M&S Chocolate Chip & Hazelnut Cookies — ENGINEERED
Munch or Dump rates M&S Chocolate Chip & Hazelnut Cookies by M&S ENGINEERED — score 30/90.
The name leads with hazelnuts; the recipe delivers 3% of them, outranked by palm oil. M&S's flagship cookies brag 'all butter' — this one contains none, running instead on the classic factory triad of sugar, palm oil, and refined flour with a golden-syrup chaser. Premium branding, commodity dough.
Why this verdict
- Hyper-palatable snack triad: sugar + refined oil + starch
- Multiple sweeteners — sugar plus golden syrup, with sugar-first chocolate chips on top
- Palm oil is the fat base — not a gram of butter in a premium-branded cookie
- Headline hazelnuts are just 3% of the recipe, below the palm oil
- E450 diphosphates and stacked raising agents round out a factory formulation
Ingredients (11)
- Wheat flour (enriched with calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin) (moderate) — Refined white flour — the base of the roll. Low in fibre and fast-digesting, so it raises blood sugar quickly. Fortification adds back some iron and B vitamins lost in milling.
- Dark chocolate chips (20%, sugar / cocoa butter / cocoa mass / soya lecithin / vanilla flavouring) (moderate) — Sugar is listed first inside the chips, so this is mostly sweetened chocolate rather than cocoa-rich dark chocolate.
- Palm Oil (moderate) — Saturated-fat-heavy oil used in the crust.
- Sugar (moderate) — Added for sweetness, can contribute to calorie content.
- Roasted hazelnuts (3%) (safe) — A genuine whole-food ingredient, but only 3% so it barely moves the needle.
- Dried Skimmed Milk (safe) — Adds body and dairy notes cheaply; processed but benign.
- Golden syrup (invert sugar syrup) (concerning) — A third distinct sweetener; invert sugar syrup is essentially liquid sugar.
- Salt (moderate) — Used in moderation, might exceed necessary amount.
- Raising agents (sodium bicarbonate, E450, E503) (safe) — Standard leavening agents, considered safe at use levels.
- Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin) (safe) — Processing aid that signals an engineered, ultra-processed formula.
- Vanilla Flavouring (moderate) — Added flavouring to boost palatability rather than real vanilla.