Marks & Spencer food hauls are the latest Tory flex taking over TikTok’s FYP

Allegedly, you can do a weekly food shop in Marks & Spencer. And I’m sure, considering the insane cost increases at most high street supermarkets thanks to the cost of living crisis, if you only picked up bread, milk and other core essentials, this may well be true.

But the problem with gorgeous, luxury, clean-aisled M&S is that you never just come out with the basics – do you? Well, I don’t. You add a little “Best ever” prawn sandwich into your basket for lunch. You scoop up a bottle of their new iced coffee latte like a new born in your arms.

Before you know it, you’ve spent your weekly budget on snacks. And now TikTok is encouraging this delicious, depraved, habit too. #marksandspencer has over 380.1 million views on the app. Because, rather than showing off new Charlotte Tilbury makeup collections or Zara clothes hauls, influencers are showing us the inside of their shopping baskets. And it’s working.

In December, these frozen cookies took over the For You Page:

@sarahjoholder

Testing the viral M&S frozen oven bake cookies. They’re actually so good 😭🤎 #asmrfood #mandsfood #mandsfinds

♬ original sound – Sarah Jo Holder

By January, their white strawberries were in every influencers basket:

@ggflavour

@M&S Food White strawberries!! I’ve wanted to try these for 3 years!!! #whitestrawberry #mandswhitestrawberry #whitepearlstrawberrys #whitestrawberries #mandsfoodhall #wieiad #unusualfruit

♬ original sound – Eat with GG

Later that same month the iced coffee latte had its moment:

@frazzledazzzle

M&S iced latte taste test 🧋m&s #icedcoffee m&sicedcoffee #latte #icedlatte #tastetest #AirpodsJUMP #LiveForTheChallenge

♬ original sound – Frazzledazzle

And in February even their laundry detergent became an online obsession for a while:

“It smells like Le Labo!!!”

@fenloninteriors_

Marks and Spencer’s giving me le labo laundry 😙 #marksandspencer #mands #fyp #foryou #lelabo #laundrytok #marksandspencershaul #lelabodupe #cleanwithme #virallaundrydetergent

♬ original sound – Fenlon Interiors

By March, full on weekly shops and ‘new in’ videos have started to take hold:

Relaxing music, fun editing, thousands of likes: This spring, you literally can’t get your algorithm away from boujee supermarket hauls. They’re so fun to watch but so bad for your bank account. During the cost of living crisis when so many people are going back to basics, it does sort of feel like a particularly hellish form of bragging:

@saffronzoe

M&S food must haves #mands #mandsfood #mandsfoodhall #musthaves #mandsfoodshop

♬ Red Ruby Da Sleeze – Nicki Minaj

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Seedless cotton candy grapes, ginger shots, Italian burrata, mini chocolate bite truffles and gin and tonic sorbet are just some of the products very, very, posh influencers are pushing on the For You Page. They clearly have different food budgets to the rest of us.

Honestly, my Tesco Clubcard is shaking.

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