According to Sunday World, some nationalist shoppers at the Food Hall said they were furious they had to use the bag for their shopping as there were no other options.<\/p>\n
M&S<\/a> confirmed in a statement that the bags had been removed and had been sent to the store ‘by mistake’.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Police seek whereabouts of missing man last seen near Grand Central Station Belfast<\/a>READ MORE: NIFRS update after ‘devastating’ Corries Meats fire brought under control<\/a><\/p>\n One shopper told the publication, \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it. I asked the shop assistant, and they said that was the only bag they had. I had so many groceries I had to use a bag and then I had to bring it home. I was personally insulted, but when I got home, my family couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just as well as I was able to drive right up to my door because I wouldn\u2019t want to be seen walking down the street with that \u2013 it wouldn\u2019t go down well to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n The major retailer introduced regionally themed paper bags in 2024, following M&S’s announcement to phase out plastic bags for life and move to a more eco-friendly alternative.<\/p>\n The bags cost customers 40p and hold up to 15kg. The water-resistant bags can also be recycled when they are worn out. The bags feature distinctive designs representing England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, created using produce organised into national symbols.<\/p>\n The England bag displays a fruit\u2011based union flag, while Scotland\u2019s design uses oats and berries to form St Andrew\u2019s Cross. Wales is represented by a dragon built from vegetables and spices. And the Republic\u2019s bag depicts the island using green vegetables.<\/p>\n M&S bag for Wales shoppers bears a picture of a Welsh dragon<\/p>\n Due to cultural sensitivities around symbols and emblems in the region, M&S chose a countryside theme for bags across its 12 Northern Ireland food halls.<\/p>\n A M&S spokesman told Sunday World that the Union Flag bags were mistakenly sent to Northern Ireland and had now been withdrawn.<\/p>\n They said: \u201cWe offer a range of regional carrier bag designs which are popular with our customers in each part of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. This includes a farmland-based design for Northern Ireland in reference to the wide range of food products we source from the region.<\/p>\n \u201cOn this occasion, our Lisburn<\/a> store was mistakenly sent a batch of bags featuring the England design, which found their way to some customers when the store ran out of Northern Ireland bags.”<\/p>\n But, a TUV spokesman disagreed with the decision, saying M&S should not have to remove bags it uses in other parts of the country.<\/p>\n He asked if the same customers complaining about the bags had an issue \u201chandling the currency of the UK\u201d which they would have used to make M&S purchases.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to ask if they had a problem taking change from M&S, which bears the head of our late monarch, her majesty the queen or our current monarch, King Charles.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are going to be offended by one symbol, as in the bag, then why not the other, our currency? I don\u2019t know what was triggering about this, whatever that means. We are a sovereign part of the UK, and I can\u2019t see why M&S should have to remove a bag that can be used in other parts of the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage <\/strong>here<\/a><\/strong> and <\/strong>sign up to our daily newsletter<\/a><\/strong> here.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marks and Spencer has confirmed this week that its Union Flag bags have been withdrawn from a food…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[80195,89729,80196,24085,86570,245,1144,285,246,80646,16,15],"class_list":["post-889908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-co-derry","tag-co-fermanagh","tag-co-tyrone","tag-flags","tag-lisburn","tag-marks-spencer","tag-northern-ireland","tag-politics","tag-shopping","tag-tuv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116394092215211693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_GettyImages-2262868531.jpg\")
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