Marks & Spencer has announced it will open 12 new food stores on former Homebase sites across England as the British high street retailer continues to recover from a cyber attack.
The brand said it hoped to create over 550 new jobs in the move after the DIY company closed 33 of its stores in February.
M&S plans to open ten food stores and two full line stores this year. It released the names of five locations so far, adding all store plans were subject to planning permission.
The latest stores announced include two 18k square foot food halls in Abingdon and Cannock, expected to open in late 2025. In 2026, the company aims to open an 18k square foot food hall in Farnham, a 22k square foot food hall in Godalming - its largest standalone food store to date - and a 16k square foot food hall in Northampton.
The brand promised that these new food stores would carry the full range of M&S Food products, including market-style fruit and vegetables, large bakeries with fresh coffee to go, as well as Click & Collect counters for orders from M&S’s wider fashion, home and beauty range.
M&S CEO Stuart Machin said: “Investing in new and renewed stores is one of our key transformation priorities. Securing these highly desirable sites in priority locations will accelerate this strategy, drive further growth in our M&S food business and most importantly give our customers the best possible M&S shopping experience.”
The brand said in a statement that the new stores marked “a significant step forward in M&S’s store rotation and renewal programme, focussed on having the right stores in the right place with the right space and is a key strand in the business’s transformation as it reshapes for growth.”
M&S aims to create “420 bigger, fresher Food stores and a more productive group of 180 Full Line stores” through its store rotation and renewal programme by 2027/28, in which the brand is upgrading its location for certain stores or renovating other outlets.
Its renewed food stores aim to include larger car parks, a Coffee Bakery where customers can grab a hot drink while they shop along with a loaf of bread, as well as wider aisles and expanded frozen areas.
Last year, M&S opened six food stores and two full line stores as well as renewing nine existing stores. These new food stores averaged 15k square feet.
The brand’s latest move to expand follows a recent cyber attack which costed it £300 million as M&S was forced to shut down its online shopping operations.
The attack has left shelves empty in some stores and online orders unfulfilled as the retailer took systems offline after being targeted by hackers around the Easter weekend.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed detectives from the force’s cyber crime unit launched an investigation which remains ongoing.
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