Is the M&S Co-Brand a Punch in the Gut for ZOE?

With the launch of the 马莎百货 Food x ZOE Gut Shot and our obvious obsession with all things claims and health, how could we not have a viewpoint on this potential partnership match made in heaven?

Who’s ZOE ?

For anyone not in the know, ZOE is a Davina-endorsed, personalised nutrition programme founded by celebrity scientist Professor Tim Spector. Unlike most diet apps and nutrition services, ZOE's personalised approach claims to provide nutrition advice as “one-of-a-kind” as you are. This sounds like a great thing, right? We all know the trend of moving towards hyper-personalisation for health is the golden bullet.

However, this is a more expensive and less accessible (at ￡299) test kit, where you provide blood and stool samples and get to wear a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for two weeks. ZOE then analyses the data and provides personalised dietary recommendations. For access to the full programme and app, you then pay between ￡24.99 and ￡59.99 a month.

Just in time for the resolution revellers and January dieters, ZOE and M&S Food launched the Gut Shot—a milk kefir made with fruits and berries and over five billion live cultures from 14 different strains of friendly bacteria.

Having run multiple partnerships for many brands, this seems like an obvious match on the surface.

Making friends in high places

Outperforming most of its high-street rivals, M&S does things properly. They don’t just jump into co-branding bed with anyone. And like any serious marketing mega-brand, they follow the research. With searches for “gut health” up 247% on Ocado.com since 2021 and gut health named a top food trend by 凯度 in 2023, a nutrition partnership for M&S isn’t exactly sending shockwaves through the marketing world.

In fact, everything about the ZOE - M&S duet makes sense. For M&S, with their higher price-point, focus on quality and target market of the health-conscious, middle class, ZOE is the perfect addition to the Marks and Sparks portfolio.

The challenge might be different for ZOE.

This isn’t hyper-personalisation, it’s for the masses

ZOE has its roots in science. Its USP is the robustness of the data they possess and how they apply it to create bespoke nutrition recommendations. According to ZOE, this isn’t off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all nutrition advice.

But that’s exactly what the Gut Shot is—a one-size-fits-all product sitting on a shelf in a supermarket.

Whilst we’re sure that the Gut kefir drink is the gateway to a full-blown personalised ZOE membership, we know this won’t be attainable for all. But can ZOE continue to charge a premium for personalised, unique nutritional advice when their brand sits two feet from the Percy Pig aisle? Is the brand robust or famous enough to pull that off? Will the pressure to create short-term profits degrade the brand’s biggest asset—personalisation?

As all of our clients know, we’re obsessed with evidence-based claims and for now, ZOE have no published data showing their programme delivers personalised dietary advice. Their observational studies have yet to be reproduced by other scientists and can only show associations, not causation. And there’s a lack of evidence that continuous glucose monitoring in non-diabetics is helpful. In fact, it may be doing more harm than good by contributing to the growing culture of the “worried well.”?

With something as complex and unexplored as the human microbiome, we have to wonder if personalising nutrition to each person’s gut is even remotely achievable. Maybe the 300,000 people on ZOE’s waiting list will help answer that question, as demand is definitely there.

Only time will tell us how this partnership plays out and if we can make gut health accessible to all, we will be watching with interest. For now, well done to ZOE and M&S Food for bringing gut health to the high street.

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