Saving the environment while shopping for lunch in Milton Keynes

The new scheme, available at stores with Market Place counters including M&S Milton Keynes, will incentivise customers to bring their own reusable containers for lunch-to-go by offering a 25p discount off each meal. M&S is aiming to encourage a change in consumer behaviour and reduce the use of disposable items on the high street, as new research by IGD reveals the food-to-go sector across the UK is set to grow by 26.4 per cent by 2024.

M&S’ Market Place concept is available in busy city centre stores and offers a variety of hot and cold lunch-to-go options, from rotisserie chicken and fish to freshly prepared salads. Over 70,000 people pick up lunch from Market Place each week, which is currently available in 23 stores across the country.

Paul Willgoss, Director of Food Technology at M&S, said: “Our priority is to reduce single-use packaging and ensure any we do use can be reused or recycled, as we work towards our 2022 target for all our packaging to be widely recyclable. Food-to-go is a growing market; so finding solutions in this space is an important part of our wider plan. Our Market Place containers are already widely recyclable, but we want to go a step further with the introduction of an incentive to encourage customers to switch to reusable containers.”

M&S already offers a 25p incentive for hot drinks served in reusable coffee cups – an initiative that was introduced in April 2018. To support customers to reuse, M&S is selling a range of clip storage containers from £4, which are available at the Market Place counters.