Same stuff — new story
If you've been in an M&S supermarket lately, you've probably seen it: Marks & Spencer's new Only 8 Ingredients Tomato Ketchup. It's on shelf with a big claim — simple, stripped-back ingredients, none of the usual confusing extras. But here's the twist: the story is catching more attention than the sauce itself.
M&S's ketchup is made with the familiar things you'd expect — tomato purée, vinegar, a touch of sweetener and spices. Nothing groundbreaking.
On paper, M&S hasn't reinvented the wheel — they've just told a better story. Heinz has had roughly the same short ingredient list for years, yet M&S charges almost double by framing it as something new, clearer and more thoughtful.
Influencer "Tonic Health" speaks out
"I won't be buying the new M&S 'only ingredients' ketchup. I love the concept of the range and stripping out additives is a genuinely positive change — but this isn't really that. All they've done is switch sugar to agave syrup. It's basically the same ingredients as regular ketchup. Instead of 22g of sugar per 100g, it's 23.9g — and it's more expensive.
So it's more money, more sugar, and nothing else has really changed other than using a syrup, which acts in your body in much the same way.
This feels like hype. What they're trying to do is fantastic, I just wish they'd swapped the syrup for something like dates, or adjusted the sugar, to make it genuinely healthier."