Are you a buyer for the M&S Bakery? Talk me through your thinking …

[Starmadrama]

… in relation to hot cross buns. I’ve been in my local M&S today and the shelves were heaving with lots of flavours of hot cross buns - red velvet, chocolate, lemon etc - but the section for fruit ones was empty. Clearly there is very little demand for these bastardised hot cross buns!

I finally found a single pack of fruit buns abandoned by the till. I did think about getting the fruit buns earlier in the week but the expiry date was before Easter 🙄

Did any market research inform this expansion of the Hot Cross Bun offer I wonder?

Variation options have exploded this year! I love the idea, I get sucked in by the advertising and then I hate them all! Original fruity all the way for me.

I like the Tesco St Clements ones. Not a fan of all the other weird flavoured ones.

Literally has this moan at my DH yesterday stood in M&S

Every vile variation of hot cross buns but not a regular one to be seen….same with Easter eggs, chocolate horses - yes, chocolate highland cow - absolutely. Half an egg filled with popping candy - sure. A nice simple Easter egg? Nowhere to be seen.

They all seem to be doing it.

Totally thought this was going to be about the speckled egg cookies as I've also got questions! (Question being please do them all year round)

I don't know, I'm usually a hot cross bun purist but I've been eyeing up the red velvet ones all week...

The chocolate ones are amazing! Had a Waitrose one this morning and it wasn’t as good. The Tiramisu ones on the other hand are vile. I through them away. Red velvet not much better.

I’d forgotten about tiramisu. I might have been tempted by the chocolate ones as an extra, but not as the main event.

I got apple and cinnamon ones out of tesco.
Sounds lovely.
Taste synthetic.

So good, bu5 you can't toast most of them. Only the air fryer. The red velvet ones broke my toaster. Then I read the label

Isn't it more that EVERYONE wants the original hcbs and therefore they sell out first? So when you are looking it isn't that M&S (other stores are available) didn't get any in, it's that they got them in and they immediately sold out?

I have no idea why they have to do all these 'interesting' flavours. Is it a hcb if it's full of chocolate/tiramisu/lemon etc - not just a fruit bun with 'stuff' in?

And why do they not do Cinnamon and Raisin bagels? Plain, multi seed and protein bagels but no cinnamon and raisin!

Totally agree OP. By all means offer the weird other ones, but offer more of the type that people actually want to buy!

I yearn for the days when HCB were only available one day a year and were therefore a massive treat. The ones from the bakery in my suburb were gorgeous and my mum would buy a massive (paper) bag full. The baker had no staff so you just put the money for whatever you were buying under the glass screen.

The lemon curd ones are delicious but if you ignore the fact they are a HCB. I love them 2 mins in the air fryer.

Not to mention the peppermint bark Christmas ones

I don’t like dried fruit so I’ve never had a hot cross bun before. I’ve eyed up the options in M&S but haven’t taken the plunge, I might try one out if there’s any left on Saturday. The shop will be shut tomorrow

I yearn for the days when HCB were only available one day a year and were therefore a massive treat.

Yes, fresh and warm from the baker. We'd all be sitting there in the kitchen waiting for mum to get back so we could eat them immediately while they were still warm.

I like the chilli cheese ones but they’re like rocking horse shit. I trawled three M&S one year, nada.

Just got in from my M&S which has loads of classic fruit hot cross buns, walls of them by the till, as well as all the wacky flavours. It's your branch that have gone wrong!

I was desperate for those lemon M&S hot cross buns...they were so disappointing!

Ooooh ive not tried those, will make a note!

That’s my point - clearly most people want the original ones not all the variations which remained stacked high.

i’m not suggesting that M&S didn’t get any fruit HCBs in.

Spent £18 on the different varieties yesterday. Not bothered the regular ones were sold out as I don't like them. The cheese ones are amazing, but like all of the ones I've tried so far!

I bought the cheese ones. I have no idea why, as I was looking at them I was thinking WTF? Soggy, sweet and odd but not actually cheesy. And if they had been cheesier they would have been even weirder. In the bin they went. Back to Waitrose mini ones. Yum.

My Waitrose was sampling lemon curd and white chocolate ones today.
the chocolate ones are amazing and they also had chocolate and fudge ones. We like the apple and cinnamon ones and this year have tried the cheese ones which we all liked.

we do like the fruity ones as well, I think it’s fun to try the new flavours but some of them are weird.