To undercut its fast-growing rivals, Subway is making a big change to its meats.
The chain’s roughly 20,000 US locations will freshly slice their deli meat beginning Wednesday.
This marks Subway’s biggest change since two years ago, when it began refreshing its menu offerings, ingredients, and restaurant appearances to boost once-sagging sales and make itself an attractive acquisition target.
Subway has struggled in recent years as competition in the industry has ramped up, and the staid brand has fallen out of favor with customers.
As part of its turnaround effort, the company added customization to its menu – a feature many rivals have popularized – which helped lift sales by nearly 8% at American stores last year.
Subway doubled down on pushing orders to its app, which helped digital sales. Fresh-sliced meat is another step in that direction, although the payoff remains to be seen.
Around 80% of stores will display the $6,000 slicers prominently (space permitting) near the deli counter with most of the meat sliced several times a day, including turkey, pepperoni, roast beef, ham, and salami.
Adding freshly sliced meat “felt like the natural step that we needed to get back to and address,” Trevor Haynes, president for Subway’s North America operations, told CNN.
To promote the changes, Subways is rolling out four new sandwiches that highlight the new slicer, including turkey, garlic roast beef, ham and “The Beast,” which features pepperoni, salami, turkey, ham and roast beef on Italian bread.
Read More Here: A big change is coming to Subway restaurants today
