I love M&S, it's the only supermarket I can buy from with total confidence that the food is of the highest quality for the price. I'm a ex-food technologist who used to work for a company that supplied M&S with all their "luxury" Christmas cakes. I changed career years ago because the pay wasn't great in that vocation for what you do, but one thing I remember well is the exacting standards demanded by their team of food technologists and auditors. It was insane. We had to quarantine and separately store every single raw material that went into their products. They used to supply us with rolls of red and white tape branded with their logo, that we'd be required to use to wrap the pallets of ingredients in the warehouse, so that nobody could confuse it all for the "lower quality" stuff we'd use for other supermarkets. The specifications for these ingredients was ridiculously high, to the point it was difficult to reach their standard in many instances, and there were a lot of rejections and replacements from our own suppliers while I was working there. That caused issues with our own raw materials suppliers, who'd forever be moaning that what we expected wasn't reasonable or practical. I won't bore you all to death, but an example would be... Raisins/sultanas were supplied in 12.5kg boxes, sourced from Turkey. You'd inevitably find the occasional stone or tiny piece of stalk in there that got in through the picking/packing process. We'd have a raw materials inspector who'd take a random box from a pallet and empty it onto a light table to check and sign off. The standard allowance on a specification would be a maximum of, say, 25 per box for every other supermarket. With M&S, it was zero, and they'd pay extra for this expectation to be met if necessary, on the proviso that anything else would be unacceptable. Their auditors were a nightmare at times. Taking a random product from an ongoing process or finished goods warehouse and demanding to see every check/step of the production process and every document of the raw materials traceability for it. Delivery notes, specifications, certificates of conformity to these specifications, our own records of testing, everything. And they expected it within the hour. A lot of it was filed away on paper back then, and I'd be running round panicking trying to gather it all on audit day. You could prepare for it somewhat, but not fully because you just didn't know which product they'd pick. They could choose something being made for another customer like Tesco. Or two different products. Aaaarrgghh! I absolutely detested M&S audit days but looking back, I admire their commitment to quality and unwillingness to compromise on anything. And I still shop there almost exclusively today. A few mates sometimes take the piss out of me, saying I think I'm royalty or whatever and questioning how I afford it, but for what you're getting I don't think their prices are that bad! This is because I'm confident that the care that goes into producing it is the same care you'd take at home prepping a meal for your own family. Or even higher in some cases! Anyway, I have lots of favourites, but a special mention to their "Best Ever" beefburgers, which are absolutely banging on a barbeque. If you haven't already, try them and I guarantee you'll never go back to mere mortal burgers. More on reddit.com

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Tesco is a middle of the road, everyday supermarket M&S has a reputation for being more expensive but higher quality - but it's often not as expensive as people imagine. Waitrose is similar. Lidl and Aldi are the best in terms of value for money, and they have some really good products. More on reddit.com

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