Alright alright - according to the sugar police, Subway’s sandwiches fall outside the statutory definition of being bread. Why? Well, it’s because it has a sugar content of 10pc of the weight of the flour included in the dough. The Supreme Court in Ireland found that the bread Subway uses has too high of sugar content that the sandwich couldn’t be deemed a staple food which attracts a zero VAT rate.

Who would have thought? Ireland’s Supreme Court ruled that the starch in Subway sandwiches is too sugary to be considered as bread - a legal distinction that would have saved the firm some serious dough. This is true about all six of the company’s bread options offered - Italian white bread, Italian herbs and cheese, nine-grain wheat, hearty Italian, nine-grain multi-seed, and honey oat.

In deciding whether or not to give Subway's Sandwiches a tax break for serving a “staple” food item, the five-judge panel ruled that the sugar-to-flour content in their bread was about five times too high to qualify! In order for a company to be taxed at zero percent, under the VAT (Value-Added Tax) Act of 1972, the weight of both sugar and fat in a bread product cannot be more than 2% of the total weight of flour in the dough. The idea that Subway's bread is too sugary does not seem to come as a surprise to many.