M&S brings back four retro 80s chocolate bars for £1
Marks & Spencer has brought back four retro 80s chocolate bars from its St Michael archives — Jet, Sparks, Now! and Coconut Grove — in nostalgic packaging. The full-size bars are priced at £1 in M&S Foodhalls, with mini versions also available in variety packs after nearly three decades away.
Key Takeaways
- Four discontinued St Michael bars — Jet, Sparks, Now! and Coconut Grove — are returning to M&S Foodhalls.
- Full-size bars are reported at £1 each, with miniature options sold in variety packs (including a 14-pack).
- Each bar uses original-style St Michael packaging and milk chocolate with a distinct 1980s-inspired centre.
- The relaunch follows the earlier comeback of the St Michael Take 4 wafer bar.
- St Michael, M&S’s historic own-brand name with Leicester roots, was retired in 2000 after decades on almost every shelf.
For fans of throwback sweets, this is more than a snack drop. It is a rare chance to taste own-brand classics that vanished when the retailer retired the St Michael label. Shoppers hunting nostalgia then and now stories will recognise the pattern: a beloved archive flavour, original-style wrapping, and a new generation waiting in the queue.
According to Wales Online, Marks & Spencer is reintroducing the bars as full-sized treats and as minis inside a variety pack after an absence of nearly 30 years.
Which retro 80s chocolate bars is M&S bringing back?
Four flavours are returning from the St Michael confectionery archives. Jet is milk chocolate with soft nougat, peanut and caramel. Now! (also styled Now in some reports) pairs milk chocolate with biscuit and caramel.
Sparks combines milk chocolate with soft nougat and caramel. Coconut Grove wraps a soft coconut centre in milk chocolate. An M&S spokesman said each bar, “wrapped in nostalgic St Michael packaging, offers its own distinctive flavour and texture.”
The Sun compared the centres to better-known high-street favourites: Sparks as a Mars-style nougat-and-caramel bar, Jet as similar to a Snickers, Now! as a Twix-style biscuit-and-caramel treat, and Coconut Grove as a Bounty-style coconut bar. Those are flavour analogies reported by the paper, not official brand partnerships.
M&S Food framed the range as a deeper dive into the same archive that produced Take 4. “Originally part of our 1980s confectionery range, Jet, Sparks, Now! and Coconut Grove will return to Foodhalls,” the retailer said, giving customers “the chance to rediscover much-loved favourites from the era.”
How much do the returning bars cost and where can you buy them?
The Sun reported that the four discontinued bars launched in M&S Foodhalls on Wednesday, 22 July 2026, with each full-size bar priced at £1. Leicestershire Live said fans can enjoy them as full-size bars or as miniatures in variety packs, including a 14-pack of minis.
Earlier coverage from Wales Online and Leicestershire Live, citing M&S, said the bars would return to Foodhalls “next week,” so availability may still be rolling out by store. If your local Foodhall has not stocked them yet, it is worth checking again over the coming days.
Pricing and pack formats beyond the £1 full-size bars and the mini variety packs were not detailed across all reports. What is clear from the retailer is the intent: original-style St Michael designs and 1980s-inspired flavours aimed at both returning fans and first-time tasters.
Why does the St Michael brand matter to this comeback?
St Michael was Marks & Spencer’s long-running in-house label. Wales Online notes the brand made its debut in 1927 and, by 1950 and for the following five decades, virtually all products sold by M&S carried the name. The retailer officially discontinued St Michael on its products in 2000 during a sweeping rebrand, replacing it with newer M&S sub-brands.
Leicestershire Live adds a local origin story. In 1928, when M&S sought a trademark for its highest-quality goods, it drew on the “St” style of St Margaret hosiery — made exclusively for the retailer by N. Corah & Sons in Leicester — and combined it with the name of co-founder Michael Marks. The chocolate bars were confectionery sold under that umbrella, but the wrapper name itself has Leicester textile roots.
The Sun notes that after the 2000 drop, St Michael had a second life in 2021 when vintage clothing carrying the label became popular on second-hand platforms. M&S later sold its own menswear line under the name, including a rugby shirt and two sweatshirts — a fashion echo that now sits alongside this confectionery revival.
What came before these bars — and what are fans saying?
The four-bar return follows M&S’s reintroduction of the St Michael Take 4 bar. Wales Online and Leicestershire Live place that earlier relaunch about four months prior (March), describing wafers layered with cocoa paste and enrobed in milk chocolate, presented in original-style packaging. The Sun likened Take 4 to a four-finger Kit Kat-style wafer first sold in the 1980s.
An M&S Food spokesperson told The Sun that after “the brilliant response to the return of Take 4,” the retailer wanted to “dig a little deeper into our archives” for more bars customers loved first time around. Jet, Sparks, Now! and Coconut Grove, the spokesperson said, are “a delicious nod to the past,” letting some shoppers rediscover an old favourite and others try them for the first time.
Reaction has already turned nostalgic. One excited customer said: “I can’t wait to relive my youth all over again. These bars will be enjoyed by a whole new generation of fans.” On social media, The Sun reported a Facebook user recalling that the “Sparks Bar was far superior to Mars Bar” — the same comparison that helped the relaunch travel beyond the Foodhall aisle.
Whether you remember St Michael wrappers from childhood or are tasting Jet and Coconut Grove for the first time, the pitch is simple: four archive flavours, retro packaging, and a £1 entry point into a slice of 1980s M&S history that had been missing for roughly 26 years.