Marks and Spencer stores in Chester and Ormskirk are set to join a garlic bread scheme to reduce food waste.

The retailer's initiative aims to extend the life of unsold bread baked on the same day by turning it into frozen garlic bread, which can be preserved for an extra 40 days.

The scheme will involve in-store bakery colleagues preparing the leftover loaves with garlic butter at the end of each day, before freezing them to extend their shelf life.

Customers visiting the stores in Chester and Ormskirk will be able to purchase a range of garlic bread items, including Garlic Baguette, Boule, West Country Cheddar and Red Leicester Garlic Cob and San Francisco Sourdough Garlic Bread.

The initiative proved to be a big hit last year with more than 1.4 million repurposed loaves sold across all M&S stores.

Louise Benson, store manager at M&S Chester, said: "Our in-store bakery team creates the highest quality bread, baked daily for our customers.

"We believe each loaf is too good to waste and our customers agree.

"By getting creative we’ve found a way to extend shelf life and create new delicious products for our customers – at great value too, from £1.

"The scheme has been well received at other stores and we are delighted to now be able to offer these brilliant products to our customers in Chester and Ormskirk and continue to play our part in reducing food waste."

The Chester and Ormskirk branches are among the 60 stores which will be joining the scheme this year, bringing the total tally of stores participating in the initiative to 450 across the UK.

This project is part of the M&S' Plan A commitment, a pledge to halve food waste by 2029/30.

M&S is dedicated to becoming a net zero business across its operations and its entire value chain by 2040, a goal that is a ten years ahead of the UK government's strategy.

Catherine David, director of Collaboration and Change at WRAP, said: "It’s great to see a simple and effective idea grow in this way and become a big hit with shoppers.

"Our latest household food waste research shows that bread is the second most wasted food in UK homes with the equivalent of more than one million loaves binned daily.

"It can easily become surplus at the end of trading so giving a second life to a surplus loaf is an excellent way to reduce waste, make our food go further and feed families."

Besides the garlic bread scheme, in 2021, M&S introduced 25p banana bags to encourage consumers to purchase ripe bananas suitable for baking.

The company also has a successful partnership with Neighbourly, through which edible food surplus from stores is redistributed to local causes and community groups.

Since 2015, the initiative has led to the redistribution of the equivalent of 80 million meals to local communities.