{"id":594418,"date":"2026-05-20T14:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594418\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:08:09","slug":"call-for-food-price-caps-completely-preposterous-says-ms-boss-marks-spencer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594418\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for food price caps \u2018completely preposterous\u2019, says M&S boss | Marks & Spencer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The boss of Marks & Spencer has called a government proposal for voluntary price caps on essential food items<\/a> \u201ccompletely preposterous\u201d, saying it should reduce tax and regulatory burdens instead.<\/p>\n

Stuart Machin, the chief executive of the clothing, homewares, food and beauty retailer, said M&S already lost money on some basic items such as milk, bread and baked beans and made very slim profits on other products such as eggs and sugar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think government should be trying to run business,\u201d he said. \u201cThey should try to understand business better. There is so much in the government\u2019s control. My advice is to try to reduce tax and regulatory burden and free us up in a very competitive market.\u201d<\/p>\n

It emerged on Tuesday that government officials had raised the idea with supermarkets that they should stock at least one version of basic items such as bread, milk and butter at a set low price in exchange for an easing of some regulations on issues such as packaging and healthy food.<\/p>\n

Machin said retailers were facing \u201ca triple whammy of headwinds with increased taxation, a greater regulatory burden and ongoing global conflict\u201d and ministers \u201ccan do things to relieve some pressure and help retailers grow and invest\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stuart Machin says: \u2018I don\u2019t think government should be trying to run business.\u2019 Photograph: Oliver Dixon\/PA<\/p>\n

He said a \u201cbig headwind\u201d was higher taxes, with \u00a340m in additional costs from April\u2019s new packaging levy<\/a> and potentially a further \u00a310m this year, as well as \u00a350m higher costs from national insurance changes, or up to \u00a3100m if the higher costs from suppliers\u2019 need to pay extra national insurance were included.<\/p>\n

Machin said the additional cost from new regulations and additional taxes \u201cdoes all link to employment\u201d, putting a dampener on businesses\u2019 ability to take on more people. He said most of the taxes had been known about, and so M&S had planned ways to cut costs and offset the impact.<\/p>\n

However, he said the unexpected Middle East conflict had already prompted some suppliers to ask for higher prices, adding \u201ca few million\u201d pounds to M&S costs. Machin said M&S was able to absorb or offset most of this.<\/p>\n

The chief executive was speaking as M&S pledged to invest in technology and 18 new food stores after annual results revealed last year\u2019s paralysing cyber-attack <\/a>had knocked almost a quarter off its profits.<\/p>\n

Machin said the year ahead would be \u201cone of the most important \u2026 in our history\u201d as it added automated distribution centres, refurbished clothing departments and used AI to sharpen marketing and product sourcing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next three years are critical for M&S as we invest for growth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Archie Norman, the retailer\u2019s chair, said now was the time to \u201cshake the dust off our heels\u201d as the effect on the availability of products after the cyber incident that began last Easter<\/a> was \u201cnow tapering\u201d and new ranges were \u201cresonating well with customers\u201d.<\/p>\n

The pledge came as M&S revealed underlying profits slumped by 23.8% to \u00a3671m in the year to 28 March as sales rose only 1.9% to \u00a314.2bn despite widespread inflation of more than 3%. Profits were hit by \u00a3131.3m of costs related to the cyber incident.<\/p>\n

Food sales rose 7% but fashion, homewares and beauty sales were down by 7.7% and international sales were down 7.2% as the fallout from the cyber-attack rolled on through the year.<\/p>\n

However, analysts said the outlook on profits was worse than expected as M&S said the year ahead would be affected by \u201chigher fuel, freight and input costs and continued government tax levies and regulatory headwinds\u201d.<\/p>\n

Analysts at Jefferies said M&S was only guiding to an expected annual profit of more than \u00a3876m in the year ahead against expectations of \u00a3964m.<\/p>\n

Alison Dolan, the chief financial officer at M&S, said the flow of stock had been \u201cmaterially disrupted\u201d by the incident, putting pressure on the supply chain and hitting availability throughout the year, so the retailer was left with excess stock that it was forced to discount more than planned in the second half.<\/p>\n

Machin said food sales had grown strongly, helping M&S reach 4.1% market share \u2013 its highest level ever \u2013 and it would be 4.6% if M&S\u2019s sales via its Ocado<\/a> online grocery joint venture were included.<\/p>\n

M&S sold \u00a31bn of goods via the online grocer for the first time this year, helping Ocado reach an operating profit of \u00a315.2m \u2013 a return to the black after several years of losses.<\/p>\n

Machin said Ocado had improved efficiency but there was \u201cmuch more to do before we commit to future growth investment\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boss of Marks & Spencer has called a government proposal for voluntary price caps on essential food…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-594418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}