What’s up in the M&S marketing department?

First there were M&S ‘wholemeal’ loaves made with non-wholemeal flour, and ‘baked in store today’ products that in truth are manufactured outside the UK; then came flour milled from a modern hybrid variety of rye that M&S markets as an ‘ancient wheat variety’. Most recently, the supermarket chain released the latest two additions to its numerically challenged ‘ONLY…INGREDIENTS’ range (their capitals).

In terms of composition, the new M&S ‘toasting’ loaves seem to represent a positive step. Questions and concerns continue to build around ultra-processed food (UPF), leading to companies clambering to change their formulations. In this case, M&S has kicked E-numbers out,¹ again disproving a myth, long circulated by industrial dough fabricators, that such unnecessary additions are necessary 'to give customers what they want’. 

Thirteen equals six?    

According to its ingredients list, the M&S sunflower and spelt loaf has 13 components (see below) or nine, if one accepts ‘fortified’ wheat flour to be a single, compound ingredient. Flip to the front of the pack, however, which is the first thing shoppers see (and, in many cases, don’t look beyond), where you’ll find that whoever did the sums somehow added things up to ‘ONLY 6 INGREDIENTS’.

Similarly, the legal declaration on the back of the M&S white toasting loaf has 11 (or seven) entries, while the block capital afficionado in marketing slapped the claim ‘ONLY 4 INGREDIENTS’ on the front. Clearly, the numbers in the (voluntary) front of pack marketing claims do not tally with the (mandatory) legal declaration of ingredients in the lists on the back.

We believe that these numbers clearly prove this isn't just a case of a difference in opinion of what is and isn't misleading marketing, but that the front of pack claim is factually incorrect. How is M&S getting away with this?

The cake-and-eat-it issue of M&S including a brand-name wheat flour amongst several flours declared on the ingredients list of its ‘ONLY 5 INGREDIENTS’ rolls, before conveniently rounding it down to one flour on the front, recurs in these two products. This presumably is an attempt to profit from the marketing value of that brand name and making ‘regenerative farming’ claims. We question how / if this squares with the law on proprietary names in ingredients lists, as well as whether M&S has followed the Advertising Standards Authority’s guidance on ‘regen’.

Multi-flour?

Something that M&S claims the three bread products ‘ONLY’ contain is ‘multi-flour’. How can anyone state that something with the prefix ‘multi’ is a single ingredient and keep a straight face? Is this a case of dishonesty, disingenuity or something else? What’s next, M&S presenting the nine components of its ‘Choc Marks Fruit & Nut’ bar (sugar, cocoa butter, dried milk, cocoa mass, raisins, hazelnuts, almonds, lecithin and ‘natural flavouring’) as ONLY 3 INGREDIENTS – chocolate, fruit and multi-nuts?²

Multi-flour is not a single ingredient. The ‘fortified’ wheat flour, wholemeal wheat flour, malted wheat flour, fermented wheat flour, rye flour and spelt flour used across the range are distinct from each other, with different origins, properties and purposes, hence the legal requirement to declare them separately on the ingredients list. The same applies to the other grain products (wheat flakes and wheat gluten) used in the rolls.

Trust

As I pondered about M&S marketing those 11 ingredient rolls as having ‘ONLY 5 INGREDIENTS’, why not just put a big ‘additive free’ flash on the front and be done with it? Heck, if a product is made without so-called processing aids the company could even sign up to The Real Bread Loaf Mark scheme.

Whether misleading (by inaccuracy or omission) or otherwise being at odds with the facts, marketing that does not honestly and accurately reflect the truth always leaves me wondering: if I can’t trust this, can I trust anything the company says? I also question whether there’s anything important the company isn’t telling me. Particularly when a business markets itself as being a cut above others and charges premium prices, surely trust is one of the most important factors in convincing people of the UK that this isn’t just supermarket food.

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Updates

On 24 June 2025, we added this new evidence to a complaint that Birmingham City Council (the company's Primary Authority for trading standards) had been investigating for over two months. On 30 June 2025, Birmingham said that we should re-direct our complaint to our local authority, which we did. For further updates, click here.

 

¹Fermented wheat flour is ‘clean label solution’ to using the preservative propionic acid without naming it. I’m interested to know if M&S also uses (and choose not to declare) any ‘processing aids’ in the manufacture of these products. The law doesn’t require any company to do so, but then the law doesn’t require companies to make marketing claims, either.

²After I finished writing this piece, I found that M&S already does such under-accounting on a chocolate bar. The chain sells a product made from 10 declared ingredients (date paste, cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, lecithin, ‘natural vanilla flavouring’, nibbed almonds, ground almonds, coconut oil and salt) as having ONLY 5 INGREDIENTS.

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M&S white sliced toasting loaf
Ingredients: wheat flour*, water, Wildfarmed wheat flour*, salt, malted wheat flour, fermented wheat flour, vitamin D yeast (*with added calcium, iron, niacin, thiamine.)

M&S sunflower seed and spelt sliced toasting loaf
Ingredients: wheat flour*, water, Wildfarmed wheat flour*, sunflower seeds, spelt, salt, malted wheat flour, fermented wheat flour, vitamin D yeast, (*with added calcium, iron, niacin, thiamine.)

'Toast it up Take a look in store to find our new Only 5 Ingredients White Sliced Toasting Loaf, made with just four [sic.] ingredients – multi-flour, water, salt and yeast. Or pick up an Only 6 Ingredients Sunflower Seed and Spelt Sliced Toasting Loaf, made with Wildfarmed wheat flour and sourdough.'

'On a roll Fluffy white rolls are essential to keep stocked in the kitchen for last-minute sandwiches or breakfast baps. Our new Only 5 Ingredients White Rolls are made with Wildfarmed flour, which supports regenerative farming.'