An announcement was made for an upcoming, major change that should have been in Subway’s M.O. from the get go.
By next summer, and possibly as soon as this year – the franchise will be implementing the addition of automatic meat slicers in-house, thereby slicing their own meat at every location across the country.
Subway’s slogan, “Eat Fresh” has always seemed like nothing more than an oxymoron instead of an actual standard that they hold up to. So, this change may have the added bonus of “proving” that their meat is real and not just an unknown substance akin to gelatinous, goo.
“They’re starting with turkey, ham, pepperoni and salami. And they say they will evaluate slicing additional proteins in-restaurant in the future”, (Via Restaurantbusinessonline.com).
This news comes on the heels of the hoagie establishments announcement back in May, where plans for an overall bigger scheme called, Eat Fresh Refresh 3.0 – were confirmed.
However, under the guise of introducing new menu changes, Subway’s real motivation seems to be more about their bottom line and cutting costs than it is about serving up more “freshness”.
“Right now, Subway’s meats are sliced at a central facility and shipped to the restaurants.” Haynes said the change will, “lower food costs because it won’t have to pay for the meat to be sliced, and there are more supplies of unsliced meats available.“
Workers are voicing their concerns on the matter considering it an alarming move. And it very well may be, given that teenagers are at the helm of this hoagie making operation nationwide, and that they account for the bulk of Subways employees.
Users on Reddit addressed concerns over the amount of potential extra work that would take away from their every day operations:
How exactly they plan to address who will be manning these slicers and whether the existing; of age employees will receive hands-on training, remains to be seen. But since you can’t just plop a meat slicer in the middle of Subway and expect the existing employees to just have it, they might just need to go on a hiring spree.
No matter how you…slice it, they can call whatever they’re using, meat – all they want. Just because they’re cutting ‘something’ in a meat slicer – doesn’t mean it is actual meat!
