Marks and Spencer

Stuart Rose, the chief executive of Marks and Spencer, was in impressive form on Radio 5 last night. He virtually offered to meet anyone with sensible suggestions.

So I wrote :-

“With food I have always been a fan. Note that as a child in North London, my mother purchased a lot of food in the Wood Green store in the fifties, which was close to where she worked. Now we buy a lot of food from Cambridge and also from the convenient Simply Food at the station. Where are the latter on the motorways?

I have no complaints here, but a serious suggestion.

I am one of the one percent of the population who is a coeliac and therefore must avoid wheat, barley and rye. You are making a lot of play about organic food, lack of additives and quality. You are also providing some excellent gluten-free sausages, fish cakes and ready meals. But sometimes you show a lack of consistency with some ready meals by switching between containing gluten and gluten-free.

If you published your policy on gluten, avoided the wheat-derived additives like maltodextrin, substituted unnecessary flour for cornflour etc., I’m certain you’d steal a march on competitors. You only had to be at the scrum that was the Gluten-Free Food Fair in Newmarket this July to know how desperate some coeliacs can get.”

His address is :-

Stuart Rose
Marks and Spencer Group plc
Waterside House
35 North Wharf Road
London
W2 1NW

Perhaps some more ought to make a few suggestions. You could also try Guy Farrant, who is head of food.