M&S ‘reviewing’ labelling claims for ‘Only… ingredients’ range

M&S is said to be reviewing labelling claims for a controversial range of products that list fewer ingredients on the front of pack than in the legal declaration on the back.

The Real Bread Campaign complained in May to Birmingham City Council, M&S’s primary Trading Standards authority, about its ‘Only 5 ingredients’ rolls, one of a number of products in the range.

The complaint raised a “numerical mismatch between the legal declaration of ingredients on the back and marketing claim on the front” according to the Real Bread Campaign. 

As previously reported by The Grocer, the four-pack of white rolls make the front-of-pack claim by condensing a number of ingredients into ‘multi-flour’. The Real Bread Campaign first raised concerns with M&S in April, pointing out that the legal declaration of ingredients on the back of pack listed 11, or more including the calcium, iron, vitamin B3 and B1 added to fortify wheat, as required by law.

The Real Bread Campaign today published a reply from its local Trading Standards authority officer at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, dated 25 September, saying: “I understand M&S is currently reviewing and amending some of their packaging.”

M&S has been approached for comment.

The Real Bread Campaign also complained seperately about M&S’s ‘Light rye flour’, which claims ‘ancient wheat variety’ on the front of pack. The campaign claims it is misleading, with wheat not among the ingredients listed in the legal delcaration on the back of pack. 

“As the result of Trading Standards complaints by the Real Bread Campaign, M&S is reviewing labelling and marketing claims on a number of products,” Real Bread Campaign co-ordinator Chris Young wrote on LinkedIn.

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The Real Bread Campaign calls for bread to be made from natural ingredients, free from artificial additives, and labelled accurately.

M&S’s ‘Only… ingredients’ range launched in March with a trio of cereals and the pack of bread rolls, each purporting on the front of pack to contain six ingredients or fewer.

The range has since been expanded. In April it gained two snack bars, including one claiming five ingredients on the front of pack by counting dark chocolate as one. The legal declaration on the back of pack further specified that the dark chocolate consisted of cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifier: lecithin (soya), and natural vanilla flavouring.

“Really uncomfortable with this trend,” development chef and writer Anthony Warner said at the time. “Just five ingredients in this product apparently, although one of those is dark chocolate, which is by its nature a compound ingredient. Using this logic, a Dairy Milk is just one ingredient.”

M&S is understood to see the range as a way of offering customers the choice to buy products containing only ingredients they would find at home in their cupboard and might use to make something themselves. Dark chocolate is seen as one such item, and is in that sense a single ingredient, it believes.