Store gallery: Marks & Spencer unveils its new-look, small-format food store in London

The shop, on Chancery Lane near the City and Covent Garden, represents a move on from the retailer’s original convenience stores and shares features in common with M&S’s bigger food halls.

Key changes include moving the in-store bakery from the back corner of the shop to the front, along with new frozen and chilled drinks sections. A flower shop is also prominent at the front of the store.

The branch, formerly a Simply Food, is now branded M&S Food.

Marks & Spencer’s food division has been performing well as it has focused on value for money, product quality and provenance. Those characteristics have been most obvious in the bigger shops and are now increasingly evident in its smaller branches.

M&S Food managing director Alex Freudmann wrote on LinkedIn: “There’s been such a change at M&S Chancery Lane; an old and tired store has been transformed. It now showcases the breadth and quality of M&S Food in ways it never could before.”

In recent years, the retailer has focused on better food halls in big stores as part of its shop renewal programme, spearheaded by chief executive Stuart Machin who subsequently became chief executive.

M&S said in May that it would invest £30m in new and upgraded stores in London this financial year. It also flagged that with its franchise partners, such as WHSmith in train stations, it would open at least 10 new and renew up to 50 c-stores to build on its convenience business which already generates sales of £1bn.