M&S vs Waitrose: how do the upmarket grocers compare?

Marks & Spencer and Waitrose both enjoy reputations as high-end supermarkets of choice.

Both are hugely popular with shoppers, while their expensive marketing campaigns do a great job of showcasing their posh food ranges and – more recently – shouting about their price reductions.

But which of the supermarkets is better, and just how good are their products and prices?

At Which? we've done an enormous amount of research on supermarkets. And here, we compare the two retailers' performance on everything from prices and taste tests to loyalty schemes and animal welfare to help answer the question once and for all: which is best, Waitrose or M&S?

Does M&S or Waitrose sell cheaper food?

We visited an M&S Foodhall and a Waitrose in central London on the same day with an identical 15-item shopping list comprising everyday and premium own-brand goods including milk, smoked salmon and chocolate cookies. 

Overall, Waitrose was marginally cheaper in our snapshot comparison, but only by 80p.

Seven of the 15 items were cheaper at Waitrose, six were cheaper at M&S and two – peanut butter and apples – cost the same.

The biggest price difference we found was for a pepperoni pizza, which cost £4.95 at Waitrose and £6 at M&S – that's 21% more, although you could get the M&S pizza for less if you upgraded to a meal deal.

• Find out more: cheapest supermarkets 2024

Does M&S or Waitrose make tastier food?

Which? conducts dozens of taste tests every year, pitting supermarket own-brand products against the big names. Both M&S and Waitrose fish fingers were rated better than Birds Eye in our blind taste test. And both their crunchy peanut butters scored higher than Sun-Pat, but M&S was our tasters’ favourite.

In fact, M&S achieved higher scores than Waitrose in eight out of 14 recent food and drink taste tests; Waitrose scored higher in three, and they scored the same three times. Here are some of the highlights:

Loyalty schemes compared: MyWaitrose vs M&S Sparks 

Unlike most supermarket loyalty schemes, Waitrose and M&S don’t offer points or rewards linked to how much you spend.

M&S Sparks

The Marks & Spencer scheme gives personalised offers and freebies, and money is donated to a charity of your choice every time you shop. You can’t use it with Ocado. 

Physical cards are no longer issued, so new members need to use the app, which can also scan items as you shop so there's no need to queue at the till.

Sparks members can apply to use Sparks Pay, the M&S buy-now, pay-later scheme, which allows you to spend up to £500 interest-free on M&S purchases and pay the balance within 45 days – interest then kicks in at 23.9%.

You can join M&S Sparks at Marksandspencer.com.

MyWaitrose

Members of the Waitrose loyalty scheme get personalised discount vouchers and freebies, plus a free hot drink each time you shop (as long as you bring your own cup).

You'll also get 20% off at the fish counter on Fridays and 20% off selected meat on Saturdays, plus a free copy of the monthly Waitrose Food magazine. 

Vitality health and life insurance holders receive cashback when buying items with the Good Health logo.

It's rumoured that Waitrose and John Lewis loyalty schemes will be combined later this year, but for now you can join MyWaitrose at Waitrose.com.

• Find out more: loyalty schemes compared

What do Marks & Spencer and Waitrose shoppers think?

Both retailers are very popular with shoppers. In our latest survey of the best and worst supermarkets, M&S was the top-rated grocer for in-store shopping for the third year in a row. Waitrose wasn’t far behind, placing third after Aldi.

Both achieved the maximum five stars for customer service, store appearance and staff. In fact, the two rivals achieved the same star ratings as each other on every measure, including just two stars for value for money – the only area in which they scored poorly.

What about online?

Waitrose is a Which? Recommended Provider for online shopping, achieving a stellar score of 78%. 

You can't buy M&S food directly online, but you can get a lot of it via Ocado, which is also a Which? Recommended Provider (customer score 75%). 

We’ve noticed that in-store prices at Marks & Spencer can differ from Ocado’s, though. For example, the price of M&S crunchy peanut butter was £1.80 in store but £2 on Ocado.com when we checked.

Find out how M&S and Waitrose compare to the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury's in our supermarket reviews

How do they compare on animal welfare?

Both M&S and Waitrose are leaders in this field. They’ve consistently been the highest-rated grocers in the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare, which measures how 150 of the world’s largest food companies manage and report on farm animal welfare.

They're also the only UK grocers to have signed up to the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), which requires food businesses to pledge to only sourcing meat chickens that have more space, natural lighting and are genetically slower-growing by 2026. 

M&S fresh chicken already meets this commitment, according to the animal welfare organisation Compassion in World Farming. Waitrose fresh and processed chicken won't be fully BCC-compliant until it adopts slower-growing, higher-welfare breeds.

• Find out more: decoding sustainability, welfare and food safety labels

How sustainable is their fish?

Both M&S and Waitrose say that all of their fish and seafood are sourced responsibly, but it's tricky to compare them in more detail because M&S chooses to use its own Forever Fish logo rather than some of the more universally recognised ecolabels. 

On its website, M&S says it worked with the WWF to develop its ‘industry-leading sustainable fish sourcing policy’. All of its salmon and trout is Scottish and certified to RSPCA-Assured standards.

Waitrose, meanwhile, was the first UK supermarket to carry the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) blue label on all of its own-brand canned tuna products (Sainsbury's now also does this). Waitrose told us that 90% of its own-brand fish and shellfish came from third-party verified responsible sources last year, and it aims for this to be 100% by January 2025. 

All Waitrose farmed seafood is already certified to third-party standards, including RSPCA-Assured Scottish-farmed salmon. And it's the only major grocer (beside Morrisons) that still has a fish counter where you can find locally caught, MSC-labelled species such as Cornish hake and Shetland mussels.

• Find out more: how to buy sustainable fish

How many stores do M&S and Waitrose have?

M&S is the UK’s fastest-growing traditional grocer, with 319 M&S Simply Food convenience stores and supermarket-sized M&S Foodhalls (plus 461 franchises), with plans to open 100 ‘bigger, better’ food stores by 2028. 

In January, market share for M&S matched Waitrose for the first time, according to NielsenIQ, but the rival upmarket grocer is still dwarfed by Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl.

Waitrose has lost market share, but is fighting back by cutting prices and renovating stores. It has 416 branches, including around 60 Little Waitrose convenience shops.

• Find out more: five M&S facts that might surprise you

How do their food ranges compare?

You can find a sprinkling of brands in Marks & Spencer, including Activia yoghurts, Leerdammer cheese and Batchelors mushy peas, but most products (including its famous lunchtime sandwich range) are still own-label.

Waitrose operates more like a traditional supermarket, generally selling a larger selection of fresh fruit and vegetables and a vast range of brands from household names to less well-known labels.

Five years ago, M&S launched its ‘Remarksable Value’ range - now covering more than 100 low-priced staples - to attract more cost-conscious families doing the weekly shop. Waitrose, meanwhile, has more than 700 products in its Essential Waitrose value range.

• Find out more: how to spend less at the supermarket

So which is really better: M&S or Waitrose?

It probably won't surprise you to know that the answer to this depends on your priorities.

Based on our snapshot in-store research (and an admittedly small basket of 15 items), Waitrose is slightly cheaper. And Ocado sometimes charges higher prices for M&S products than you'd pay in an M&S store.

M&S has tended to score better in our most recent taste tests and is also currently doing better on chicken welfare, but Waitrose has committed to improving standards by 2026. Both are relatively good when it comes to sustainable seafood.

Their loyalty schemes work differently so are hard to directly compare, but if you like freebies and discounts, we think Waitrose slightly edges it.

Ultimately, both are great supermarkets. M&S gives a slightly better in-store experience, according to shoppers, but Waitrose also does really well on this front. And both Waitrose and Ocado (which sells M&S food) are Which? Recommended Providers in the online supermarkets category.

So shopping at either store is unlikely to leave you disappointed.

This story was updated on 30 April as it originally said Waitrose was the only supermarket to carry the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) blue label on all of its own-brand canned tuna products. The article has now been corrected to state that Sainsbury's also does this.