A TikTok user who goes by Diva (@divasmooth) called out a Subway location for serving a customer what appears to be a loaf of bread that “didn’t rise properly.” The influencer says that they used to be a manager for the chain in their TikTok.
Diva writes in a text overlay of the trending video, “Come on Subway! How y’all gonna use that bread? Clearly it didn’t rise properly! Being an X-manager I was very upset.”
In the clip, they show one loaf of bread loaded with meat that looks like it is either punched or squished inward. The camera then pans to two other loaves that look significantly fluffier. In this context, the lack of ‘rising’ that Diva refers to is the process where the dough expands prior to being put in the oven as a result of being exposed to the carbon dioxide by the yeast. Some say this can take anywhere from one to three hours.
@divasmooth #subway #fyp #divasmooth #wow #really ♬ original sound – Diva
The Daily Dot has reached out to Subway via email and Diva via TikTok comment for further information.
TikTokers who saw Diva’s post rattled off tons of jokes, many of which said that they don’t really expect a perfect experience when they’re dining at the sandwich chain.
“That’s the yeast of my worries at subway,” one commenter wrote, while another penned, “It’s subway… lower your standards.”
One TikToker quipped, “naw that’s just that small batch limited edition flatbread.”
However, some said the reason for the deflated-looking footlong could be that the customer specifically requested a loaf that immediately came out of the oven, which meant that it didn’t have time to properly fluff up.
“That bread can also be like that because a customer demands the bread that just came out and managers says it’s ok to use !!” a user wrote.
Subway’s bread has long been a subject of controversy and even legal drama. Ireland’s supreme court ruled that the chain’s bread can’t be legally defined as such due to the ingredients used in its creation. The legal entity stated that the brand’s loaves are packed with too much sugar to be officially called bread “because the rolls used by the U.S. sandwich chain’s Irish franchises had a sugar content around 10 percent of the weight of the flour used to make them, they couldn’t be considered a ‘staple product.’ That was true for both white and whole-grain rolls,” Food Network reported.
This was an important distinction for tax purposes — if Subway’s loaves were considered bread then they would be deemed a “staple” food product in the nation, meaning that they would be free from taxes. Since the court’s ruling in 2020, Subway’s rolls were subjected to a 13.5% tariff.
Subway publicly disagreed with the Irish Supreme Court’s verdict, stating, “Subway’s bread is, of course, bread. We have been baking fresh bread in our restaurants for more than three decades and our guests return each day for sandwiches made on bread that smells as good as it tastes.”
Other cases have called out the franchises’ ingredients, like azodicarbonamide which is defined by the FDA as “a chemical substance approved for use as a whitening agent in cereal flour and as a dough conditioner in bread baking.”
In 2014, NPR reported that Subway decided to remove the ingredient from its bread after concerns of purported adverse health effects workers dealing with the chemical in an industrialized setting could be subjected to upon exposure.
Subway was once the world’s largest fast-food chain franchise, with over 42,000 franchise locations in more than 100 countries. However, in recent years, business owners have elected to close up shop stating that they were unhappy with the way corporate was doing business with its franchisees. As of 2021, Subway fell behind McDonald’s as the largest fast-food chain in the world.
