One hundred and forty of the UK's biggest consumer brands go on the shelves of Marks & Spencer's food stores next week as the struggling retailer attempts to put a halt to falling sales.
The move marks a huge change in strategy for M&S, which has always refused to stock branded goods and has built its upmarket food entirely around its own label.
But its food sales have now gone into reverse as rivals have closed the quality gap and price-conscious shoppers are trading down from M&S prices.
The brands selected by the retailer range from Bisto to Fairy Liquid, Coca-Cola to Tetley tea bags.
There are 53 health and beauty brands, including Elnett hairspray, Calpol, Tampax, Veet hair remover, Strepsils and Senokot constipation treatment. Nicotine patches, Nurofen, Deep Heat rub and Seven Seas supplements will also be available.
There are also 26 top drinks brands, including Baileys, Budweiser, Becks, Newcastle Brown Ale, Stella Artois and Smirnoff.
The 140 brands will be available in various sizes and varieties, so the actual number of new products hitting the M&S shelves will be 350 - adding an extra 10% to the existing M&S product range.
The brands are going into 19 stores in the north-east from Monday, and if the trial proves successful they will be rapidly extended throughout the country.
The new branded product range was selected by Steven Esom, the M&S food boss who was fired last week after M&S shocked investors with appalling sales figures and a huge profits warning.
Esom, who was previously managing director of Waitrose, was working on a strategy to convert M&S food halls into full supermarkets where shoppers could do their entire weekly shop, rather than use the stores merely for top-up and luxury shopping as they do now.
(The Guardian)
But only 140 'other' brands will hardly challenge other supermarkets, I imagine.
