Agriculture and supporting our farmers
Our industry leading M&S Select Farm Programme was first launched in the 1980s and now covers all farms supplying livestock and fresh produce products into M&S. Initially launched to champion and improve animal welfare, our programme is now more holistic in its approach and covers animal welfare, carbon reduction, wildlife and nature recovery, water stewardship and pesticide reduction.
Every M&S Select Farm, in every country we source from, must meet our high standards for food safety and quality, animal welfare and environmental protection before they can work with us. As a starting point, all our farmers must be assured to a recognised farm assurance standard such as Red Tractor and GLOBAL G.A.P..
On top of these base standards, we have our own detailed M&S Select Farm additional standards for meat, poultry, eggs, fresh milk and fresh whole fruit, veg and salad crops. These set an even higher bar in most areas.
In the UK, we require our fresh produce growers to be LEAF Marque certified (Linking Environment and Farming) which means that our British growers are working to reduce their carbon footprint, protect biodiversity and soil health, and conserve water resources. More than 50% of the growers we source from globally have an environmental scheme in place, for example LEAF Marque, Rainforest Alliance or more country-specific schemes like SIZA EPA in South Africa.
Our M&S Select Farm programme is designed to put our farmers and growers at the heart of our activities, recognising their unique position as custodians of the land and operating within a complex regulatory framework. Our dedicated team of agricultural specialists work with our suppliers and our Select Farms to drive innovation and improvements. We check how our farmers are doing through regular visits and audits and encourage and support them to measure and improve animal health and welfare and environmental outcomes.
We are committed to supporting them in finding innovative solutions to the complex challenges they face, championing the latest technologies and sustainability solutions to ensure they remain commercially viable, whilst sharing risk in challenging the status quo where we see benefit.
Plan A for Farming 2030
Our five-year commitment to deliver quality food and a sustainable future.
Welfare
M&S is long recognised as being the UK leader in farm animal welfare. We were first awarded Tier 1 status in the Business Benchmark in Farm Animal Welfare in 2013 and retained that status until 2023 when the assessment was changed. In 2024, under the new assessment protocol, we were pleased to have received the highest score, recognising our leadership in animal welfare.
Since 2002, we are proud to have been awarded 12 separate animal welfare awards from Compassion in World Farming plus we have also been awarded a number of recognitions from RSPCA, including the Sustained Excellence Award. In recent times, we have invested heavily in RSPCA Assurance and now sell the largest range of RSPCA Assured products in the world, with nearly twice the range of RSPCA Assured products compared to our nearest competitor.
As part of our M&S Select Farm Programme, we collect a range of key welfare outcome measures and indicators. We use this to monitor trends, highlight best practice and focus on areas of improvement with our suppliers. We review our outcome measure data and performance as part of our quarterly Governance process. This document provides an overview of our performance on some of the key welfare metrics.
We have also developed our industry leading, species specific, M&S Select Farm Production standards. The standards comply with our farm Animal Health & Welfare Policy which designed to provide guidance on overarching Marks & Spencer Farm Animal Health and Welfare requirements.
Read our M&S Animal Welfare Performance summary 2025 here.
Read our Farm Animal Health & Welfare Policy here.
Read our latest Animal Welfare Case Studies below:
Through our M&S Select Farm Programme, we work with our farmers to ensure they are responsible in the way that they use antibiotics whilst delivering the very highest standards of animal welfare.
We recognise the growing concerns regarding the emergence of antimicrobial resistant bacteria affecting human health, and the links to the use of medicines in livestock. We fully support the need to safeguard our antimicrobial medicines and reduce the threat of antibiotic resistance to global human health. We also recognise the importance of responsible veterinary care and the role that antimicrobial use plays in protecting the health and welfare of the animals in our supply
For some time, we’ve had a policy in place to reduce antibiotic use. It states that no animal grown for M&S is ever treated with antibiotics unless it is ill and the vet and farmer have considered all other available treatments. All our farmers must record antibiotic usage and we are committed to achieving annual reduction targets.
Because there are some important antibiotics that the government has identified as being critical to human health, our policy also prohibits farmers using these (e.g. fluroquinolones, fourth and fifth generation cephalosporins and macrolides) and Colistin has also been removed in response to latest evidence.
We will continue to work closely with our farmers, and with leading scientists, to find alternative approaches that reduce the need to use antibiotics whilst maintaining or enhancing animal welfare. It is a complex area, but we are committed to leading the way on this important issue for the benefit of us all.
Read our policy on antibiotic’s policy here
Sustainability and low carbon farming
Agriculture and food production has a significant role to play in the health of our planet and the human population. We recognise the need to develop low impact farming systems that deliver in volume, are resilient to climate change, are less carbon intensive in their impact, create habitats that allow wildlife and nature to thrive and ultimately see land managed in a way that locks in carbon, so that agriculture is recognised as one of the solutions to deal with climate change as well as delivering on food security.
We are building on our long-standing M&S Select Farm programme to deal with the significant sustainability challenges that farmers and growers face and we are committed to working in partnership with them to deliver solutions for the benefit of all. We are working with our Select Farm partners to better understand the current impact of different farming systems, the opportunities to introduce lower impact practices, to identify innovation opportunities and to adopt novel and new farming techniques that will address the known challenges, whilst ensuring that food security remains a key focus.
In particular, we recognise the impact of meat, egg and dairy production on the climate. For these farming systems, we are further advanced in our understanding of their impact, and we are supporting our farmers to implement lower impact practices.
We are doing this through our Farm of the Future programme, a strategic partnership between M&S, The School of Sustainable Food and Farming at Harper Adams University, and key suppliers, that will identify, cost and implement on-farm activities that meet four key objectives:
- Deliver commercially sustainable farming systems
- Decarbonise and demonstrate leadership on the road to achieving Net Zero by 2030
- Maximise wildlife and habitat creation demonstrating an improvement in biodiversity
- Identify where wholesale system change, rather than evolution, is required and is commercially viable
The multi-year programme will work with M&S Select Farms across the key sectors of beef and lamb, dairy, chicken, pork and egg. Through the partnership we will create a supportive network with access and mentoring from recognised practitioners in the field of agricultural sustainability, farm efficiency and animal welfare, with the learning shared across the M&S supply base and wider industry.
We are pursuing a strategy of accelerated reduction of the carbon in our meat, dairy and poultry products while meeting consumer demand for alternative proteins (see: Eating Sustainably).
At Marks and Spencer, we have always believed that building trusted partnerships with supplier partners, caring for our people and taking a long-term approach to protect the planet for tomorrow is not just good citizenship, it’s good business.
Marks & Spencer’s Global Sourcing Principles sets out our minimum requirements and expectations of how we and our supplier partners conduct business to uphold human rights along with labour, environmental, ethical and legal requirements in their own operations and their supply chains. Our supplier partnerships are built on open and transparent discussion, with a shared culture of continuous improvement which goes beyond basic legal compliance. We work continuously with our supplier partners to raise standards and improve working conditions as our business relationships develop.
Read our Global Sourcing Principles here.
Most of the suppliers we source our fresh food from are experiencing water challenges be it too much, too little or not the right quality. Climate change will exacerbate water scarcity globally; we recognise the need to protect this critical resource for food supply, nature and local communities and help our suppliers become more resilient to water pressures.
M&S is a signatory of WRAP's Courtauld 2030 Water Roadmap. This means that we are committed to continuing to increase water use efficiency in our own operations, and we support a combined industry objective that at least 50% of the UK's fresh food will be sourced from areas with sustainable water management by 2030, through supporting collective action projects in priority sourcing regions.
We are currently funding a number of water stewardship projects including in South Africa led by WWF, two in the UK led by the Rivers Trust in the Meday and Wye and Usk catchments and a new project in Southern Spain led by WRAP.
In 2023 we delivered a sustainability risk assessment for our Foods business and a standards review to help us shape our approach to driving water stewardship in priority sourcing locations.
The use of pesticides in Agriculture is a very emotive subject. On the one hand we want to ensure we are able to provide our customers with safe, nutritious, high quality produce, while balancing the human health and environmental concerns associated with pesticide use. Our Policy is structured to ensure that we as a leading UK retailer take all reasonable steps to ensure that pesticides are managed responsibly within our supply base and that Integrated Pest Management is actively promoted.
Read our policy on Pesticides here
Quality
We are committed to protecting our brand integrity and maintaining customer trust by ensuring that our products are safe, legal, high quality and accurately reflect any claims or statements we make. We also want to lead in sustainable production and consumption, offering our customers the good value and high quality products they expect from M&S, whilst respecting planetary boundaries and the need for social equity.
We believe our product standards are industry-leading. We require all products to be made by suppliers who are technically competent within their specific area and who operate well managed hygienic locations applying Good Manufacturing Practice, a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) approach and due diligence to ensure safety, legality, integrity and consistent quality.
Flowers & Plants
| DATE | TITLE | DOWNLOADS |
|---|---|---|
| August 2025 | Our Approach to Animal Welfare | |
| August 2025 | M&S Animal Welfare Reporting | |
| August 2024 | Farm Animal Health and Welfare Policy | |
| July 2024 | M&S Antibiotic Usage Policy | |
| July 2023 | Food Pesticides Policy | |
| April 2022 | M&S Global Sourcing Principles | |
| October 2021 | M&S Residue Information | |
| November 2017 | M&S Farming for the Future Report | |
| July 2016 | Foods Nanotechnology Policy | |
| September 2015 | Food Technical Terms of Trade | |
| October 2015 | Non-GM Foods Policy | |
| June 2015 | Global Community Programme Report | |
| December 2014 | Freshwater Stewardship Case Study | |
| July 2014 | Packaging Policy | |
| January 2010 | Good Water Stewardship: Guidance for Agriculture Suppliers |