M&S broke the rules to become a global brand

There’s a real magic to M&S Food. You pay more for it, go out of your way for it and get genuinely excited about it. That’s not how own-label is supposed to work. But then, M&S has spent the better part of a century quietly rewriting every convention the category had. Here’s how.

Rule 1. Own-label should be the cheap option

Every other retailer built its own-label ranges to undercut the big brands. M&S looked at that playbook and threw it in the bin. By the mid-1950s, they’d removed every external brand from their shelves and replaced it with a single promise: if it’s here, it’s better. The result? M&S food costs *more* than branded equivalents – and people pay it willingly. No other UK retailer has ever pulled that off.

Rule 2. Always follow consumer demand

Iceberg lettuce. Avocados. Chicken tikka masala on a Tuesday. M&S didn’t wait for shoppers to ask for these things – they put them on shelves and educated the nation’s palate over decades. Then in 1979, a buyer named Cathy convinced the board to launch a Chicken Kiev as a convenience food. It became a bestseller and arguably invented the modern chilled ready meal category in the UK. Most brands react to trends. M&S creates them.

Rule 3. Food Safety Standards are someone else’s job

M&S opened dedicated food laboratories in 1948, setting quality standards that regulation wouldn’t catch up to for decades. In 1972, they introduced sell-by dates – not because the law required it, but because it guaranteed freshness. The industry followed. The law followed. But the real result was something more valuable than compliance: a brand so synonymous with quality that the label itself became the guarantee.

Rule 4. Food ads don’t need to be sexy

When ‘This is Not Just Food’ launched in 2004, it was unlike anything supermarket shoppers in the UK had seen. Slow motion. Extreme close-ups. A voiceover that made a chocolate pudding sound like a spiritual experience. No price. No offer. Just pure, unapologetic food desire. The Melt in the Middle Chocolate Pudding ad alone drove a 3,000% sales spike and spawned a national catchphrase. It redefined what supermarket advertising could be.

Rule 5. Own-label confectionery doesn’t need a personality

Percy Pig launched in 1992 with no TV budget, no celebrity, no heritage. Just a small fruit-flavoured gummy sold exclusively in M&S. By 2010 the range was generating over £10 million a year. Today he has advent calendars, homeware, clothing collabs and a fanbase that lobbies M&S on social media if the recipe changes. An own-label sweet with the cultural footprint of a global FMCG brand. It really shouldn’t be possible.

Rule 6. Safe bets drive business

Most retailers fill shelves with safe, predictable products that sell steadily and cause no trouble. M&S imposed an internal rule that banned exactly that: every product had to earn its place with a genuinely better recipe, a unique ingredient, or an innovation you couldn’t find anywhere else. That creative pressure is what gave us products so good they became cultural touchstones rather than just things on a shelf.

Rule 7. Supermarkets need a full product offer to win

In 2001, while rivals were building bigger hypermarkets, M&S ignored this entirely and launched Simply Food stores in stations and high streets, doubling down on being brilliant at one thing. Food now makes up roughly two-thirds of M&S’s total revenue, and the 2026 Which? survey ranked them the UK’s top supermarket for the fifth year running. Turns out, being the best at less beats being average at everything.

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