Customer calls Subway for using bread that didn’t rise well

A TikTok user who goes by Diva (@divasmooth) called a Subway location after serving a customer a loaf of bread that “didn’t rise properly.” The influencer says he used to be a manager for the chain on his TikTok.

In a text overlay on the hit video, Diva writes, “Come on Subway! How are you going to use the bread? Obviously it didn’t turn out right! As an X manager, I was very upset.”

In the clip, they show a meat-laden loaf of bread that looks like it’s either been punched or squeezed inward. The camera then pans to two other loaves of bread that look a lot fluffier. In this context, the lack of “rising” that Diva refers to is the process by which the dough expands before it goes into the oven due to exposure to the yeast’s carbon dioxide. Some say this can take anywhere from one to three hours.

@divasmooth #subway #fyp #divasmooth #wow #really ♬ Original sound – diva

The Daily Dot has contacted Subway via email and Diva via TikTok comment for more information.

TikTokers who saw Diva’s post gushed out tons of jokes, with many saying they don’t really expect a perfect experience when eating at the sandwich chain.

“This is the yeast of my subway woes,” one commenter wrote, while another wrote, “It’s the subway… lower your standards.”

One TikToker quipped, “Nah, that’s just this little limited edition flatbread.”

However, some said the reason for the drained-looking footlong might be that the customer specifically requested a loaf that came out of the oven right away, meaning it didn’t have time to properly fluff up.

“This bread can also be because a customer requests the bread that just came out and the manager says it’s ok to use it!!” wrote one user.

Subway’s bread has long been the subject of controversy and even legal drama. The Supreme Court of Ireland ruled that the chain’s bread could not be legally defined as such due to the ingredients used in its manufacture. The entity stated that the brand’s loaves of bread are loaded with too much sugar to be officially called bread “because the buns used by the US sandwich chain’s Irish franchisees have a sugar content of about 10 percent of the weight of the flour from which they were made, they could not be considered a “staple product”. This was true for both white and whole grain rolls,” reported Food Network.

This was an important distinction for tax purposes — if Subway’s breads were considered bread, they would be considered a “staple food” in the nation, meaning they would be exempt from taxes. Since the court ruling in 2020, Subway’s buns have been taxed at 13.5%.

Subway publicly contradicted the Irish Supreme Court’s ruling, stating: “Subway’s bread is, of course, bread. We’ve been baking fresh bread in our restaurants for more than three decades, and our guests return every day for sandwiches made on bread that smells as good as it tastes.”

In other cases, franchise ingredients have been named, such as azodicarbonamide, which the FDA defines as “a chemical substance approved for use as a whitening agent in cereal flour and as a dough improver in breadmaking.”

In 2014, NPR reported that Subway decided to remove the ingredient from its bread after concerns about alleged adverse health effects on workers who deal with the chemical in an industrial setting could be exposed to.

Subway was once the world’s largest franchised fast food chain with over 42,000 franchised locations in more than 100 countries. However, in recent years, business owners have chosen to close the store because they were unhappy with the way the company does business with its franchisees. As of 2021, Subway fell behind McDonald’s as the largest fast food chain in the world.

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