A husband and wife have slammed a newly-refurbished M&S Café for having "segregating self-service machines" that they say make it difficult for people with allergies.

Nathan Johnstone, from Rainham, claims staff at the Hempstead Valley shopping centre branch treated them in a "patronising" way after he raised concerns regarding his wife's potentially-fatal nut and egg allergy.

The 50-year-old said: "We've been going to Marks and Spencer Café for years.

"As we had a day off yesterday we thought we'd go there and have a bit of lunch.

"We have to be very, very careful about where my wife, Lesley, and I can eat because she has fatal egg and nut allergies.

"We were aware that it was the relaunch day of the new cafe but when we walked in there the whole experience was awful."

Lesley, a 46-year-old mum-of-two, usually orders a jacket potato with cheese at the cafe – however, she has to ask staff to not put coleslaw on the meal.

The store's new touch screen self-serve machine meant she could not do that.

Mr Johnstone, who works in facilities management, continued: "You can't order at the till any more so a member of staff took us over to a screen and said ordering is very simple.

"But he was talking to me like I was an idiot. It was quite patronising.

"He went through it and pointed to the small, barely readable part of the screen that showed what allergens the food contained.

"But again I explained that we needed to speak to a person because we needed to say we didn't want the meal to come with coleslaw."

The Johnstones were not the only people to complain about the store's new serving system.

Yesterday, shortly after it was opened with special guest, Percy Pig, customers took to social media saying the new café's way of taking payments is something some older shoppers might not be comfortable with.

In a poll published by KentOnline in the story 59% of voters said they avoid self-service machines.

Continuing with his own experience, Mr Johnstone explained: "Another member of staff came over and my wife started explaining the situation a second time.

"When Lesley finished saying the self-service couldn't accommodate her needs the member of staff said 'well I'm sorry but you can't eat here anymore'." After being told this Mr Johnstone asked for the café's manager.

He continued: "When the manager came she asked me if I'd like someone to show me how to press the buttons.

"Now I'm 50 years old and clearly not someone who needs to be shown how to use a touch screen. It was just insulting.

"After we explained everything again she took us to a table, we ordered our food in person and they gave us a cup of coffee and a cup of tea on the house."

Mr Johnstone said the manager told them "M&S had opened seven of these types of cafés – and they work".

He added: "After she told me this I said to her 'so what you're now saying is that my opinion doesn't matter because you believe you've opened seven stores and they work?'.

"I guarantee everyone in that cafe, every customer who is past my age, is not happy about using that self-service terminal.

"M&S are completely segregating a whole group of people because they want to push the touch screen self-service.

"It's not good enough, and neither is the way they were patronising me by telling me that I'm the one in the wrong because I'm not keeping up with modern trends.

"All of this was because we couldn't safely order my wife's food.

"The only part on the self-service machine that talks about allergies was on the bottom left-hand corner and you could barely read it."

A spokesman for M&S said the café cannot guarantee that products will not contain traces of allergens.

He said: “In all M&S Cafés, we prepare food orders where nuts, peanuts, sesame and other allergenic ingredients are used.

"We therefore cannot guarantee that our products will not contain traces of these allergens and make this information clear to customers.

"We also offer a range of pre-packaged options for customers which are individually labelled with clear allergen information.

"Our digital kiosks also display full ingredients and allergen information for our menu items.”