Why You Should Always Ask For The Softest Bread At Subway

Even though it is used to make the world's ultimate meal (grilled cheese), bread is a surprisingly unloved product. Despite the fact that leftover bread can be transformed into a number of useful and tasty snacks, a 2021 study published in Sustainable Energy & Fuels reports that 10% of all the bread produced worldwide is estimated to be wasted.

Unloved bread shouldn't be a problem at Subway though. Generating $9.4 billion in U.S. sales alone, it's safe to say that Subway works its way through a fair amount of bread — although the company is coy about the amount of bread it bakes and the number of sandwiches it sells, reports Food Business News. Maybe it's because numbers just don't go that high.

Subway offers a huge range of breads, including Italian, herbs and cheese, and flatbreads, notes Subway Menu. However, rather than being distracted by the extensive choice of bread, you should always request the softest — and there's an important reason why.

Despite Subway's evident financial success, purported workers on Reddit lament allegedly stale bread being sold at the company's restaurants by managers who don't want to throw it out — leading to poor quality sandwiches being served.

There is a way to avoid this problem though: Ask for the softest bread. MasterClass notes that the freshest bread will be moist and elastic, requiring some effort to cut. Once it begins to lose freshness it will be very easy to slice, and when it has gone stale it will basically be rock hard. Rather-Be-Shopping.com adds that Subway servers will know which bread is the softest because they'll have been slicing it throughout their shift and believes you can sometimes be rewarded with bread straight from the oven.

Perhaps Subway would be able to provide more fresh bread if its stores improved estimations about the amount required — boosting customer confidence as well as profits. The University of Borås explains that waste bread is a major food chain contributor to climate change and water depletion, emphasizing that preventing excess bread production and donating surplus loaves are the most environmentally and economically beneficial options. Despite this, Subway only notes offering composting and recycling for waste food.