M&S retro chocolate bars are coming back next week, with four St Michael names returning to Foodhalls in full-sized bars and a mini-bar variety pack. Jet, Now, Sparks and Coconut Grove are being revived from M&S’s 1980s confectionery range, giving shoppers another chance to buy bars that had been missing for nearly 30 years.
An M&S spokesman said: “M&S Food is bringing back four retro chocolate bars from the St Michael archives. Each bar, wrapped in nostalgic St Michael packaging, offers its own distinctive flavour and texture, reports the Express.” The spokesman added: “Originally part of our 1980s confectionery range, Jet, Sparks, Now! and Coconut Grove will return to Foodhalls next week, giving customers the chance to rediscover much-loved favourites from the era.”
Jet, Now, Sparks, Coconut Grove
The four bars each keep a different filling. Jet is milk chocolate with soft nougat, peanut and caramel. Now is milk chocolate with biscuit and caramel. Sparks is milk chocolate with soft nougat and caramel. Coconut Grove is milk chocolate with soft coconut centre.
For shoppers, that means the return is not just a visual revival. It brings back specific flavour combinations tied to the original range, along with the St Michael packaging that marked the products out when they were first sold.
St Michael archives and Foodhalls
The brand behind the bars has a long history inside Marks & Spencer. St Michael debuted in 1927, and by 1950, and through the following five decades, virtually all products sold by Marks & Spencer carried the name. Marks & Spencer discontinued the St Michael brand name on its products in 2000.
This week, M&S also opened its largest ever standalone food store in Godalming, Surrey. Four months earlier, it reintroduced the St Michael Take 4 bar, a wafers-and-cocoa-paste bar enrobed in milk chocolate, as part of the same retro revival.
Marks & Spencer Take 4
For customers, the immediate change is simple: the next visit to Foodhalls may now include a returning bar from a line many people have not seen in years. The relaunch mixes full-sized bars with a mini-bar variety pack, so shoppers who want to try more than one flavour can do so without buying only one format.
“I can't wait to relive my youth all over again. These bars will be enjoyed by a whole new generation of fans,” one customer said. That reaction fits the point of the relaunch: a familiar range for older shoppers, but a first look for anyone meeting St Michael through these bars for the first time.
