Kathryn Turner is no ordinary social media personality—she is the unexpected face of M&S Food online.
The 56-year-old product development director has become an unlikely TikTok and Instagram sensation after launching accounts earlier this year to showcase the upmarket retailer’s extensive range of quality food.
Her opening line—“Hi, I’m Kathryn, director of product development at M&S Food”—has turned into a social media meme. Meanwhile, fans have declared her polished business-casual wardrobe a potential must-have Halloween costume for 2026.
Although she has been posting for only a few months, Turner’s videos have attracted more than 50 million views. Her audience reportedly includes Carrie Johnson, Stormzy, Nigella Lawson and Gemma Collins.
Marketing specialists believe the mother-of-three’s intentionally rough-edged, conversational style has helped her stand out from a crowded field of glossy corporate advertising and increasingly AI-generated content.
M&S is also understood to have linked Turner’s videos to rising sales of several products, including mango grapes and its unusual strawberries-and-cream “sando”—a soft, sweet-bread creation inspired by Japanese fruit sandwiches.
The account has nevertheless drawn criticism, with some accusing M&S of using Turner as a way around restrictions on advertising unhealthy food. The retailer rejects that allegation.
M&S Food product development director Kathryn Turner has won a devoted following through her candid, down-to-earth videos
Marketing experts say the absence of slick editing gives Turner’s videos an authenticity that corporate adverts often lack
Turner joined M&S in 1995 after working in hospitality roles with British Airways and the BBC, followed by a sales position at confectionery company Mars.
Her first major successes came soon afterwards. In 1998, she launched the Teletubbies-themed Tubby Toast croissants, followed by the Count On Us range of calorie-controlled meals, which remains available today.
She took over as director of product development in 2022, leading a team of 80 responsible for creating 1,500 new products and improving a further 1,000 each year. Much of that work went largely unnoticed until she joined TikTok in May.
Since then, the M&S food boss has offered followers a behind-the-scenes look at the business, from an Italian panettone factory to potato fields in Jersey that supply the supermarket’s enormous retail network.
Her biggest hits, however, are often filmed inside ordinary M&S stores. Wearing her trademark lapel microphone, Turner talks viewers through the thousands of new products launched by the British retailer each year.
The enthusiasm from followers has been striking. Some have urged her to stand for Prime Minister against Andy Burnham, while others have dramatically promised to “follow her into war”.
Ben Marder, professor of digital marketing at the University of Edinburgh Business School, told Our News Outlet that Turner’s content reflects what marketers call the “snapshot aesthetic”—a style viewers perceive as more spontaneous and less staged than a professionally produced advert.
With more than 300,000 TikTok followers, Turner has built a larger audience than the official M&S Food account, which some viewers may regard as more overtly corporate.
“She is promoting the product, and that is standard marketing—but these videos are appearing at a time when nothing feels authentic anymore, when influencers are either AI-polished or simply AI,” Professor Marder said.
“People are craving authenticity, and this is an authentic person. There is no obvious editing, it has clearly been filmed on a phone, and it is what we used to call the ‘snapshot aesthetic’.”
“Many influencers use this approach, but what makes this case particularly interesting is that people see M&S as a highly polished, premium brand that would not normally produce this kind of content.”
‘There’s that contrast with what people expect and that the videos are authentic – and she’s an older lady on TikTok, who comes across as so genuine.’
Some observers have pointed out that Ms Turner promotes products that would fall foul of rules on advertising junk food, including chocolates and cakes
McDonald’s global CEO Chris Kempczinski was lampooned earlier this year after taking what was seen as a less-than-enthusiastic bite of a Big Arch burger in a social media clip
Videos of her gleefully showing off new lines are a marked contrast to the video of McDonald’s global boss Chris Kempczinski, whose taste test of the chain’s Big Arch burger went viral for all the wrong reasons in February this year.
The fast food boss was widely derided for taking an almost imperceptible bite of the burger – leading to claims that he wasn’t willing to eat his company’s own wares – and labelling it a ‘product’ in cold, harsh business-speak.
Professor Marder added: ‘As a consumer, you want the CEO of a company to like the products – and we can see that she likes the products.’
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She credits her success to M&S food trends manager Francesca Byrne and trainee product developer Brandon Spatcher – who himself moonlights as a food influencer to 150,000 TikTok followers and is represented by an influencer marketing agency.
In a post thanking them on LinkedIn, she said: ‘Listen to the brilliant 20-somethings in your team. They’ve been the driving force behind our social media journey – bringing fresh ideas, honest feedback, and plenty of encouragement along the way.’
Not everyone is a fan, however: critics have accused M&S of using Ms Turner’s approachable persona to circumvent rules on junk food advertising.
Some of her videos feature her showing off sugary biscuits, chocolate liqueurs, panettone and chocolate bars that would likely fall foul of Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rules on foods high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS).
Fans even joke about the calorific foods she promotes, commenting ‘Kathryn pls my clothes don’t fit’ and ‘my waistline will not survive this winter’. One even asked if she might consider developing an M&S-branded version of the fat jab Mounjaro.
The ASA banned paid-for advertising for HFSS food, including the use of influencers, in January this year as part of a Government-led obesity crackdown.
But the rules do not cover a company’s own social media accounts or posts made by people without being paid – known in the marketing world as an ‘organic’ post.
Aside from sharing her own videos, Ms Turner also reposts ‘organic’ clips made by other TikTok users – encouraging M&S shoppers to get in on the act in the hope that their video might make the cut, giving the firm extra publicity for free.
M&S Food is big business, bringing in around half of the Marks and Spencer group’s £671.4million pre-tax profits last year.
Products that appear in Ms Turner’s enthusiastic videos often see a sales boost in shops, including a range of ‘mango grapes’
But sources at M&S have firmly rejected the suggestion the accounts are a bid to circumvent the rules on HFSS, telling Our News Outlet they were set up purely for Kathryn to express her genuine enthusiasm about the products she launches.
The company openly encourages staff to post about working for the company on their personal social media, having found success during the coronavirus pandemic.
Store-specific accounts proved popular in telling anxious shoppers if essentials like loo roll were in stock but now focus on employees showing off their work.
However, M&S is yet to be drawn on whether there are any bonuses for workers who find viral success – which could spark interest from advertising watchdogs.
Influencers including Molly-Mae Hague and Grace Beverley have fallen foul of the ASA in the past after failing to declare that they had commercial interests in firms whose products they were promoting on camera.
Molly-Mae failed to tell fans she was creative director at PrettyLittleThing as she promoted items for sale, while Ms Beverley did not disclose on camera that she was founder of activewear firm TALA as she promoted the brand.
Experts have suggested Ms Turner, and other salaried M&S workers, may be operating in a grey area around employee-made content where regulation is yet to catch up.
While not ‘paid for’ ads under ASA rules, such videos may catch the eye of regulators in future, according to Anastasija Vasilevska, of marketing agency Socially Powerful.
She wrote in an article on the topic last month: ‘An employee posting a specific LHF (less healthy food) product is a very new kind of situation, so it hasn’t had time to get tested yet.
‘As more brands put out employee content, and as the LHF rules settle in, it’s only a matter of time before a regulator has to weigh in.’
And those who have weighed in on the subject on TikTok have found themselves answering to Ms Turner’s army of defensive fans.
One TikToker said: ‘The Kathryn Turner backlash needs to end. Why as a society can we not just have nice things?’
As it is, the ascent of ‘Kathryn, director of product development at M&S Food’, is unlikely to be halted for now. Copycat videos recently shared by frozen food rival Iceland have largely been given the cold shoulder on social media.
Professor Marder, of the University of Edinburgh, believes there is a simplicity to her success.
He said: ‘As the saying goes, “in Rome, do as the Romans do” – and on TikTok, you have to do what the TikTokers are doing. And that’s exactly what she’s done.’
