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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Has M&S food quality dropped?

228 replies

Thewiseoneincognito · 31/03/2021 20:29

This is a weird one but I’ve started to notice over the last couple of months the taste and quality of Marks and Spencer’s food items has really lowered a lot. Has any one else?

I’ve had a few of their ready meals recently with huge chunks of chewy beef in that clearly hasn’t been cut properly, sounds ok but it just looks gross and is usually big boobs of fatty gristle. I found a large sharp piece of flint in a mushroom dish, a piece of blue plastic film in one of their soups. Their sandwiches seem to have stale bread despite being well before the end date. Usually I can let the odd thing slide and put it down to once in a blue moon but it seems to be a regular occurrence.

Before anyone says shop elsewhere, it’s my local food hall, the alternative is a tiny Tesco or Sainsbury’s, great if you need snacks or milk but not exactly the type of store to do a food shop.

M&S has always been a better standard of prepared food compared to others but now I’m doubting they’re any different than regular supermarket offerings. The range of foods seems to have been cut too like they’re no longer bothering to innovate, just churning out the same old but with lower quality control.

OP posts:
StormcloakNord · 04/04/2021 11:11

We had to stop getting meat from Tesco/supermarkets. Only get from the butcher now - which we're very lucky & privileged to do!

I used to really enjoy M&S fruit as I noticed it was always a lot nicer and went off slower than Tesco's fruit - there's virtually no difference now. Bought some red seedless grapes and about half the punnet were starting to go off - white film & looking fleshy. Put me clean off and I usually love my grapes Sad

PuffItsGone · 04/04/2021 16:15

They’re not just for treats. Most of their shoppers are there to buy dinner for that night.

Nohomemadecandles · 04/04/2021 16:17

@Mumsnut

M&S food halls are for treats - that’s the point of them. If they just end up the same as everywhere else, why bother?
Loads of people do their weekly shop in M&S!
Pipsquiggle · 04/04/2021 19:33

@Nohomemadecandles

Not really. M&S have less than 5% of the grocery spend in the market place and over index in smaller baskets

Quirrelsotherface · 04/04/2021 20:34

Yes bad quality fruit which I have never had from there and been shopping there for 20 years. Their much advertised yum nuts at Christmas, not cheap and when I got them back the icing (some kind of dairy topping) was clearly off. They weren't cheap either.

Slightly off topic but I order m&s through ocado too and they've been shit recently, driver through my bags onto the floor with a box of 15 eggs at the bottom..who the fuck packs eggs at the bottom of the bag. This week the DC's yoghurts were smashed and all over everything.

Quirrelsotherface · 04/04/2021 20:35

God typos sorry..exhaustion. THREW not through and did I mention those yum nuts weren't cheap

GoLightlyontheEarth · 04/04/2021 22:11

I think everyone needs to shop from markets or farm shops. I think supermarket food has really gone down in quality. Fruit is tasteless and tots quickly as does veg. Meat tastes horrible. Nothing tastes if anything. I got a delivery of fruit and veg from an organic farm and couldn’t believe the difference In taste and quality.

GoLightlyontheEarth · 04/04/2021 22:11

Rots

PrintempsAhoy · 04/04/2021 22:20

The bad chicken is across the board, it’s the consumer desire for cheap chicken combined with producers’ greed that means chickens now grow so quickly (twice the size of pre- mass farmed poultry) with hormones and processed chicken food, that some develop “woody chest”, it’s when the breast is very pale and hard snd just tough

You don’t get it in proper free-range organic chicken, but that’s 2-3x the price

SirVixofVixHall · 04/04/2021 23:20

@PrintempsAhoy

The bad chicken is across the board, it’s the consumer desire for cheap chicken combined with producers’ greed that means chickens now grow so quickly (twice the size of pre- mass farmed poultry) with hormones and processed chicken food, that some develop “woody chest”, it’s when the breast is very pale and hard snd just tough

You don’t get it in proper free-range organic chicken, but that’s 2-3x the price

I agree. I am vegetarian but cheap meat is a horrible thing. Eat less meat but buy better quality is the way to go. Meat was more expensive, relatively, when I was small. So was milk.
GreyhoundG1rl · 04/04/2021 23:22

Yes, but I agree with the first poster - it's across the board, not limited to Marks. We shop around, and I honestly couldn't favour any one of them.

ladamanera · 04/04/2021 23:24

It’s Brexit. Delays at borders and congested roads mean less than fresh produce and freezer burn on your meat.

GoLightlyontheEarth · 05/04/2021 06:56

@GreyhoundG1rl

Yes, but I agree with the first poster - it's across the board, not limited to Marks. We shop around, and I honestly couldn't favour any one of them.
I agree
Boood · 05/04/2021 07:45

We noticed a while ago- pre-covid- that M&S’s new ready meal packaging looked distinctly more downmarket. Very bright colours and seemingly designed to appeal to children, but also more like fast food and therefore not high quality.

I’m very relieved to hear that wooden chicken breast is a thing, though. I couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong when the breast of a whole chicken dries out before the thighs are cooked properly. Thought I’d just lost the ability to roast chicken.

Literallynoidea · 05/04/2021 07:54

I agree. M&S food used to be a treat - now it's bland and tasteless

Pipsquiggle · 05/04/2021 07:56

@GreyhoundG1rl @GoLightlyontheEarth

Do you include Waitrose and Booths in quality standards going down?

And are you talking about every pricing tier within a supermarket or is it just the entry price point tier where quality has gone down?

Genuine question does M&S have an entry price point tier on produce and meat? I haven't been in an M&S in over a year.

Maybe people should get the top tier food E.g. Tesco Finest, Sainsburys Taste the difference and Waitrose No. 1?

Thewiseoneincognito · 05/04/2021 12:03

We had forgotten to get dinner for last night and the takeaway options were pretty busy so we last minute bought some Sainsbury’s Indian meals from a local as there wasn’t really anything else to choose from. My god. The chicken was horrific. A huge chunk of what looked like chickens ass in a texture not dissimilar to how it would look if they’d left the feather still on. Horrendous, actually disgusting. I think we’ve reached the point in factory farming where the product is simply inedible and the supermarkets seem to not care.

OP posts:
GreyhoundG1rl · 05/04/2021 12:29

I don't know about Booths, Pipsquiggle (they're Northern, aren't they?) but yes, I would include Waitrose and I do go for the top tier. Makes very little difference.

Jackparlabane · 05/04/2021 13:41

Brexit will have had some effect on meat. Most decent meat eaten here is produced in the UK, but the staff in most slaughterhouses is almost all foreign - typically Eastern European butchers and Spanish veterinary inspectors. To make up for butchers leaving the country, they've had to use less inexperienced butchers who will struggle to keep to the same times allowed so you'll get more gristle etc included in the production line (many ready meal factories are a slaughterhouse at one end and meals go onto trucks at the other). If inspection staff are also less experienced that won't help.

Chicken motivation is complicated - even organic and free range don't provide much more space for the birds given that your average chicken doesn't want to go outside much of the year and the biggest birds often bully other birds when there's more space to do so (literally, the pecking order). The length of time the bird has had to grow is the best way to predict taste and strong enough limbs, which in turn require decent welfare. It'll cost you, but you'll get more meals out of the chicken.

Cottonheadedninymuggins · 07/06/2021 13:15

[quote FangsForTheMemory]@UncleBunclesHouse it wasn’t a curry, was it? I had one a couple of months ago that was so awful I feel sick just thinking about it. I ate two bites and threw the rest away.[/quote]
I realise I'm resurrecting a 2 month old thread but this came up when I googled my issue too.

Their butter chicken curry used to be my favourite thing from m and s and I'd literally stock up and buy several to put in the freezer to have over a few Saturdays as our m and s food is only a small food hall and a bit of a trek (and no parking so you can't do a proper shop)

It was beautiful! Better than the takeaways watery mistake of a butter chicken.

Come December I did the same for the first time since Feb as we are shielders so hadn't had any since Feb. Christmas eve we were so looking forward to our special curry with all the extras we'd bought from various places....

It was proper manky. Squeaky chicken and tasted like a spicy tikka masala that was nothing special, no gentle creamy warmth that it used to be. Every one was the same and we had 8 that we had specially ordered from the chilled head of dept to get through 😞🤦🏻‍♀️ customer service wouldn't admit to the recipe having changed hut "would pass feedback on".

Since gone on to have other things that we used to get... Some still nice but mostly just OK. M and s used to be a treat for us (we don't have waitrose or ocado or other more upmarket supermarkets here, just the main three and lidl /aldi/Iceland).

Now its just essentially, aside from the fruit and veg which still seems pretty decent quality, to have taken a big step down in most areas. I'm so fed up of cutting bone, sinews and bogey like blood cuts out of my chicken breasts from all supermarkets including m and s 😞

ToWhere · 07/06/2021 13:22

Ocado reviews for M&S products are insightful. The green Thai marinated chicken breast came up in flash sales - 50% off. However lots of 1* reviews on how disgusting it was so I wasn't prepared to waste 2 quid on it.

Aquarius1234 · 23/02/2023 16:57

2023 now and the Quality has not gone back to what is was before 2020!

Anyone else still disappointed with M&S food, I find steak not good, chicken, frozen fish etc.
Plus the prices are higher, so is it fair to charge lots with subpar quality.
I couldn't even touch the frozen fish for nearly 2 years, bad quality and bones!!

PrintempsAhoy · 23/02/2023 18:14

MSfood has gotten too expensive for me now

I walk around there now saying “fuck off with those prices’” (in my head). Things like £7 for a trifle 😂

Quirrelsotherface · 23/02/2023 19:38

I agree with you. I can't quite put my finger on it but yes stale bread on the sandwiches, fruit not quite as fresh and tasty, awful dessert at Christmas, Rodney the baked alaska which resembled a mouldy old blob and tasted like one too.

Up to a couple of years ago I would always say ANYTHING from there was perfect. Just not the case now and I can't justify spending the extra £££

Had to be said, it's pretty much every supermarket these days.

Valeriekat · 24/02/2023 23:25

Hunnybadger1 · 31/03/2021 20:43

We’ve found supermarket chicken, mainly fillets, are practically inedible with a fibrous stringy texture no matter how cooked. And steaks are hit and miss too

Ahhh the infamous "woody chicken"!

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