Subway's Bread Isn't Actually Bread, Irish Court Rules
Subway has found itself in hot water (er, hot, melty cheese?) once again, and this time, it's not for passing 11-inch sandwiches off as footlong subs. It turns out the popular sandwich chain's notorious bread isn't actually bread at all -- at least in the eyes of Ireland's Supreme Court, according to The Guardian.
For purposes of tax laws, specifically, Ireland's Value-Added Tax Act of 1972, Subway's bread cannot legally be classified as such due to its high sugar content, instead, earning the label of a "confectionary or fancy baked good," ABC News reported. I have consumed many a Subway sandwich throughout my time on this planet, as has my father, who has eaten a six-inch turkey breast sandwich on wheat bread topped with only lettuce and a ton of Giardiniera every day since approximately 2004. Never in our Subway-eating lives have the words "confectionary" or "fancy baked good" ever popped inside either of our heads when thinking of Subway, let alone its bread. Yet as you may have gleaned, reader, my father and I are not Ireland's Supreme Court, so our opinions on what constitutes a "confectionary or fancy baked good" don't really matter in this specific scenario.
The case that sparked this yeasty ruling centered around whether or not Subway's bread counts as a "staple food" and is therefore exempt from the Value Added Tax, saving the multi-billion dollar business some ... ... DOUGH. According to the act, the amount of sugar allowed in the legal definition bread must not exceed more than 2% of the weight of flour included in the dough. For reference, all of Subway's offerings, Italian, Whole Wheat, White, you name it, all stand at approximately 10% sugar content.
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To break it down for those of you who suck at math like me, this means all of Subway's bread offerings have 5x more sugar than the law, which exists to distinguish bread from other baked goods, allows. In other words, Subway's sugar content prevented it from snagging a ... ... SWEET tax deal.
"The argument depends on the acceptance of the prior contention that the Subway heated sandwich contains 'bread' as defined, and therefore can be said to be food for the purposes of the Second Schedule rather than confectionary. Since that argument has been rejected, this subsidiary argument must fail," the court said. In short, shoutout to Ireland's Supreme Court for RISING to the occasion on this matter. I guess it was the YEAST they could do.
To see Carly continually PROVE her ability to make more bad bread puns, follow her on Instagram @HuntressThompson and on Twitter @TennesAnyone.
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