Subway

2020s: Roark Capital takes over

In December 2020, Subway partnered with ezCater to offer a new online catering platform.

In 2023, the family announced that they were in the process of selling the company to private ownership. The company enlisted the help of JP Morgan with the sale. The price of the company was reported to be around $10 billion. Several potential buyers made offers for the company. These included the asset management division of investment bank Goldman Sachs, TDR Capital, and TPG Inc. On August 24, Subway announced that Roark Capital would purchase the company for $9.6 billion. The deal's reported value would make it the third-biggest US acquisition in restaurant history, behind Burger King's 2014 acquisition of Tim Hortons for $11.4 billion and Inspire Brands' purchase of Dunkin' Brands in 2020 for $11.3 billion.

In November 2023, the Federal Trade Commission announced it was looking into investigating the deal as it would possibly give Roark a monopoly in the sandwich shop industry via the firm's existing ownership of Subway's competitors McAlister's Deli and Jimmy John's. On April 30, 2024, Roark officially acquired Subway after the FTC determined that Roark did not have an unfair advantage.

On March 19, 2024, Subway signed a 10-year deal with PepsiCo that began on January 1, 2025, ending the restaurant chain's partnership with the Coca-Cola Company that was first signed in 2003, went into effect the following year in 2004, and the Coke switchover was completed by 2005. Many of Subway's international locations had already gone back to serving Pepsi products between 2015 and 2018. Pepsi previously had a deal with them when they were founded that lasted until the Coca-Cola switchover.

By the end of March 2024, the company's Brazilian unit went into bankruptcy with over BRL 482 million (nearly $100 million) in debt. SouthRock Capital, operator of Brazilian Subway restaurants, later declared Chapter 15 bankruptcy in June 2024.

SubDog

Subway's SubDog is an American-style hotdog, topped with mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and a limited-edition tangy mustard, in which started as an April Fool's joke in 2022 but due to popular demand Subway brought the SubDog to reality as a limited-time offer. Subway announced the return of the SubDog in Australia for a limited time in 2024 between 2 September to 6 October. It was introduced in Canda in the summer of 2026 as well.

Regional variations

Subway's menu varies between countries, most significantly where religious requirements relate to the meats served.

In 2006, the first kosher Subway restaurant in the United States opened in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio in the Mandel Jewish Community Center of Cleveland. Former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle attended the opening. A press release stated, "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." Other openings soon followed, briefly making Subway one of the largest U.S. kosher restaurant chains. At their peak, twelve kosher Subway locations were open in the U.S., including Kansas City and 5 in New York. As of 2023, only one kosher Subway remains, in Miami, FL. Franchisees who failed noted a lack of support from the parent location in advertising, higher costs of kosher food and supervision, the inability to remain open on Saturdays, and that customers who do not keep kosher prefer the original menu and prices.

Subway opened its first restaurant in India in 2001 in New Delhi. In deference to Hindu beliefs, Subway restaurants in India do not serve beef products; on the other hand, the country's large number of vegetarians induced Subway's Indian outlets to offer a much-extended range of vegetarian options. As of January 2017, there were 591 Subway restaurants in 68 Indian cities. On September 4, 2012, Subway opened its first all-vegetarian outlet on the campus of Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Jalandhar, Punjab. On March 6, 2013, Subway opened its second all-vegetarian outlet also offering Jain food in Paldi, Ahmedabad.

Nutritional content

In 2011, Subway introduced gluten-free bread and brownies to some locations in Texas. It also cut the salt content of its sandwiches by 15 percent in 2011.

Marketing

Subway is the second-biggest fast food advertiser in the United States, behind only McDonald's. It spent US$516,000,000 on measurable advertising in 2011.

Subway used the advertising slogan "Eat Fresh" and focused on how its sandwiches were made from freshly baked bread and fresh ingredients, in front of customers to their exact specifications, by employees which Subway called "Subway Sandwich Artists".

In 2005, Subway scrapped its "Sub Club" stamp promotion, citing a growing number of counterfeit stamps due to online auction sites and the increasing availability of high-quality printers.

In November 2007, Subway's US commercials featured the cartoon character Peter Griffin (from FOX's Family Guy) promoting its new Subway Feast sandwich.

Subway ran a product placement campaign in the US TV series Chuck since its first season. As ratings dwindled in the second season, a campaign to "save Chuck" was launched for fans, encouraging them to purchase a footlong sub from Subway on April 27, 2009, the date of the season finale. Tony Pace, Subway's marketing officer, called it the best product placement the restaurant chain has done "in several years."

To celebrate National Sandwich Day on November 3, 2015, Subway offered a Buy One sandwich, Give One sandwich free promotion.

Most Subway locations feature a promotion named "Sub of the Day" where a different submarine sandwich is featured each day of the week at a discounted price. In the past they had a monthly promotion that featured a specialty sub sandwich at a discounted price for the entire month.

Jared Fogle

Beginning in January 2000, Jared Fogle was a national spokesman for the company in the United States, giving talks on healthy living and appearing in advertisements. Fogle first came to attention in his native Indiana by claiming that he lost over 200 pounds (91 kg) in part by eating at Subway. After 2008, he was featured less often as the company marketed with more emphasis on its "5 dollar footlong" campaign. Subway attributed between one-third and one-half of its growth from 1998 to 2011 to Fogle, the equivalent of a tripling in size. Subway ended its relationship with Fogle in 2015 after he was charged with possession of child pornography and illicit sexual conduct with minors. After pleading guilty in August 2015, he was sentenced to more than 15 years in federal prison three months later.

In December 2015, following the removal of Fogle from its marketing, Subway introduced a new marketing campaign, "Founded on Fresh". The campaign focuses on Subway's establishment and early history and features Fred DeLuca, as played by his son, Jonathan. The new campaign downplays the use of jingles and celebrity endorsements (besides "targeted" sports marketing) in favor of focusing on the qualities of its products and specific products. Chief advertising officer Chris Carroll explained that the focus on fat, calories, and weight loss were "what fresh used to be" and that the new campaign would focus more on the sourcing of Subway's ingredients, such as its phase-out of antibiotic-treated meat. Carroll also explained that the new strategy was being developed prior to the controversy involving Fogle.

$5 footlongs

In 2008, Subway began to offer all its regular one-foot-long (30 cm) submarine sandwiches (excluding the premium and double-meat varieties) for five dollars (equivalent to $7.48 in 2025), in the continental United States and Canada, as a "limited time only" promotion. "Five Dollar Footlongs" quickly became the company's most successful promotion ever. Upon the initial promotion's completion, customer response prompted Subway to create a "$5 Footlong Everyday Value Menu" that offered some footlong sandwiches for $5. Since 2011, there has been a monthly rotating $5 footlong. In October 2011, a similar promotion was launched in the United Kingdom. Customers can buy one of nine subs and any drink for £3 (for a 6-inch [15 cm] sub) or £5 (for a footlong).

In 2012, San Francisco restaurants discontinued the five-dollar footlong promotion due to the higher cost of doing business in the city. From June 2014 to the end of that year, some Subway locations began discontinuing the $5 promotion. On November 1, 2014, Subway discontinued the five-dollar footlong promotion, replacing it with the Simple $6 Menu which included a six-inch select with a drink and a choice of cookies or chips.

In February 2016, Subway announced that all classic footlongs would be priced at $6 each. In January 2018, the $5 promotion returned with a $4.99 footlong menu of five subs at participating locations. In September 2018, Subway announced that it would discontinue the $5 footlong promotion to boost franchise profits.

Italian Hero

In early 2017, Subway introduced its Italian Hero and advertised it with a campaign describing it as an authentic Italian(-American) sandwich. Created by their national creative agency MMB, two comedic spots feature Italian-American characters on and around the stoop of a tenement building, one including a cameo by sportscaster Dick Vitale. Another ad features Food Network's Jeff Mauro, the "Sandwich King", who is also Italian-American, discussing the nature and role of the different Italian meats and other ingredients.

"Refresh"

In July 2021, Subway debuted its "Refresh" campaign featuring: Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, Serena Williams, and Megan Rapinoe. Subway franchisees requested Rapinoe be pulled from the ads following the 2020 Olympics, claiming her testimonial caused sales to dip and harmed the stores' reputation.

Subway's trademark application for "footlong" has yet to be approved by the federal government. Subway has abandoned two attempts to register it with the United States Patent and Trademark Office twice.

Ingredients

Subway removed azodicarbonamide, an EU-banned potential carcinogen, from its bread after food blogger and activist Vani Hari gathered more than 50,000 signatures in a petition drive.

In August 2015, Vani Hari again petitioned Subway in conjunction with Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Food Safety, U.S. Public Interest Research Group to commit to buying meat produced without the routine use of antibiotics and to provide a timeline for doing so. In October 2015, Subway announced it would transition to chicken raised without antibiotics in 2016 and turkey within the following 2–3 years, and would also transition beef and pork raised without antibiotics by 2025.

In 2020, the Supreme Court of Ireland ruled that Subway bread had too high a sugar content to be classed as bread, and had to be classed as cake.

Soy protein in chicken products

In 2017, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) investigated chicken sold by five fast-food restaurants. DNA testing of two Subway chicken items found 53.6% and 42.8% chicken DNA, with the remainder being mostly soy. Subway disputed CBC's report and demanded that it be retracted, while investigating with its supplier.

In April 2017, Subway filed a $210 million lawsuit against CBC alleging "recklessly and maliciously" publication.The CBC stood by its reports, citing independent and credible experts. In November 2019, Subway's lawsuit against the CBC was dismissed through anti-SLAPP legislation, as CBC's reporting was deemed to be a matter of public interest. In January 2021 the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned the decision dismissing the lawsuit. The Supreme Court of Canada denied leave for appeal, so the matter has been returned to the Superior Court of Justice for trial.

Underpaying workers

In 2019, the Fair Work Ombudsman found that 17 Australian-based Subway franchises had failed to pay the employees minimum wages, casual loadings, holiday and overtime rates, and did not issue proper pay slips or keep proper employment records. The investigation resulted in over $81,000 being recovered in unpaid wages for over 160 employees.

Calls for boycott over the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Subway was criticized for not divesting or scaling back its operations in Russia, unlike most of its competitors. Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption Prevention stated that Subway continues advertising in Russia and collecting payments from its Russian franchisees, and listed Subway among International Sponsors of War in January 2024. Despite the list being withdrawn following diplomatic pressure, in June 2024, Subway announced the termination of its Russian franchise agreements, and in August 2025, the former Russian franchisee, having lost the Subway trademark rights, rebranded to Subjoy.