M&S is the latest retailer to draw the ire of the Real Campaign by claiming a store sells “freshly baked products throughout the day”.
The group, which campaigns for a statutory legal definition of ‘real bread’, has mocked the retailer over claims made in its announcement of a new store at Heathrow Terminal 5 last month.
Food MD Alex Freudmann said in the announcement that the store “brings an in-store bakery with freshly baked products throughout the day” to the airport.
Real Bread campaign co-ordinator Chris Young said: “I’d love to think that a company would create training and job opportunities for skilled bakers by setting up a scratch bakery at an airport.
“Imagine if travellers’ first impression of the UK was freshly made, real bread. Sadly, in common with seven other of the UK’s 10 largest supermarket chains, M&S makes no bread fresh from scratch at any of its sites.”
Only Tesco and Morrisons sell bread that is genuinely baked from scratch on site in some stores, according to Young. Others rely on a ‘bake-off’ model, with products baked elsewhere, frozen, and then reheated in store in what Young calls “loaf tanning salons”.
Similar marketing claims have been changed by retailers amid pressure from the campaign, which is run by the charity Sustain.
In 2024 it claimed victory over Sainsbury’s and Lidl after they dropped ‘freshly baked’ claims. Lidl had changed phrasing in marketing emails to “freshly baked in Kent” rather than in stores throughout the day. Sainsbury’s introduced new store signage saying “loaves & bloomers” instead of “freshly made every day”. The two supermarkets said at the time the changes were not in response to actions by the Real Bread Campaign.
They were among several retailers whose bakery claims the Real Bread Campaign raised with Trading Standards in 2024.
The campaign has been battling for over a decade for ‘real bread’ to be legally defined as baked without chemical raising agents, processing aids or any other additives.
Its actions and Trading Standards complaints have led to retailers changing product names, most recently Aldi rebranding its ‘Dark Rye Sourdough’ to ‘Wheat & Rye Dark Sourdough’ in May this year.
The campaign has also been a thorn in M&S’s side over its ‘clean label’ Only Ingredients range, which launched in spring 2025. A number of bread products in the range were rebranded this year to increase the claimed number of ingredients after the campaign complained to Trading Standards that the front-of-pack labelling was misleading.
M&S did not respond to Young’s latest comments.
Its new airside store at Heathrow Terminal 5 opened in August to replace smaller pilot stores at Gates A and B.
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