Marks & Spencer is spending millions on new freezers and refrigerators designed to work in stores as hot as 45°C. The company's chief executive, Stuart Machin, announced the plan at a shareholder meeting on 7 July 2026 The Guardian. These new units have better-sealed doors to keep cold air trapped inside, even when the store itself is sweltering. Machin said the company is not treating this as a one-time fix. "There is no doubt we were struggling in the nine days of extreme heat," he told shareholders, adding that M&S expects hotter conditions ahead The Guardian. He did not say how much the investment will cost or when stores will get the new equipment.

During last summer's nine-day heatwave, M&S ran into a problem: six ice-cream products sold out completely. The company had to place emergency orders, and one supplier had to hire ten extra workers just to meet the sudden spike in demand The Guardian. This shows a real challenge retailers face. Cold-storage capacity and forecasts for frozen goods are normally based on what customers have bought in past summers—not on sudden, intense heat waves that can empty shelves in days.

M&S is not the only major supermarket doing this. Sainsbury's announced it is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on new refrigeration too, upgrading about 100 stores The Guardian. When two of Britain's biggest grocers make the same move at the same time, it signals they see this as a shared problem across the whole industry, not just something M&S needs to fix.

Machin also announced a separate investment that day: more security staff at store entrances, trained to greet customers. The fact that M&S is spending on both better refrigeration and loss prevention shows the range of pressures the company is managing right now—both climate challenges and retail theft.

M&S has the financial resources to make this happen. In the year ending March 2026, the company earned £14.2 billion in sales and made £671.4 million in profit M&S Investors. The company said it is entering the new year "with a clear plan and a strong balance sheet," with a focus on keeping more products in stock M&S Corporate.

There is a tension worth noting: M&S had just said it wanted better product availability, yet those ice-cream shortages showed it struggled to deliver that during the heatwave. When retailers talk about their ambitions in official statements, they do not usually admit they fell short—but Machin did.

The bigger picture here goes beyond M&S alone. Freezers built to work in 45°C heat are not a standard design for UK supermarkets, which were built for much cooler British weather. The fact that both M&S and Sainsbury's are ordering them now suggests the entire sector is shifting how it prepares for summer weather. Whether these become standard in all new stores, or only in the ones at highest risk, may depend on how often extreme heatwaves happen in the years ahead—and whether suppliers can make enough equipment to keep up with demand from multiple major chains.