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The truth about 'picky bits'
Why have a dog and bark yourself?
Justin Myers
Jul 08, 2026
94
51
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A large selection of picky bits from Marks and Spencer, including houmous, sausage rolls, prawns, olives, peppers and loads of other nonsense
Some bits prepared for picking, earlier [Photo: M&S]
Every generation thinks they’ve had it harder than the last, while the next is coasting by. Such rucks are hugely boring, but I suppose they keep middle-class columnists in work and if their readers are all shouting at one another over their marble-top breakfast bars in side-return kitchens then at least the queues in Marks & Spencer will be shorter.
M&S, one of the country’s national treasures, is often the battleground for the ‘poor me’ Olympics. It is a reliable, often dowdy, but sometimes, with increasing frequency every year, M&S acts like somebody has spiked its drink at the annual dinner and dance. Underwear with gussets so strong you’d need a chainsaw to get through them and a strange attachment to khaki chinos, yes, but also: strawberry and cream sandwiches; Easter eggs in the shape of a strip-club stiletto, salmon and champagne flavoured crisps; Percy the sodding Pig piped into every other product.
The M&S food hall is what would happen if you locked twenty people on the verge of a nervous breakdown in a room one degree too hot, with only a flip chart, ten Sharpies, and Geri Halliwell’s entire solo discography on VHS cassette.
But the wars that rage on Marks & Sparks’ air-conditioned aisles are more concerned with labour-saving than mind-blowing. Every so often, M&S will slice an everyday item, bung it in a plastic box five times the product’s actual size, price it as if it is part-Lamborghini on its mother’s side, and wait for the onslaught of fury to begin.
From pre-shelled hard boiled eggs, squares of coconut, pineapple in chunks, wedges and slices, dainty apple portions with no core or seed in sight to pre-cooked just about everything – crispy bacon, chicken and pesto, chargrilled peppers, barbecued artichoke. If you have the purse, the imagination, and the inclination, you can have dinner on your plate within ten minutes of liaising with the self-checkout. It’s a genre of food so popular it has even acquired its own collective name: Picky Bits.
