The sandwich
M&S have launched a pre-made sandwich in their food-to-go range that pairs Marmite cream cheese with British farmhouse cheddar, on vitamin-D enriched soft white bread. Around four quid. Available in food halls and the larger Simply Food outlets, in the chiller alongside the rest of the lunchtime sandwich range.
This is a properly thought-through product. The decisions M&S have made are good ones, and worth pulling apart, because they explain why this sandwich is markedly better than the obvious DIY version you would make at home with a jar and a knife.
The cream cheese decision
The big choice is using Marmite cream cheese rather than straight Marmite. Marmite cream cheese is the existing Marmite product that blends the yeast extract with full-fat soft cheese, sold in 150g tubs in the spreads aisle. It is, in M&S’s hands, the right move for a pre-packed sandwich.
The problem with putting straight Marmite into a pre-made sandwich is that Marmite is, by design, intensely concentrated. Spread on toast it works because the eater controls the dose and the toast is warm enough to soften the spread. In a cold, pre-packed sandwich made by a factory line, the Marmite tends to cluster in patches. You bite once and get a properly intense mouthful, you bite again and get bread and nothing. That is the “Marmite pocket” problem.
The cream cheese version solves it. The Marmite is pre-mixed into a soft, spreadable, lower-concentration carrier, which spreads evenly across the bread and stays put. Every bite tastes the same. The intensity is moderated. The result is a Marmite sandwich that consistently tastes of Marmite, without the punishing peaks and troughs of the home-made version.
The cheddar choice
British farmhouse cheddar. M&S have not specified a particular county or producer (the press release just says “farmhouse”), but the slice in the sandwich is properly mature, properly cheesy, with the slight crumble that decent cheddar gives. It is not the slightly rubbery factory cheddar of cheap supermarket sandwiches.
The cheddar’s job in this sandwich is to provide the protein, the cooling fat, and the slight sharpness that Marmite needs to play against. Mild cheese would not work. Extra mature cheddar might be too aggressive. The “good farmhouse cheddar” middle ground is the right specification.
The bread
Vitamin-D-fortified white. White bread is, on the face of it, a slightly boring choice. But it is the right one for this sandwich, because the bread’s job is to disappear quietly. A complex sourdough would compete with the Marmite-cheese flavour combination. White bread carries the filling without arguing.
The vitamin-D fortification is partly nutritional (UK populations are widely deficient in vitamin D, particularly in winter, so adding it to staple foods is a small public-health intervention), partly clever marketing. It lets M&S put the sandwich in the slightly-more-virtuous food category without changing the underlying eating experience.
Why the partnership matters
M&S is the premium tier of British supermarket food. Marmite appearing on its food-to-go shelves, presented as a proper sandwich rather than a novelty, is a quiet promotion for the brand. Marmite as Tuesday lunch, not just as Saturday breakfast.
It also matters as a precedent. The M&S × Marmite collaboration that began here led to the much more ambitious 2025 range (see the M&S pizza and mac-and-cheese range for the pizza, the mac and cheese, the mac bites), and to the 2025 Christmas caramel sauce and blondies (see the M&S Christmas caramel range). M&S have, in 2025, become the most adventurous Marmite-licensed-product partner in the country, and this sandwich was the small early experiment that proved the audience was there.
How to eat it
As is, from the box, at a desk or on a train. The sandwich is designed for that and works well.
If you have access to a toaster or a panini press, toasting it transforms the experience. The cream cheese melts slightly, the Marmite intensifies and goes from cold-cream-cheese-with-Marmite to warm-grilled-cheese-with-Marmite, and the white bread crisps into something properly satisfying. This is the move. If you have a desk panini press at work, this is the sandwich.
The DIY upgrade: split the sandwich open, add a sliced tomato or a few cucumber discs. Both lift it considerably. M&S do not include these in the standard version, presumably because they would shorten the shelf-life of a chilled sandwich, but you can add them yourself.
Should you buy one
Yes. Whenever you are in an M&S food hall at lunchtime and the sandwich is in front of you, get it. Around four pounds for genuinely good sandwich is fair value in the current pricing environment, and this is one of the rare ready-made sandwiches that you will eat with actual pleasure rather than just tolerance.
The Hate Party will, as always, be back at the meal-deal aisle picking up something with no Marmite in it. Let them.
Source: M&S Food, June 2024 launch.
