SUSTAINABLE SOURCING

Food Quality & Food Safety

Food safety and food quality are our top priorities. Our goal is to serve food that consistently meets the highest quality and safety standards - from the time it is grown, harvested or caught, to when it is put into a Sub or salad in our stores.

We have stringent audit processes that we enforce throughout our supply chain and we also require that our suppliers' employment practices meet our Vendor Code of Conduct.

Our high standards for food safety ensure that our customers are getting the quality they expect from the SUBWAY® brand. We begin with setting detailed product specifications followed by inspection of samples pulled from the supply chain to ensure that our requirements are being met. All approved facilities that supply food to SUBWAY® stores undergo a rigorous third-party audit for food safety that includes HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) on at least an annual basis, if not more frequently. In the UK and Ireland, we use the most widely known and respected food assurance brand, NSF-CMi, to audit to this standard.

The SUBWAY® brand's Office of Food Safety and Quality Enhancement team meets quarterly to review all our food safety and quality programmes and recommends improvements as needed. This team works together with our vendors to achieve our food safety and quality improvement goals.
Food safety is of paramount importance in our stores too! Sandwich Artists™ are required to always follow strict hand-washing procedures and proper glove usage for all food handling processes. All products are monitored throughout the day to ensure products are kept at the proper temperatures (cold food kept cold and hot food kept hot). To further ensure quality, all prepared food is managed via strict shelf life dating procedures. Our stores must always follow the most stringent policy towards food safety. We continuously provide training for

Franchisees and their staff on the importance of food safety and every store is evaluated for compliance with policies and procedures every month. Franchisees need to remain diligent in adhering to these policies because if they are not adhered to at store level, it is grounds for Franchise termination.

 

 

Vegetables

All vegetable suppliers are required to have a HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point) system, and a third party certification (e.g. BRC or ISO) in place and source product from EurepGAP or GlobalGAP certified growers, a voluntary scheme that aims at setting a standard for Good Agricultural Practices worldwide.

Many of our suppliers are responsible stewards of the land and share our commitment to social responsibility and sustainability. They use sustainable agricultural practices such as cover cropping and crop rotation to restore nutrients to the soil and help maintain local ecosystems, and establish annual crop protection plans for good plant protection practices. For instance, they use integrated pest management practices like non-chemical crop protection, cultivation measures and advisory systems to minimise pesticide and fertilizer use, and employ irrigation practices that reduce electricity and water use.

• Our cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers are grown in greenhouses. To conserve fossil fuel, many of our growers use combined heat systems which produce electricity for the grid and use the excess heat for their greenhouse productions. Some of our growers are using geothermal energy. Almost all our greenhouse growers use soil and water management practices. For instance, rain water is collected and under normal circumstances, there is no need to use alternate water supplies

 

Meat and Poultry

Not only do our vendors work to improve the nutritional aspect of our food, but they are committed to putting processes in place that improve the sustainability of our supply chain. For example:

• Both UK and overseas suppliers comply with UK and EU requirements as a minimum. In addition, we require them to source from farms that adhere to the national farm assurance schemes applicable to each meat species to ensure the health and welfare of animals throughout our supply chain. These schemes are independently audited and verified by recognised certification accredited to a National standard
• Our suppliers who carry out further processing are required to comply with quality assurance and integrated processing schemes which set out the highest standards of food processing and manufacturing practices. These schemes are also independently audited and verified by recognised certification bodies, accredited to a National standard
• 50% of the turkey sold in our British stores is sourced in Britain and is produced to the Quality British Turkey (QBT) standard, which is part of the Assured Food Standards Red Tractor scheme. Where we have to source from other countries to ensure we meet our customers'demands, all turkey is produced to farm assurance standards which are equivalent to the QBT standard. Every assured turkey farm is inspected at least once per year, and independently audited to ensure high standards of animal welfare, traceability and food safety. Our focus on animal welfare covers the bird's entire lifespan, from the rearing and feeding on the farms, to the transport and eventual processing of the turkeys

Seafood

The SUBWAY® brand recognises the vital importance, both commercially and ecologically, of sustainable fishing. Our long-term goal is to work with the industry to move to more sustainable practices worldwide including: sourcing our seafood from independently certified sustainable fisheries, supporting protected areas and changing our specifications. We have already taken significant steps toward achieving this goal.

We believe in the need to maintain sustainable fish stocks and we support the use of independently assessed responsible fishing practices worldwide. We are working with our vendors and suppliers to source seafood as sustainably as possible today and into the future. We support the establishment of marine reserves, specifically in the Pacific Commons.

In the UK and Ireland, we sell only skipjack tuna, considered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as a species of least concern. It is sourced from fisheries with non-threatened stock levels. Our approved tuna suppliers only purchase from certified non-IUU boats on the Earth Island Institute approved supplier list.

In addition, we are working with our suppliers to source our tuna from fisheries that use responsible management practices based on independent scientific evidence and the enforcement of seasonal fish aggregating device bans. We support the work of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and will source only from MSC (or equivalent) certified sources in the longer term. We are working with the MSC to develop a commercially feasible transition plan to more sustainable tuna.

The SUBWAY® brand will continue to work with our suppliers and organisations such as the Marine Stewardship Council, the Earth Island Institute, the Blue Ocean Institute and the Institute for Sustainable Seafood to continually improve the sustainable sourcing of our seafood.

 

Bakery and Other Products/Ingredients

We are committed to supporting sustainable palm oil practices. The palm oil used in our products comes from suppliers who are members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The RSPO was formed in 2004 to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil products through credible global standards and the engagement of stakeholders committed to continuous improvement. The RSPO members are committed to driving a more sustainable palm oil practice over time including the growing, processing and transportation processes that will stop deforestation while continuing to support the communities which rely on its production. We are working toward using only certified sustainable palm oil in our products in the future.

Our stores in the UK and Ireland serve only 100% Rainforest Alliance certified coffee.