M&S is determined we get healthy in 2026. As if the year hadn’t already given us enough to worry about, a new health report from the retailer this week instructs us to “hit your health goals” and, helpfully, tells us exactly what they are.
It identifies five trends for 2026, including fibre-maxing, protein, gut health and ‘biohacking’, whatever that is (the report helpfully says “it can mean all sorts of things”). The fifth trend is minimal ingredients.
Conveniently, M&S also has the answers, having launched about 100 new health-focused products for 2026. For fibre-maxing, its new Nutrient Dense range is ideal for people on GLP-1 weight-loss jabs looking to hit their “30g daily fibre goal”.
And for those on the lookout for clean ingredient lists it has doubled the size of its ‘Only… ingredients’ range, with 12 additions including sausages, chipolatas, burgers and meatballs, the first meat products in the lineup.
Health claims and criticism
The range attracted some criticism following its initial launch last spring, with some noting the number of ingredients claimed on the front of pack did not always align with the legal declaration on the back.
Its Only 5 Ingredients Dark Chocolate & Almond Date Bar, for example, listed chocolate as one ingredient on the front of pack but three on the back.
And its Only 5 Ingredients White Rolls fessed up to containing several more on the back including legally required fortificants.
In October, the Real Bread Campaign said a Trading Standards authority had told it M&S was “reviewing” labelling claims for the range, after the campaign complained about the rolls having a “numerical mismatch between the legal declaration of ingredients on the back and marketing claim on the front”.
So it may be no coincidence that new additions to the range, which include tomato ketchup, mayonnaise, porridge, yoghurt and soon-to-launch baked beans, claim exactly the same number of ingredients on the front as they do on the back.
“It appears that the front-of-pack claims on the new products tally with the number of ingredients on the back, so the company might have learned from the criticism that we, and others, levelled about their marketing of its non-UPF range,” says Real Bread Campaign co-ordinator Chris Young.
“Sadly, M&S hasn’t corrected the numerical mismatch on its rolls and loaves that we first complained about in April 2025. The Trading Standards investigation is ongoing.”
Clean label confusion
In some cases, the change of tack has left M&S with slightly confused messaging. The latest packaging for its dark chocolate and almond date bar clarifies in brackets that ‘dark chocolate’ consists of cocoa mass, sugar and cocoa butter. It brings the number of ingredients mentioned on the front of pack to seven – but it’s still the Only 5 Ingredients Dark Chocolate & Almond Date Bar.
On the other hand, its new Only 8 Ingredients Tomato Ketchup also has some ingredients in brackets on the front of the bottle, clarifying that ‘ground spices’ consists of paprika, white pepper and cloves – but in this case these are included in the headline claim of eight in total.
There are also some necessary compromises in stripping out ingredients. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that, with preservatives absent, the new Only 6 Ingredients pork sausages and chipolatas have a shorter shelf life and should be used immediately after opening, according to the labelling.
“In my honest opinion clean label shouldn’t mean fragile food,” writes Francesca White, MD of manufacturer Porky Whites, on LinkedIn.
As with its Only 1 Ingredient Corn Flakes last year, M&S’s intention is to give choice to consumers who are fed up with long lists of ingredients they don’t recognise. It does, after all, also sell sausages with more ingredients and a longer shelf life, and cereals fortified with vitamins.
M&S head of food innovation Annette Peters says: “It’s about doing things simply and cleanly, and we realised we’d love to move it into areas people really associate with additives and ultra-processed foods, like burgers and sausages and beans and tomato ketchup, where we’ve stripped that right back to normal ingredients, and it’s really picked up well.”
And it seems clear this is a choice many consumers want, with the new lines said to be already be flying off shelves. The sausages and chipolatas were down to one pack each when The Grocer visited a Foodhall on Monday, and the tomato ketchup had sold out entirely.
After all, M&S would also hardly be doubling the range if demand for existing lines hadn’t proved strong, as Young points out: “M&S launching more products in its ‘Only…ingredients’ range supports what we have long said: there is a clear appetite for food without unnecessary additives.”
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