The headline
In its first week on shelves, the new M&S three-cheese Marmite pizza outsold the standard M&S Margherita. The Margherita has been an M&S Food fixture for, what, twenty years? The Marmite pizza had been on sale for seven days. That is a properly good launch number.
The full range is three products: the wood-fired three-cheese Marmite pizza, a Marmite mac and cheese ready-meal, and crispy Marmite mac bites. All exclusive to M&S Food and Ocado. It is the sixteenth M&S × Marmite collaboration since the partnership started in 2020, and one of the more ambitious.
Why the pizza works
The trick on the pizza is that the Marmite is on the base, brushed thin over the dough before the cheese goes on. It is not stirred into the tomato sauce, it is not drizzled on top, it is doing structural duty as a savoury underlayer that you mostly notice as depth rather than as a separate Marmite hit.
Three cheeses (mozzarella, cheddar, parmesan or similar; the actual blend has been quietly tweaked over the trial runs) on top, baked hot enough for the dough edges to char properly. The first bite tastes like a very good white pizza. Bite three or four, the Marmite starts to register, but as length-of-flavour, not as “oh, there’s Marmite”. That is the right way around.
For a launch product this is unusually well-judged. M&S’s product development team have clearly spent a long time getting the dose right.
The mac and cheese, and the mac bites
The mac and cheese is the more obvious play. Marmite stirred through a cheese sauce works the way you would expect, and the M&S version is solid. Not the most adventurous thing they have ever made, but reliably good comfort food.
The mac bites are the surprise of the range. Small balls of mac and cheese, breaded, deep-fried. The Marmite hit comes through more sharply here because the surface area is higher and the crispy shell concentrates the savoury notes. These are dangerous. You will eat the whole tray.
Why this matters as a product launch
The interesting thing here is not the products themselves. It is what they suggest about the direction of Marmite-licensed development.
The previous decade of Marmite collaborations were mostly novelty spreads, snacks, and a few crisps. The new direction, of which this range is the clearest example, is “Marmite as an umami ingredient in proper meals you actually buy for dinner”. The M&S Marmite pizza is not a novelty product, it is an alternative pizza. The mac and cheese is not a stunt, it is a Tuesday-night dinner with a small twist.
Get this right and Marmite stops being a shelf in the spreads aisle and becomes a flavour profile that turns up in the chiller cabinet, the bakery aisle, and the ready-meal section. That is a much larger commercial footprint.
What to buy first
The pizza, obviously. Around five quid, large enough for one hungry person or two if you have a side salad. The mac bites, second, because they will be the surprise of your week. The mac and cheese is fine and will hold its own as a midweek meal, but you can probably skip it if you are not a ready-meal person.
All three are M&S Food and Ocado only. Worth a Saturday trip.
Source: M&S Food, July 2025 launch; Marmite × M&S press release.
