Marks & Spencer’s mince pies have officially taken pride of place at the Christmas table, scoring top marks in an independent test taste carried out by Which? magazine.

The retailer’s ‘Luxury Deep Filled Mince Pies’ were highlighted as a ‘Which? Best Buy’ at just £2.29 for six, and praised for their ‘buttery taste’ – beating the Harrods offering priced at £5.95 for five. The M&S mince pies were awarded 80% in the taste test - the highest score out of all the retailers, with 5/5 stars for appearance, 4/5 for aroma and 4/5 for taste.

The Which? magazine mince pie taste test stated: Our winner gets good marks for taste and aroma and excellent for appearance, making it perfect for a party spread. Our testers liked the ‘buttery taste’ and the star on top is a nice Christmas touch.

Chris Seaby, M&S mince pie product developer, commented, “We are delighted that the superior taste and quality of our mince pies has been recognised by Which? magazine. We are hugely proud of our delicious mince pies, they are based on a traditional recipe using only the finest quality ingredients.”

“The pastry in our Luxury Mince Pies is all butter – we never substitute butter for oil, and we add egg to the pastry too to make it even crispier. Our mincemeat is made with specially selected varieties of big, plump, juicy vine fruits for maximum flavour and is based on a traditional recipe using vegetable suet, rather than substituting this for vegetable oil.”

The Which? taste test took place in October – 10 brands of luxury mince pies from major retailers were sampled by 150 people who were each asked to test four of the 10 brands of pie, without knowing which was which. Tasters rated how they liked the appearance, taste and aroma of each pie on a nine-point scale from ‘dislike very much’ to ‘like very much’.

M&S Luxury Mince Pies are priced at £2.29 for six, and are currently on offer with two packs for £3.

M&S’s Christmas Cake has also come out top in the latest Which? taste test on retailers Christmas cakes. The retailers ‘Connoisseur fully iced Christmas Cake’ (£16.99, 1480g) received the highest score out of all the retailers, including Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference, Tesco, Waitrose and Morrisons, with a 5/5* rating.

Which? magazine stated: This is the best – it smells good, looks good and tastes like Christmas. It’s lovely and moist, and has nice plump fruit. Good even marzipan and icing.


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For further information, please contact:

Liz Williams Food PR Manager 020 8718 6369

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