Food
Across the board, Subway® is committed to offering guests a range of freshly made meals while maintaining high food safety and quality standards. With a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist as part of the team, we are consistently reviewing new and existing menu options to continue meeting the expectations of our guests. Many of our core products are free of artificial colours and flavours.
While Subway® is well known for its famous footlong and 6-inch subs, guests can also choose from a range of menu items including subs, wraps, SubMelts® and salads. Evolving our menu with innovative choices, full of flavour, we’re focused on providing great quality food made fresh in store every day.
As part of the brand’s ongoing commitment to provide great tasting food experiences for its guests, Subway® has introduced a whole “new way to Subway®”.
The new Subway® Series menu, offers two ways to Subway®, by offering guests a choice of 15 specially crafted and mouth-watering ready to order recipes. Guests can also continue to create their own Sub, Wrap or Salad in the usual way. Combining new and improved fresh ingredients and including proteins, along with tantalising sauces, 80% of the new Subs, SubMelts®, Wraps and Salads are less than 500 kcal per 6-inch portion, while still being high in protein and low in sugar and saturated fats to suit guest’s dietary needs.
Reducing Packaging Waste
We are working hard with our suppliers to reduce unnecessary packaging by innovating and constantly reviewing our supply chain practices as we build a better Subway®.
Packaging plays an important role in protecting food quality and enhancing the guest experience. At the same time, we recognise the environmental impacts of material choices and packaging waste. Our packaging is designed to be reused and recycled, while also being functional.
By the end of 2022, we removed over 1.2m kg of single use plastic across our supply chain in Europe, while pilot programmes introducing reusable packaging are being trialled in restaurants across France and Germany.
Read our Global Sustainable Packaging Policy here.
Uniforms
In May 2023, Subway® launched a new uniform, made from recycled plastic bottles. Each garment has been carefully designed to ensure comfort and durability, whilst maintaining Subway’s distinctive branding and iconic colour pallets.
The fabric used for the garments has been specially woven into a polyester blend* that uses recycled plastic bottles. Each uniform item clearly communicates how many bottles were used i.e., 3 bottles were used to make each cap, while 8 bottles plus a mix of BCI cotton (Better Cotton Initiative) were used to make the Sandwich Artists t-shirts.
To close the loop, Subway® worked with textile recycling experts Avena Group, to collect and process old uniforms which were replaced during the transition. The repurposed materials will be reused across industries such as automotive and construction, rather than go to landfill.
*The new T-shirts and Polos are a mix of BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) cotton and recycled polyester. The other parts of the new uniform are 100% recycled polyester. Recycled polyester is made from plastic bottles.
Approach to Climate Change
Subway® is committed to playing its part in addressing risks associated with climate change and we are working to better understand our climate impact.
To help franchisees reduce their energy usage, we have developed some essential best practices tips to help them reduce energy consumption.
Deforestation
Subway® understands that agriculture, a critical element of our value chain, is linked to the health of the world’s forest system. Our influence on forests is mainly through the sourcing of agricultural materials (palm oil, soy and beef value chains) and paper/wood-based products for disposable packaging and restaurant design. Subway® aims to source from suppliers that strive to:
- Use sustainable forest management practices in forests they own, lease, or manage to provide fibre, paper, timber and other forest-based products.
- Leverage principles and implement sustainable agriculture practices that enable farmers to increase production on currently farmed land and minimise impacts on the surrounding area.
- Preserve biodiversity and cultural values and optimise the social, environmental and economic benefits of managed forests.