Call it "Subway and the angry inch." On Tuesday, a Facebook user posted a picture of a Subway "Footlong" sub next to a tape measure, and showing the sandwich coming up short, measuring a mere 11 inches. The caption read, "subway pls respond."
The Internet did swiftly. The image was posted to the popular link-sharing website Reddit and the Facebook post received over 130,990 likes, 3,910 shares, and 5,890 comments.
Many of the comments took a tone of mock outrage, like:
- "I am calling for congressional hearings about this!"
- "You should ask for 1" refund"
- And one who posted a picture of his own 11-inch Subway Footlong with the caption "I DEMAND FREE SUBWAY SANDWICHES FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE OR I WILL SUE YOU FOR FALSE ADVERTISEMENT."
Subway provided this comment to TODAY: “Our bread is freshly baked daily in each of the over 38,000 Subway restaurants worldwide. We are committed to providing a consistent product delivering the same amount of bread to the customer with every order. The length however may vary slightly when not baked to our exact specifications. We are reinforcing our policies and procedures in an effort to ensure our offerings are always consistent no matter which Subway restaurant you visit.”
On Thursday afternoon, the link to the photo on their wall began returning "This content is currently unavailable" when TODAY tried to access it. Earlier on Thursday, Subway wrote on Facebook in reply to the uploader, Matt Corby.
Other Facebook users uploaded their images of short Subway footlongs to a Facebook album, and also reposted Corby's photo, sometimes cropped and with their own captions. On several posts, Subway left the same apology message they left for Corby, even when the uploaded photo was just a repost of Corby's and not their own image.
"Hi Matt - Thanks for writing. Looking at your photo, this bread is not baked to our standards," Subway, which has over 35,000 locations worldwide, wrote in the message to Corby. "We have policies in place to ensure that our fresh baked bread is consistent and has the same great taste no matter which Subway restaurant around the world you visit. We value your feedback and want to thank you again for being a fan."
Commenters identifying themselves as Subway workers speculated that since the bread arrives at the stores frozen, it hadn't been properly tugged and "proofed" before it was baked.
If that's true, then Corby and others are still getting the same amount of bread as they're supposed to, it's just been a bit squished.
That's not much to get angry about, but it's enough to chuckle over.
