Look Behind The Label

My Marks Welcome Treats

Now you've opened up your bag of treats and found your way here, it is time to understand that you are joining a business who create relevant, affordable products that are a little bit special. Read on to look behind the label and find out what makes these products remarkable...

Fairtrade

We’ve been supporting Fairtrade now since 2006 when we were the first retailer to convert all of our tea and coffee to Fairtrade. We also sell a range of chocolate, bananas, wines and flowers. Fairtrade can make a big difference:

Stable price

We often take for granted how revolutionary Fairtrade was in introducing a minimum price for producers. With volatile world commodity markets, giving growers a guaranteed understanding of what they could earn for their money helps the most vulnerable farmers plan and manage their income.

Support for the local community

There are some fabulous examples of the Fairtrade premium making a difference, from supporting education to health care, and when managed well the premium enables farmers to invest in their local community.

Supporting governance

The complexity in supporting small holder governance processes cannot be underestimated, bringing together cooperatives and helping them on their business process.

Connecting producers to the consumer

Fairtrade connects the full supply chain, helping our customers understand where the food comes from as well as empowering growers to understand the international supply chain that they are such an important part of.

We’ve worked with many of the growers for longer than they’ve been Fairtrade, in fact we worked with many of them to convert them to Fairtrade and these growers are really important to us. Our support of our Fairtrade suppliers doesn’t stop at buying Fairtrade, we’ve supported growers with empowerment programmes such as Emerging Leaders and also our women’s economic empowerment project in Peru.

Our M&S Collection Fairtrade Brazilian Ground Coffee is roasted and ground single-origin 100% Arabica coffee from Brazil, naturally dried to develop its characteristic sweetness and mild acidity. With notes of mild chocolate, roasted almonds and a medium body, it gives off a lingering mouthfeel and balanced cup.

Our M&S Collection Fair trade Colombian Ground Coffee is medium dark-roasted single origin Arabica ground coffee. It is rich, balanced and fruity with sweet caramel notes and makes the perfect all-day coffee.

Fairtrade provides a better deal for producers in developing countries, creating opportunities for farmers and workers to improve their lives, their communities and protect their environment.

The employers who make our Brazilian Ground Coffee have worked to look after their community in a number of brilliant ways. These are some of the incentives that they provide. They have promoted the creation of a vegetable garden for employees to access, saving them money and offering a healthier diet. They then employ a nutritionist in order to make the most of the vegetable garden. They provide First Aid Lessons which are taught in rural neighbourhoods and participants learn basic care to be put into practice in cases of drowning, heart attack, convulsions, burns, animals bites and common accidents. Employee’s children have the opportunity of visiting universities in order to attend Innovation Technology Fairs and other similar events. This is done to promote education for children. Finally, they offer a free three year English course to employee’s children and grandchildren. Again, supporting education.

Cotton

For over 10 years we’ve been working to improve cotton production, publishing our first Cotton Sourcing Policy back in 2007. And today, we’re proud to say that 100% of the cotton for our clothing comes from more sustainable sources.
Most of the cotton we source is grown to Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) standards. The BCI is a not-for-profit initiative that trains farmers on how to use water efficiently, care for the health of the soil and natural habitats, reduce use of the most harmful chemicals and apply decent work principles.
Despite progress, more sustainable cotton still only makes up around 15% of global production. We want to help bring about a wider shift in the industry by working with organisations like WWF and BCI and supporting Cotton 2040, a global coalition of retailers, producers, industry initiatives and cotton standards.

Apothecary

Our Apothecary uplifting Balance hand wash will refresh your hands leaving them feeling restored. The exotic aromas of guaiac wood, fresh geranium and delicate jasmine are blended with black pepper and spicy cinnamon leaf essential oils for a supremely satisfying sensory explosion!

Wellbeing

Our wellbeing strategy is all about caring for our people at the heart of the business.

Inclusive workspace

An inclusive workplace where colleagues can bring their true selves and be their best.

Support

Proactive and reactive support for healthy lifestyle, healthy minds, healthy finances.

Work-life balance

A healthy work-life balance for all.

Percy Pig

Percy has had quite a journey since he was launched in 1992. He’s got married to the love of his life, Penny, travelled the world, and had piglets. He’s now one of our most important in-house brands and a real differentiator from the competition.

Millions in sales

We sell 16 million packets (over 400 million individual Percy sweets) every year - equivalent to 10 sweets every second.

Percy Pig Family

There are currently 13 members of the Percy Pig family.

Completely Vegetarian

Percy Pig is completely vegetarian-friendly, so not only are the original Veggie Percy sweets - with green ears - gelatine-free, the whole range is. That means even more people can enjoy Percy Pigs sweets.

New Percy products

Last year was a big year for Percy. Between September and Christmas alone, we introduced 20 new Percy products. The most popular was the Plushy Percy toy, of which we sold 10,000 in just a single day in the lead-up to Christmas.

Sparks

If you haven’t already, join Sparks to start benefiting from personalised offers here. You’ll also be able to link your M&S Colleague discount to your Sparks account once you’ve started in the business.

In Food we keep the magic through our high standards on quality, taste, provenance and animal welfare. In Clothing and Home we offer everyday style that’s built to last through great design, fabrics, cut and fit. We hope that you enjoy learning, tasting and wearing more as part of your remarkable journey in the M&S family.

BEAM

This is our data platform, including the data itself, the tools used to get value from it and the solutions that it enables across the business. It’s a cloud-based platform, and cloud computing is among the biggest technological advances in recent history. When you watch Netflix, or use Instagram, Teams or BEAM – you’re calling up information from one of these. It enables storage and use of massive amounts of data. But, our platform is more than just a location – it’s an ecosystem – with data flowing through it constantly. It’s as much about how the data moves, transforms and is used and consumed, as it is how the data is stored. Think about the billions of data points that we constantly generate on our customer interactions with the website, and all our transactions and sales information, to name a few. Then consider the importance of being able to easily access this data, and trust that it is reliable, to inform your decisions.

The BEAM Academy mission is to enable all colleagues to grow their digital and data skills, whether that be to enhance what you’re doing in your current role or help set you up for your next. Every colleague should be aiming to make data part of every conversation they have to support more informed decisions, aiming to innovate against business opportunities through digital solutions and have a digital routine that enables them to do this with confidence and pace. BEAM’s job is to help you equip yourself in this way. We have a big portfolio of options for you from self-guided learning, to live coaching, to formal apprenticeship programmes and large scale events such as Digifest and our 24 Hour Hackathons, and our growing community of passionate colleagues.

But, why BEAM? It’s our name to highlight the importance of shining a light and illuminating the value of our data, and good data.