Motorway Madness at M&S Simply Foods - why no reduced to clear?

ilesmark

Hi all

Have witnessed this a few times at motorway service station M&S Simply Foods - why don't they reduce date-expiring food to clear at the end of the day like all other M&Ss do these days?

I have never been motivated to query it before now, but sent the following email to them on Friday. Wonder what I'll hear back.....

Dear sir / madam

I have some questions about what I witnessed at a M&S Simply Food at a motorway service station the other night. The station was Exeter and the night was Sunday 24 July but from what I was told when I queried this with the 'duty manager' it could have been any M&S simply food motorway service station on any night. "COMPANY POLICY"!!

We were there at about 8 or 8.30 pm and noticed an employee taking the nearly date-expired sandwiches, packs of salad / pasta etc off the shelf and putting them on a trolley. Enquiry revealed that this perfectly-good food was all going to be thrown away. Not reduced to clear, not given to the nearest old peoples' home / homeless persons' shelter, nothing. Just thrown away.

No doubt you are going to write this off as just another whingeing email from some Joe Bloggs unhappy about missing out on his salt beef sandwich with wholemeal bread and pickled gherkins for only £1.25 instead of the usual £2.50 - wow,what a BARGAIN! But here I think we may have what is known in economics as a dual coincidence of wants.

Milton Friedman was fond of saying that any corporation that didn't act in the best interests of its shareholders was acting immorally, and that if the directors of a chemical company declined an opportunity to make more money selling poison gas to Saddam Hussein than selling weedkiller to farmers then they were in breach of their fiduciary duty to the corporation - you get the picture.

Sure enough, over the last few years Marks and Spencer has embraced business practices hitherto unthinkable. 'We don't take credit cards?' No problem if customers didn't like it - they could lump it. Marks was big enough to take the occasional trolley full of shopping abandoned at the checkout, while the disgruntled punter flounced off into the distance shaking their head whilst shoving their visa card back into their wallet. But then things changed. Now M&S has had to move with the times.

So why oh why oh why does every other type of M&S in the UK nowadays reduce its food to clear later in the day, but not the motorway ones?

Now M&S didn't get where it was today by being stupid, and I am sure that some dutiful bean counter somewhere in the vaults of M&S armed with the latest version of MS Excel has run the figures and concluded there's a solid business case for chucking food out from motorway M&S simply foods rather than reducing it to clear or giving it away to charity. But what is it? Surely everyone would gain if they did...isn't it more economic to give the food away to charity at the very least, even if the prospect of Joe Bloggs not paying his dues is too apocalyptic to contemplate? M&S wouldn't have to pay disposal costs, for one thing.

I look forward to receiving the immediate assurance forthwith from the chief executive of Marks and Spencer plc on vellum parchment that this detestable practice will henceforth be discontinued.

Alternatively, some idea of WHY wouldn't go amiss.

Yours faithfully

Mark XXXX (longstanding and diligent customer)

k3lvc

I may be wrong but you may have been misled - M&S are key supporters of FareShare so I'd expect in their franchise agreement with SSP/Moto this would be incorporated

http://www.fareshare.org.uk/?page_id=497

ilesmark

Interesting! I'll throw that at them if they don't give me a decent reply.

passatrider

How come I bought some reduced readymeals from a service station at Gatwick airport? Funny that

ilesmark

The manager told me it was 'company policy at all motorway service station Simply Foods', so airports may not be the same.

Unless you mean your place was a motorway service station near to LGW?

Teahfc

If you do not get an answer, buy one share attend the share holders meeting and raise the point !

lindens

I witnessed the same as OP at an M4 services and was given the same excuse as they were. I also was flabbergasted and the employee telling me was very embarrassed i could tell.

roddydogs

They wont be thrown away, My guess is that some staff take the "Freebies" and some dont.

mymerrywidow

passatrider wrote: »

How come I bought some reduced readymeals from a service station at Gatwick airport? Funny that

the service station (pease pottage)is not on a motorway its on the A23 and not the M23.

cactuspotty

I don't think the M&S Simply Food stores in service stations are run by M&S. They're franchised. I think to Moto but I could be wrong. The M&S Simply Food stores in airports and railway stations are franchised and run by a company called SSP.

ilesmark

All - interesting, especially cactuspotty's reply. Maybe I need to approach Moto, although M&S haven't yet tried to bring their name into it.

I have had the following from M&S this lunchtime:-

Dear Mr Iles
Thank you for emailing us about your recent experience in our Exeter Services Simply Food store. As you have requested a response, albeit written on vellum, from our Chief Executive Marc Bolland, I am responding on his behalf, as a member of the Executive Office.
I am sorry to hear you are disappointed with our policy of not discounting near date expired products from our Food on the Move range. I can appreciate your concern at our decision to throw away, seemingly, perfectly fresh food, please allow me to attempt to explain this policy.
While, as you have pointed out, we have had to adapt the way we do things and accept credit cards, for example, we are proud of the innovation we bring to the retail sector. We have introduced many concepts, such as our ‘Dine in for £10’ deals which have been copied, but not bettered, by many of our competitors.
Another of these innovations is our Food on the Move range. This has been designed to offer fresh, exceptional quality food specifically for the lunchtime market and is meant for consumption on the day of purchase. As part of our attempts to reinforce the freshness of this brand, it is produced with a very limited shelf life and is not subjected to price reductions throughout the day, as with our other products.
Unfortunately, in these litigation conscious times, we are unable to give away, or indeed, sell off date expired food and it must be disposed of. In an effort to reduce unnecessary waste, we carefully monitor our sales figures to try to predict the amount of stock we need to supply our stores.
I am afraid we have no plans to change this policy at the moment but, as with all the customer feedback we receive, we are grateful you have taken the time to bring your concerns to our attention.
Once again, on behalf of Marc, thank you for taking the time to contact us.
Kind regards
Geraint Saunders
Executive Office
Your M&S Customer Service


Doesn't completely answer the question, does it? I have sent back the following:-


Hello Mr Saunders

Am glad my email got some attention from the Executive Office of M&S - I put some effort into composing it!

I maybe need to clarify what I was asking about - of course I am not suggesting M&S or any other retailer should sell off food that is already date-expired. My question was directed at food that is approaching its expiry date ie a few hours away from close of business on the 'sell-by' date. Not sure whether the sandwiches / bowls of pasta/salad etc I saw being thrown away from the service station was 'Food On The Move' or some other terminological M&S device, but the fact remains that other M&Ss these days DO reduce food to clear when it is a few hours away from close of business on the 'sell-by' date. That motorway M&Ss do not appears to me to be Motorway Madness and it is this I am perplexed about.

Incidentally, I note with great interest that M&S appears to be a key supporter of FareShare, so I would welcome your views (written on reduced-to clear vellum!) on how M&Ss policy of throwing away nearly but not quite date-expired food from motorway M&Ss sits with the FareShare Food Access Programme
http://www.fareshare.org.uk/?page_id=497


Yours truly

Mark XXXX