We're reducing our levels of saturated fats
Eating a diet high in saturated fat can raise your blood cholesterol levels which increases your risk of developing coronary heart disease. That's why we're reducing our levels of saturated fats across our food ranges.
We're committed to helping both our customers and employees lead a healthier lifestyle. In fact, we've had a programme in place to improve the levels of fat across our food since 2005. This started with an initiative to remove hydrogenated fat from all our foods which we achieved in June 2006, and we continue to constantly review our food to see how we can reduce the total fat and saturated fat levels where appropriate. For example, we recently reduced the saturated fat levels in our fish ready meals, such as our Haddock Mornay meal for one, which has had a huge 50% reduction in saturated fat.
"At M&S we are committed to helping our customers lead healthy lives and we welcome any campaign from the Food Standards Agency that helps educate consumers about a healthy diet."
This work has also included reviewing the ingredients we use in our food to see where we could reduce quantities of ingredients that are contributing high levels of saturated fats, along with looking at the types of fat used, such as oils higher in monounsaturated fats.
We clearly label all of our food and were one of the first retailers to introduce the Food Standards Agency's (FSA) nutritional traffic light labels and Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) information on all food products covered by the FSA's guidelines, so that our customers can clearly see how much fat they contain. We're also continuing to ensure that we have a balanced customer offer, with lower saturated fat options available where possible.
Here are just some of the saturated fat reductions we've made since 2006:
- 70% across our range of crisps
- 30% across our range of sandwiches
- 15% across our range of prepared meals
- 40% across our range of prepared fish meals
The FSA launched a campaign in February 2009 to help people reduce their intake of saturated fats. Claire Hughes, M&S Nutritionist, says "At M&S we are committed to helping our customers lead healthy lives and we welcome any campaign from the Food Standards Agency that helps educate consumers about a healthy diet, and how they can make more informed choices about what they eat. As with the salt campaigns, the saturated fat campaign will complement existing healthy eating messages that we provide to consumers, hopefully encourage people to look at the saturated fat content clearly displayed on our labels, and choose healthier options across the wide range of food M&S offers".
Click here to find out more about the FSA and their saturated fat campaign.
Find out more about fats from our M&S nutritionalist. Click here to view a video on "Good fats". Click here to view a video on "Saturated fats".
M&S Café triple certification coffee
When you order a cup of coffee in our café it will be freshly made from scratch. Every M&S Barista is expertly trained to make perfect shots and frothy milk with every cup. You'll also find little extras like our coffee loyalty card
