clappen, tTechnical director at M&S Food, said: “Our in-store bakers create the freshest, highest quality bread daily for our customers. We believe each loaf is too good to waste and our customers agree. By getting creative we’ve found a way to extend shelf life and create delicious products for our customers – at great value too from £1.

“The response has been fantastic and now is the time to roll out to more stores, with more products. We’re determined to keep finding innovative ways to tackle food waste, at source and in-store. As well as creating frozen garlic bread, our 25p ripe banana bags are another great initiative proving popular – we’ve sold over half a million since we started them.”

M&S has pledged to halve food waste by 2030, as well as redistribute 100% of its edible surplus by 2025, as part of its Plan A sustainability roadmap.

Catherine David, Director of Collaboration and Change at WRAP, said: "It’s great to see a simple and effective idea grow in this way. Bread is the second most wasted food item in UK homes with the equivalent of more than one million loaves binned every day.

“As a short shelf-life item, bread can also become surplus at the end of trading so giving a second life to a surplus loaf is an excellent way to reduce waste, make our food go further and feed families.”

M&S has made other changes to reduce food waste, including launching its 25p banana scheme to sell ‘ready to eat’ bananas and last year M&S removed best-before dates from over 300 fruit and vegetable products to help tackle household food waste.

M&S stores with garlic bread scheme

To see if your local store is involved with the scheme visit the M&S website.