Dairy

Eggs

Free range eggs

All the eggs we use in our food are free range! In 1997, Marks & Spencer became the first major UK retailer to sell only free range eggs. In 2002 we extended this policy to include the 250 million eggs we use as an ingredient in all our prepared foods – quiches, cakes, pasta, biscuits – right down to the glaze used on a sausage roll! Our 100% Free Range policy has won a Good Egg Award from leading animal welfare charity Compassion in World Farming. See www.thegoodeggawards.com

Free range eggs

All our fresh shell eggs are produced on specially selected UK farms to our own exacting standards. Our specifications cover bird health, welfare and management as well as food safety. As with our poultry, we set standards for the hatcheries and feedmills that supply our egg laying farms.

Our free range hens have constant daytime access to grassy pastures where they are free to roam and forage. Indoors they have space to roost and preen, litter for dust bathing and nest boxes where they lay their eggs.

All our eggs have a natural golden yolk colour created from the cereal-based non-GM diet – we don’t permit the use of artificial yolk colourants. For additional food safety, all our egg laying hens are vaccinated against Salmonella.

It is well known that Omega 3 fatty acids play an important role in heart and brain health. This is one of the reasons we developed Omega 3 Free range Eggs. These are produced from egg laying hens which are fed a vegetarian diet enriched with Omega 3 fatty acids. This enrichment is then passed naturally into the hens eggs. They taste delicious and can be used in the same way as a normal hen’s egg.

Organic Free Range eggs
Our Organic Free range eggs are produced on specially selected farms. The hens have daytime access to organic pasture and are fed on a specially formulated feed made with organic raw materials.

Speciality Free range eggs
Look out for our range of speciality free range eggs available in selected stores, including Goose eggs, Duck eggs and Speciality Blue eggs. 

Milk

We make sure our milk is of the highest quality - all of it comes from specially selected farms and is produced to our own farm assurance initiative. Approximately 37 English farms supply our English stores, 9 Scottish farms for Scotland, 12 in Wales and 3 in Northern Ireland.

We also use the milk from the English farms to create our flavoured milks, and the milk from the Welsh farms supplies our Café Revive chain. For us, the key to providing high quality milk for customers is maintaining good relationships with our farmers. In an industry first, we introduced a scheme that guaranteed its dairy farmers a fixed price for milk, removing the uncertainty of the milk industry’s price fluctuations. The Marks and Spencer ‘Milk Pledge’ is completely transparent.