Visiting a Marks and Spencer Food Hall at lunchtime, around 12.30pm, proved to be the best time to find yellow sticker bargains, according to a week-long experiment by a shopper. The reductions, which signal items approaching their use-by date, were most plentiful at that hour, with one honey-glazed gammon slashed from £9 to £3.50.
Yellow Sticker Deals at Lunchtime
Sophie Harris, Senior Audience Writer for Spare Time, visited her local M&S Food Hall at different times each day for a week. She found that lunchtime visits, around 12.30pm, consistently offered the best selection of discounted items. On three separate occasions, she secured marked-down goods including potato dauphinoise ready meals reduced to £2.64 from £4.50, and freshly prepared vegetables at £1.64 from £3.
Other bargains included yoghurts nearing their use-by date, mushroom and chicken ready meals, a fish-and-chip ready meal, and one of M&S's new Cookie Cups, reduced to £1.79 from £3. In total, she purchased items for £7.78 that would normally have cost £16.50.
Morning and Evening Visits
Morning visits, at roughly 9am on Saturday and 11am on Sunday, yielded few discounts, with only some bread available. This was unsurprising, as supermarkets rarely reduce items during morning hours. On the first day, a fair number of fresh goods were discounted in the pudding section, but most reduced items had already been snapped up, leaving yoghurts, ready meals, and fresh vegetables.
Yellow sticker reductions are applied at different times depending on the supermarket, though it is widely believed that markdowns typically occur in the evening, shortly before closing time. At the M&S store visited, reduced items were not grouped together but spread throughout the store in their usual sections, making them easier to find.
Shopping Tips and Variations
Shopping for yellow sticker labels can result in significant savings and help reduce food waste. However, the timing of discounted items can vary considerably from branch to branch, as this experiment was based solely on one Marks and Spencer food store.
