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‘I always go to Publix, they have the best’: Subway worker shows what really happens behind the scenes when they prepare your steak sandwich

‘Jersey Mikes is where it’s at!’

Photo of Melody Heald

Melody Heald

Subway(l), Person talking(c), Steak Sandwich(r)

How beloved fast-food items are prepared can come as a shock for customers. Earlier in the year, the popular food account @howfoodismade exposed how Subway prepares its steak and tuna, leaving viewers flabbergasted. Now, another TikToker is once again pulling the curtain back to show how Subway’s steak gets prepared. The Subway worker’s video has some viewers swearing off the meat at the chain.

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“Y’all ever wonder what is behind the scenes of Subway?” TikToker and 29-year-old Subway worker Jessie Bingham (@jessiebingham4) asks while standing in the kitchen at her Subway. “Well, I gotta do some steak, so.”

She holds a square-shaped blob of meat. “That’s your steak, what I put on your sandwich,” the content creator says. When Bingham places the compressed meat clump into a metal container, she uses her hand to squeeze it several times until the single cube turns into steak pieces that fill up the container.

The Daily Dot reached out to Bingham via TikTok comment and direct message, as well as to Subway via press email. The video racked up over 150,000 views.

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Viewers weigh in

Some Subway customers are commenting that they no longer will order the steak at the sandwich chain.

“Oh no! No more for me,” one viewer wrote.

“That’s what I order every time. thanks for this, never again,” a second agreed.

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“Aaaand I’m never going to subway again,” a third remarked.

Others took the opportunity to tout other sandwich businesses.

“I always go to Publix, they have the best,” one user stated.

“Jersey Mikes is where its at!” another commented.

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@jessiebingham4 Behind the scenes working at Subway #subway ♬ original sound – texas.sweetheart19

Are any of Subway’s items fresh?

Although the company discarded its “Eat Fresh” slogan in 2018, Bingham’s video still begs the question: Are any of its ingredients fresh?

The company abandoned the slogan to avert its attention to choice rather than quality. But in 2023, the company implemented freshly sliced meat to revamp its menu.

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“Over the past two years, we overhauled our expansive pantry of ingredients and debuted a whole new way to Subway with chef-crafted signature sandwiches. These major changes led to rave reviews from our guests and record-breaking sales,” Trevor Haynes, Subway’s North America president, revealed in a press release to announce the freshly sliced meats.

However, according to workers online, the meat is still pre-packaged. “They used to come in packages already sliced. Now, they come unsliced, and we slice them when we do our prep. We don’t slice them to order. We slice them each morning for the whole day,” one said on Reddit.

The freshest ingredients

Other workers who spoke out claim the freshest items on the menu are some of the vegetables. A former Subway worker, writing for Delishably, says the bell pepper, onion, tomato, and avocado are the freshest vegetables on the menu as they are chopped up by workers.

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“But all the other vegetables come in bags that are just dumped into new containers,” the worker claims. “The meat and cheese are all prepackaged and re-wrapped in-store. The meatballs and soup are cooked in the microwave and kept in warming trays. Tuna comes in a can and is mixed by hand with mayonnaise in the back. The prepackaged chicken is also mixed with the teriyaki. But for the most part, everything is basically cooked, chopped, and done by the time it makes it to the store.”

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