Marks & Spencer is to provide food products to coffee giant Costa Coffee starting from Spring 2022, at more than 2,500 sites across its UK stores and drive-thru outlets. The new partnership has been hailed as a means to boost supply chain resilience while allowing M&S to reach new customers and locations, particularly families and commuters.
Costa is set to sell more than 30 different M&S food items including sandwiches, salads, hot meal boxes and children’s food, with the new line adding to its existing range.
Neil Lake, Costa Coffee managing director for the UK and Ireland, said: ‘’This collaboration with M&S Food will build on our existing food range and help us fulfil our ambition to become the first choice for customers buying food and coffee on the go’’.
It’s also M&S’s latest effort to expand on the distribution of its food, following a deal with Ocado to share its goods online as well as testing some of its Simply Food convenience outlets in WH Smith stores.
M&S Food managing director Stuart Machin said that: “This collaboration gives many more customers the opportunity to enjoy our wide range of delicious sandwiches, salads and snacks in over 2,500 locations across the UK – not just on the high street but in neighbourhood locations and retail parks’’.
“Bringing together delicious, great quality M&S food and the nation’s largest chain of coffee shops is great for customers as it extends our reach and supports our strategy of making M&S more relevant, more often for families.”
News of the collaboration comes after Costa has released its festive menu. Neil Lake comments: "Following the recent launch of our amazing new festive menu, we are delighted to bring further festive cheer by announcing a new food collaboration with M&S Food, launching next year’’.
The new menu has yet to be released.
In other foodie news, check out M&S' Christmas food range for 2021, including light up gin, Percy 'Pigloos' and the perfect turkey joint