Marks and Spencer (M&S) has provided an update about the opening plans for its new foodhall in Largs.

The retail giant confirmed the foodhall is now set to open in early 2025 as part of its announcement that £30million is being invested to open five new and expanded stores.

It had previously been hoped that the Largs store would be opening by the end of the year but the opening plans have been delayed again.

M&S's £30m investment aims to deliver more than five new store openings and expansions over the next 18 months, supporting over 6,500 jobs in communities across the country.

The overall investment includes a total of 50 jobs set to be created at the Main Street/Townhead Close development.

In their latest nationwide statement, M&S said they "will also open in Largs for the first time with a new foodhall due to open in early 2025."

Sacha Berendji, operations director at M&S, said: "This is our biggest ever investment in Scotland, putting £30m into transforming the shopping experience for customers in Aberdeen, Largs, Dundee and Linlithgow - bringing new jobs across the country with bigger, better, fresh-market style foodhalls and new opportunities for Scottish shoppers to access our best-ever, most inspiringly presented clothing, home and beauty ranges.  

"Our investment in Scotland goes beyond new stores with M&S sourcing more Scottish produce than ever before, through strong partnerships with local producers.  

"Around 2,500 Scottish farms, sea farms and fisheries supply us with great quality products, many supplied beyond Scotland to M&S stores across the UK.
"Our commitment to Scotland has never been stronger."

In the last year, M&S has continued to see strong performances from these recently opened and relocated stores with sales ahead of plan with increased footfall and customers buying bigger baskets of food giving the retailer the confidence to accelerate the programme.

The new stores pipeline means M&S will have more than 15 stores across Scotland in its renewal format.

Each store aims to appeal to families, with customers able to browse in wider, brighter aisles, with fresh market-style foodhalls stocking the full M&S Food range and spacious clothing, home & beauty departments. Many renewal stores also have more ample and accessible car parking to make shopping more convenient for customers, especially for bigger weekly food shops.

The new stores and renewals are also underpinned by substantial investment in new digital services that offer customers an omnichannel service – including the rollout of Digital Click & Collect so that customers can collect their parcels in-store in under 60 seconds.

Other innovations include Scan & Shop, which lets customers use their phones to scan and bag food items directly from the M&S app as they shop.