Marks and Spencer is now better than Waitrose

[Somewhatfoolish]

Ten years ago, Waitrose was better than Marks and Spencer.

I believe this has now flipped. Waitrose still has an edge in customer service and in range of obscure things (e.g. its chefs ingredients) but in terms of supermarkets (possible exception of Booth's - I'm not in their catchment area often enough) the food at M&S is substantially better.

Does anyone disagree? Why did this happen?

[normalbloke]

Their bread is still pants. Fine for about 12 hours, then it’s mouldy...

[Aunty Pasty]

I'd say that the M&S food is mostly better. I also think that the cliche that M&S is super-expensive is a bit exaggerated. I went food shopping in M&S recently and most of their bog standard ingredients such as chicken and food cupboard stuff was comparable to the Tescos next door.

[omniflow]

I don't think it's cut and dried.

M&S is definitely better for some stuff, but their choice of chicken is rank. They don't really stock free range - you're stuck with "Oakham Gold" - which is just marketing twaddle.

At least in Waitrose you have a good choice of free range chicken - whole chickens, skin on / bone in portions, and skinless / boneless portions.

Likewise, they have a fresh fish counter, a fresh meat counter and a cheese counter. The Waitrose range of pre-packed cheese is also significantly better than M&S.

[dontlookdown]

Quality of Waitrose - esp fresh produce - has dropped off badly in the pandemic, IMO. Don't shop there much any more.

M&S quality is mostly good I agree, but range a bit restricted and there is way too much packaging on everything.

[The Mad Monk]

normalbloke said:

Their bread is still pants. Fine for about 12 hours, then it’s mouldy...

Keep it in the freezer. Then it won't go off.

[Riley Blue]

O/H does all our M&S shopping, rates it better than all the local supermarkets and less expensive than most others too but we don't have a Waitrose, this being Chesterfield. Their organic chicken is the best from all the supermarkets we've tried.

[Somewhatfoolish]

omniflow said:

I don't think it's cut and dried.

M&S is definitely better for some stuff, but their choice of chicken is rank. They don't really stock free range - you're stuck with "Oakham Gold" - which is just marketing twaddle.

At least in Waitrose you have a good choice of free range chicken - whole chickens, skin on / bone in portions, and skinless / boneless portions.

Likewise, they have a fresh fish counter, a fresh meat counter and a cheese counter. The Waitrose range of pre-packed cheese is also significantly better than M&S.

I didn't think about chicken. This is a good point, the bone free drumstick meat in particular is extremely convenient.

[omniflow]

dontlookdown said:

Quality of Waitrose - esp fresh produce - has dropped off badly in the pandemic, IMO. Don't shop there much any more.

M&S quality is mostly good I agree, but range a bit restricted and there is way too much packaging on everything.

It's not so much the quality of Waitrose that's dropped off during the pandemic - more the fact that they just don't have anything fresh on the shelves. Herbs, fresh veg and even free range chicken (despite my earlier post) have sometimes been almost totally absent from the shelves - be it mid-morning on a Saturday or late afternoon on a Friday - which are the traditional busy periods for a weekly shop and when you would expect them to be well stocked.

[popeyewhite]

Never much stock in my local Waitrose (fav chocolates often absent), but prefer shopping there to M+S, which I think is overrated. What stock it does have tends to be good, especially strawberries!

[How u doing]

Waitrose is bigger, easier to navigate and has a very good fish counter. M&S good for ready meals and suchlike.

Horses for courses.

[BorkBorkBork]

Much better food at M&S, especially the fruit & veg. Waitrose gets a visit though for the Unpasteurised Sauerkraut and Tabasco branded Sriracha.

[andyA700]

Our local Waitrose has a really good fresh fish and meat section, much better than any of the M&S imho. The stars are the aged hung meat cabinet, fresh toulouse sausages, free range chicken. They have decent flour for breadmaking, better choice of wine than M&S and good cheese and dairy sections.

[Crumpet]

I’m going to be controversial and say M&S is the best supermarket brand I’ve been to anywhere in the world. For lazy people anyway, there will be better places to get the raw, fresh ingredients. Pretty much everything is consistently very good. And don’t even start me on the Peanut Butter and Caramel Chunkies - I swear they put crack in them.

Whole Foods in the US comes close but a lot of the ready made food is a bit disappointing.

[anonymous-user]

M&S produce is awful compared to a decade ago. Puddings went downhill a few years ago, sandwiches are awful now too. Meat is generally poor quality. Veg is imported, and tasteless.

Obviously, it depends on what you are used to, but IMO M&S has been squeezing the margin noticeably recently.

Waitrose remains the best mainstream shop.

The real solution is to buy from local suppliers and national organic suppliers.

Also, booths dropped off a cliff about 8 years ago when they brought in "expertise" from other big supermarkets to help them expand. Meat went poor, prices went up.

[JKRolling]

I think it’s largely a matter of where you live and how good your local store is. My local M&S and Waitrose are dreadful with little stock of meat and poor quality fruit and veg.

However 10 miles down the road in a less affluent area M&S is amazing. They carry the full range of everything they do, it’s constantly replenished/fresh, they have lots of staff and generally the quality of M&S food is above average. (This is in a full M&S retail unit and the food hall is twice the size of my local, dedicated food hall)

6 miles further and in an even less affluent area is the best Waitrose I’ve visited anywhere in the UK (I travel a lot for work) Ok’ish stock levels and they offer the full product range across food and drinks (when they have it). However, in the last 18 months Waitrose has really dropped the ball in my opinion. They have very few staff, prices have risen beyond belief and customer service is very poor in general. John Lewis & Waitrose are in real trouble I think and the cost cutting really shows. I’ve often seen out of date products on the shelves, dirty shelves, staff shortages at tills etc. The quality of some own brand ready meals has dropped massively too. This store is at least 4x’s the size of my local Waitrose.

So essentially, I think Waitrose has some real issues that, in part, stem from being tied to properties in the wrong areas and haven’t been agile enough to move with the market both in terms of physical and online space. John Lewis is also a massive weight on the shoulders of their food offerings and it’s really showing.

[Riley Blue]

I envy those who have M&S, Waitrose and Booths in the same town. We have very good M&S locally but the nearest Waitrose is an 18 mile round trip to Sheffield city centre and the nearest Booths is in Knutsford, 47 miles away.