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| company_name = Subway
| company_name = Subway
| company_type = [[Privately held company|Private]]
| company_type = [[Privately held company|Private]]
| caption = Logo in use since March 4, 2002
| caption = Logo in use since March 4, 1921
| owner = Doctor's Associates, Inc.
| owner = Doctor's Associates, Inc.
| company_slogan = Eat Fresh
| company_slogan = Eat Fresh
| foundation = [[Bridgeport, Connecticut]], [[United States|U.S.]] (August 28, 1965)
| foundation = [[Bridgeport, Connecticut]], [[United States|U.S.]] (March 4, 1921)
| founder = [[Fred DeLuca]] and [[Peter Buck (restaurateur)|Peter Buck]]
| founder = [[Fred DeLuca]] and [[Peter Buck (restaurateur)|Peter Buck]]
| spokesman = [[Jared Fogle]]
| spokesman = [[Jared Fogle]]

Revision as of 00:40, 20 March 2011

Subway
Company typePrivate
IndustryRestaurants
GenreFast food
FoundedBridgeport, Connecticut, U.S. (March 4, 1921)
FounderFred DeLuca and Peter Buck
HeadquartersMilford, Connecticut, U.S.
Key people
Fred DeLuca (President)
Millie Shinn (EVP)
David Worroll (Controller)
ProductsSubs
Salads
Pizzas
Other food products
RevenueIncrease $15.2 billion USD (2010)
OwnerDoctor's Associates, Inc.
WebsiteSubway.com

Subway is an American restaurant franchise that primarily sells submarine sandwiches (subs), salads, and personal pizzas. Most recently they started selling breakfast food early in the morning. It is owned and operated by Doctor's Associates, Inc. (DAI). Subway is one of the fastest growing franchises in the world with approximately 34,187 restaurants in 95 countries/territories as of March, 2011.[1] It is the largest single-brand restaurant chain globally and is the second largest restaurant operator globally after Yum! Brands (35,000 locations).[2][3][4]

Subway's main operations office is in Milford, Connecticut, and five regional centers support Subway's growing international operations. The regional offices for European franchises are located in Amsterdam, Netherlands; The Australia and New Zealand locations are supported from Brisbane, Australia; the Middle Eastern locations are supported from offices located in Beirut, Lebanon; the Asian locations from Singapore and India, Korean Peninsula operations from Seoul and the Latin America support center is in Miami, Florida. In the UK and Ireland the company hopes to expand to 2,010 restaurants by some time in 2011.[5]

Doctor's Associates

Doctor's Associates was founded by Fred De Luca and Peter Buck in 1966, when they opened the second Subway restaurant.[6] The sole purpose of this company is overseeing the Subway chain of restaurants.

History

Subway's logo used from 1965–2002.

Fred De Luca borrowed $1,000 from family friends Haydee Piñero and Peter Buck to start his first sandwich shop on August 28, 1965[7], when he was only 17 years old. He was trying to raise money to pay for college. He chose a mediocre location for his shop, the corner of East Main Street and Boston Avenue in Bridgeport, Connecticut, but by noon on opening day, customers were pouring in. On the radio advertisement they had promoted the name as Pete's Submarines, which sounded like "Pizza Marines", so they changed the name to "Pete's Subs"; eventually it adopted the "Subway" name and they decorated the store with maps of the New York City subway system; a theme that continues to this day. As of March 9, 2011, the company has 33,749 franchised locations in 95 countries and produced US$15.2 billion in revenue every year. In 2007, Forbes magazine named De Luca number 242 of the 400 richest Americans with a net worth of $1.5 billion.

In addition to traditional restaurants, Subway operates in many non-traditional locations. For instance, there are over 900 Subway locations in Wal-Mart stores and 200 on military bases, including several in Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to three located inside The Pentagon, as well as an increasing number on college and university campuses.

Subway restaurants have been consistently ranked in Entrepreneur Magazine's Top 500 Franchises, and Subway was selected as the #2 overall franchise in 2008. Additionally, it was ranked as the #3 "Fastest Growing Franchise", and the #1 "Global Franchise" as well.[8]

As of March 2011, Subway operates 34,246 stores in 95 countries and territories.[1]

Products

A SUBWAY Club 6" sandwich.
File:Subway Cookies.jpg
White chocolate chip macadamia nut (left) and double chocolate chip cookies.

Subway's main product is the submarine sandwich, or "Sub". Many stores also offer Cookies, muffins, and Danishes which may be purchased in a variety of flavors.

In order to ink the current deal with Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola helped pay for the initial rollout of toaster ovens to all existing restaurants in North America.[citation needed] Subway gave customers the option to have their sandwiches toasted in response to increased competition from a rival sandwich chain, Quiznos, which popularized toasted submarine sandwiches. In Australia, the introduction of Fresh Toasting enabled the Subway Franchise to prevent Quiznos from gaining market share. The TurboChef and Merrychef toaster ovens are a microwave oven prototype; these are currently not available for retail. The Subway ovens work much like a normal retail microwave, except for the fact that they consume much more power and radiate their objects almost exponentially faster. The deal with Coca-Cola led to Quiznos switching to Pepsi chain worldwide, except in Canada. Subway in Mexico still serves Pepsi products, however.

Subway menus vary by store, by country and by market. These are considered COP (country optional program), SOP (store optional program), MOP (market only program) but retain core items which are included at every store. The main food sold by the store is Submarine sandwiches, sold in "Six-inch" (15 cm), "Footlong" (30 cm), 18 inch "Mega Sub" and the four inch (10 cm) "Mini Sub" sizes. All Subway stores offer customers lettuce, tomato, onions, bell peppers, cucumbers, olives, jalapeños and pickles, as well as market selected options such as carrot, corn, radish and avocado. Like other fast-food restaurants, they offer "limited time offers" or LTO from time to time. In addition to their standard menu, Subway also offers catering for all types of occasions. They offer "Giant Subs", which are a minimum of three feet long. These giant sandwiches can be ordered in bulk and to nearly any specification, something which Subway has promoted as a part of their campaign to tailor every sandwich to the individual customer's taste. Subway also offers sandwich platters, which consist of 5 footlong sandwiches per platter. Cookie platters are also offered, consisting of 3 dozen cookies.

One of the chain's best-known sandwiches is the BMT, which originally stood for Brooklyn Manhattan Transit, but now stands for Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest.[9] The sandwich contains salami, pepperoni and ham. As of 2004, it was Subway's most popular cold sandwich in the United Kingdom.[10]

In 2006, the first kosher Subway restaurant in the United States opened in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Subway spokesman Jared Fogle was in attendance at the opening. "With slight modifications, such as no pork-based products, and the use of soy-based cheese product, the menu is virtually identical to that of any other Subway restaurant.".[11] Since then, kosher Subways have opened in New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and Baltimore,[12] as well as Livingston, NJ, and plans have been announced for Milwaukee, Boston.[13] Some of these locations serve soy cheese product, but most don't serve any form of cheese at all.

All Subway restaurants in Muslim countries serve a halal menu. There are also at least two Subway restaurants in the United States that do the same, three in Canada, and over one hundred in the United Kingdom. The success of these stores has been mixed, with many locations reporting reduced sales as a result, but the company will open more halal stores.[14]

Subway also offers items other than sandwiches; breakfast items include such baked goods as bagels, egg & sausage sandwiches, and as of July and August 2006, "personal pizzas" are available in select markets to their menu. The personal pizzas are made upon order (as with their sandwiches) and heated "in less than 90 seconds" (cooking for 85 seconds) as advertised on televised commercials. Breakfast and pizza items are only available in some stores. Most stores offer additional toppings upon request. In November 2009, Seattle's Best Coffee announced that they'd signed an agreement to serve freshly brewed coffee as part of Subway's breakfast offerings.[15]

The 2009 Zagat Fast-Food Survey rated Subway as the best provider of “Healthy Options” in the Mega Chain category. Subway was also first in the "Best Service" and "Most Popular" categories, although it was second overall behind Wendy's.[16]

Key: Green = Countries currently with Subway restaurants

Advertising

See also: Jared Fogle
File:5dollarfootlong.jpg
Advertisement of the $5 Footlong promotion in a SUBWAY restaurant.

Subway uses the advertising slogan "Eat Fresh" to explain how every sandwich is made from freshly baked dough, using fresh ingredients, in front of the customer to their exact specification, by employees whom Subway terms "Subway Sandwich Artists".

In November 2007, Subway's US commercials featured the Peter Griffin character from Family Guy in which he extols the virtues of its new Subway Feast sandwich.[17] Subway has also used instant win competitions based on the game Scrabble as promotional tools. Subway was also seen in the 1996 film Happy Gilmore, and in South Park Subway also notably has a product placement television advertisement campaign for the US series Chuck, ongoing since its first season. As ratings dwindled in the second season, a campaign to "save Chuck" was launched by fans, which involves purchasing a foot-long sandwich from Subway on April 27, 2009, the date of the season finale. Tony Pace, Subway's marketing officer, reportedly called it the best product placement the restaurant chain has done "in several years."[18]

$5 Footlongs

Further information: Subway $5 footlong promotion

In 2008, Subway began to offer "Five Dollar Foot-long" submarine sandwiches in the continental United States as a limited time only promotion. All footlongs were available for $5, excluding premium and double meat subs. "Five Dollar Footlongs" quickly became the company's most successful promotion ever. Upon the initial program's completion, customer response prompted Subway to create a permanent "Five Dollar Foot-long Everyday Value Menu" that includes some footlong sandwiches for $5 a piece.[19] Which subs are $5 varies by market.

Sub Club

Sub Club Cards and Sub Club stamps

For many years, Subway restaurants offered a customer rewards program called the "Sub Clubbers". Customers would receive special stamps with the purchase of a sandwich, earning one stamp for a six-inch sandwich and two for a foot-long; small cards called "Sub Club Cards" were also provided for customers to paste the stamps onto and keep them collected in an orderly fashion. Originally, stamps were redeemable for a free standard sandwich (charges for extras such as double meat or extra cheese still applied) with no other purchase required—twelve stamps for a free six-inch, and twenty-four stamps for a free foot-long. A Sub Club for kids was also established, with one stamp earned for every children's Value Meal purchased, ultimately earning a free children's meal for eight stamps. Later, the regular Sub Club was altered to eight stamps earning a free six-inch, and sixteen stamps for a free foot-long, with the added condition that a 21 fl oz (621 mL) or larger drink must be purchased to redeem the stamps.

In early June 2005, Subway announced that the popular customer rewards program would be phased out due to counterfeiting. Another reason, which was not stated by the company, for the discontinuation of the program was that there was a large amount of internal theft of stamps by Subway employees and affiliates, including the sale of rolls of the stamps online at places such as eBay. Officially the Sub Club program has been discontinued in the US and Canada by Doctor's Associates[20] and most other major markets such as Australia[citation needed] have also made local decisions to discontinue the program. The Sub Club program can, however, still be found in Germany and a small number of developing markets.

Participating Subway restaurants in U.S. and Canada now offer a "Subway Card" to customers, which functions as a stored-value cash card. In some states and provinces, the card also functions as a "Subway Rewards Card" allowing customers to earn points for free food and sandwiches. Unlike the Sub Club program, no other purchase is needed when redeeming points, and registered cards which are lost or stolen can be replaced.[21] Subway runs periodic promotions that provide free subs for preloading a Subway Card with certain dollar amounts, which are usually listed at mysubwaycard.com.

Restaurants in the UK and Ireland operate the "Subcard" rewards program. Unlike the US scheme, these cards cannot be used to store cash.

Controversies

Sandwich size

On February 2, 2007 KNXV-TV with the help of the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures, reported that three Subway sandwiches, nominally each 3-foot (91 cm) long, were only 2 feet 8 inches (81 cm), 2 feet 8+1⁄4 inches (81.9 cm), and 2 feet 8+1⁄2 inches (82.6 cm) long. The maximum variance in length allowed in that state is 3%, which on a 3-foot sub is 1.08 inches (2.7 cm). Upon further study, the report showed that the box designed to store Subway's 3-foot sandwiches were only 2 feet 10+3⁄4 inches (88.3 cm) in length; shorter than the maximum allowable variance. In response to the report, Subway stated that they are currently in the process of reevaluating their advertising, promotional, training and packaging materials with regard to the specific or implied length of Giant Subs and are taking steps to advise their franchisees to only discuss with customers the approximate number of expected servings and not a specific length of measurement.[22]

Franchise relations

The Dallas Morning News reported on Subway's seizure of a soldier's Subway stores while he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006.[23][24] The stores were owned by Leon Batie, Jr., an Army reservist, who was called up to Operation Enduring Freedom in March 2005, three years after he bought his first Subway.[23][24] Batie alleged that Subway violated the U.S. Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. A federal lawsuit filed by Batie against Subway was dismissed. Batie then filed suit in state court in Dallas County, Texas. The litigation was settled and dismissed with prejudice in December 2009.

UK VAT Treatment

In October 2010, Subway franchisees in the UK lost a high court appeal against paying standard VAT on all toasted Subs, as enforced by HM Revenue and Customs. The result of this is that in the UK, a toasted Sub attracts VAT, whereas a cold Sub, eaten off the premises, does not. By contrast, competitors such as Greggs, Quiznos and McDonalds do not pay VAT on similar food.[25][26]

Nutritional content of breads

Subway has come under criticism for its use of high fructose corn syrup in its breads. Its "9-grain" bread has especially been cited for containing more corn syrup than whole grains.[27]

Casey's trademark case against Subway

On January 31, 2011, Subway lawyer Valerie Pochron wrote to Casey's General Stores, a chain of Iowa-based convenience stores, demanding they cease using the term "footlong" in their advertisements for 12-inch sandwiches. Consequently, in February 2011, Casey's General Stores Inc. filed a lawsuit against Subway in U.S. District Court in Des Moines, seeking a legal declaration that the word "footlong" doesn't violate Subway's rights. Casey's further sought a declaration that the word "footlong' is a generic description of a sandwich measuring one foot, and that Subway's attempt to assert trademark rights is "frivolous litigation."[28][29]

References

  1. ^ a b "International Subway Locations". Around the World. Subway.com. Retrieved 2011-03-03.
  2. ^ Subway publication (2011). "Official SUBWAY Restaurants Web Site". Subway Restaurants. Retrieved 2011-03-03.
  3. ^ Joe Bramhall. "McDonald's Corporation". Hoovers.com. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  4. ^ Joe Bramhall. "YUM! Brands, Inc". Hoovers.com. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  5. ^ Subway UK publication. "About Us". Doctor's Associates. Archived from the original on 2007-09-17. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
  6. ^ Doctor's Associates Inc. - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information
  7. ^ Subway Franchises Rhode Island, MA and CT | Subway Development
  8. ^ "2008 Fastest Growing Global Franchises". Entrepreneur Magazine. Retrieved 2008-02-24.
  9. ^ "Official SUBWAY Restaurants FAQs". www.Subway.com. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
  10. ^ Dennis, Guy (2004-04-25). "Subway sets out to torpedo McDonald's". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2010-05-24.
  11. ^ First Kosher Subway Restaurant Opens in Cleveland - PR.com
  12. ^ "Kosher Subway opens to rave reviews". Kansas City Jewish Chronicle.
  13. ^ "Glatt kosher Subway list". TiyulTalk. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
  14. ^ "Subway goes halal". the Manchester Evening News (Manchester, England). 2007-03-08. Retrieved 2008-02-24. SANDWICH chain Subway is to open two Halal-only stores in Manchester.
  15. ^ Subway Restaurants to Brew Seattle's Best Coffee Exclusively
  16. ^ "ZAGAT Survey Summary 2009 Fast-Food Restaurants Survey". QSR Magazine. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
  17. ^ Gail Schille (2007-11-17). "Subway in 'Family Guy' promotion". the Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2008-02-24. Fox's "Family Guy" has lined up its first national quick service restaurant promotion with Subway Restaurants, which will air a TV spot featuring the show's Peter Griffin and will promote the hit animated series online and in more than 22,000 locations. [dead link]
  18. ^ "Subway: Good Night, and Good 'Chuck'". TV Week. 2009-04-27. Retrieved 2009-04-27.
  19. ^ Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance
  20. ^ SUBWAY Operations Manual (2008 ed.). Doctor's Associates. 2008. p. 17.25.
  21. ^ "Subway Card FAQ". Retrieved 1 November 2009.
  22. ^ Joe Ducey (2007-06-26). "Sub-Standard". KNXV-TV (Phoenix, Arizona). Archived from the original on 2007-08-18. Retrieved 2008-04-08. His [Dennis Ehrhard] office [Phoenix Dept. of Weights and Measures] recently warned Subway, for shorting a customer and the ABC 15 Investigators found Subway was the biggest offender in our test. Video
  23. ^ a b Karen Robinson-Jacobs (June 21, 2009). "Soldier suing after being stripped of Subway restaurant franchises". Dallas News. Retrieved 28 July 2009.[dead link]
  24. ^ a b "Soldier suing after being stripped of Subway restaurant franchises" (PDF). tullylegal.com.
  25. ^ "Subway VAT appeal – Subway loses". Howlader and Co. 2010-10-27. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
  26. ^ "Big butties, small mindedness". Taxation. 20 October 2010. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
  27. ^ Nelson, Nichol (2010-06-22). "Subway Sandwich: Lettuce, Tomato, High-Fructose Corn Syrup?". Slashfood. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
  28. ^ Welte, Melanie S. (2011-02-14). "Iowa store chain sues Subway over 'footlong'". MSNBC. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
  29. ^ "Casey's sues Subway over rights to 'footlong'". Usatoday.Com. 2010-07-16. Retrieved 2011-02-17.

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