Percy brings home bacon

HAVE you any idea how many Marks & Spencer products now feature Percy Pig on their packaging? You'd be surprised.

- Mike Ward

Or maybe you wouldn’t; it depends how often you shop there. But the answer, at the last count — and this certainly surprised me — is blooming loads.

I know this for a fact because I've just watched tonight’s SECRETS OF SUPERMARKET BUYERS (C4, 8pm), hosted by Denise van Outen.

And while it’s by no means entirely Percy Pig-related — there are also items on M&S Dine-In deals, low-alcohol drinks and, inevitably, pants — the pig’s proliferation is a big talking point.

According to Denise, M&S sells 400 million Percy Pig sweets a year. “That’s 10 every second!” she cries. And this is just the start. M&S buyers, she then points out, have “spread that piggy magic across their range”. She's not kidding.