Innovation

SUBWAY restaurants Eat Fresh Live Green program made their restaurants and operations as environmentally and socially responsible as possible. While they made profits by providing fresh, good quality food, they put a lot of effort to minimize the impact the business has on the environment. One of their social responsibility program is sustainable sourcing practices in which they produce and consume their ingredients on the menu in a way that can be sustainable today and in the future. Their sustainable sourcing practices are divided into four different sections: produce, meat and poultry, seafood, and bakery and other products/and ingredients.

Many of their suppliers are farming families who have been responsible for the land for generations and share their 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 maintain local ecosystems, minimize pesticide and fertilizer use, and employ irrigation practices that reduce electricity and water use. They also use locally grown produce to support local businesses and communities and to minimize the greenhouse gas emissions from shipping.

Meat and poultry also requires a lot of water and energy, and creates tremendous amount of waste. However, one of their poultry suppliers built the first facility in the US to convert poultry waste into certified organic fertilizer. Also, one of their chicken suppliers has created a 50-acre wetlands habitat with rapid infiltration beds, which effectively treats the discharge water produced in their facility. The filtration system provides a high level of waste-water treatment for low operational costs and very low energy usage. It also sustains a wide variety of wildlife species.

Even though tuna is the only seafood sandwich that is on their menu worldwide, they also care about maintaining sustainable fish stocks. They support the establishment of marine reserves, specifically in the Pacific Commons, and actively advocate a ban on the purchase of fish from illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) vessels. Subway is also known for their great tasting cookies and variety choices of bread, and they use palm oil for those products due to its high quality and to eliminate added Trans fats. They also put efforts to improve the sustainability of the palm oil with their approved suppliers over the past several years. Since they believe that best practice today is to source palm oil from RSPO members (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), their approved suppliers purchase the palm oil from RSPO members.

Inspiration

The numerous sustainable sourcing innovations that Subway implements into its hundreds of farms and packaging facilities begin in a research and development facility. The company went through several prototypes before perfecting the machinery to be as accurate as possible. The machinery is constantly being updated physically and with new software, areas of improvement include graded conveyor belts on harvesting equipment and color detecting technology. Another improvement was the use of uncaged delivery trucks holding down shipments with chains and straps while leaving the sides open for fresh air. This prevents the produce from losing freshness when tightly boxed and sealed inside shipping containers.

The motivation and purpose behind this innovation is to constantly improve the quality of the ingredients while reducing costs and carbon emissions. Technology is constantly improving and changing leaving static restaurants behind as new companies improve and make the restaurant experience more enjoyable. Subway currently holds the most restaurant locations out of all fast food corporations with over 45,000 locations in over a hundred countries world wide while McDonalds currently has around 35,000 locations. These franchises are able to stay afloat because of the constant improvements of Subway locations with cheaper costs and faster shipping of ingredients. These new innovations are allowing Subway to continuously grow while helping the environment and small businesses and communities around the world.

The purpose of doing the sustainable sourcing practices is to minimize the business consumption. Their goal is to provide their customers fresh, high quality food. They believe that a healthy environment is necessary to produce such kinds of products and ingredients. To meet their goals, they automatically put effort to be responsible for their consumption.

Overall impact

The new innovations that are integrated into Subway cover all aspects of the corporation from the farm where the produce is grown, to the transportation, to the restaurants. The new innovations are implemented into hundreds of farms across America, many being family owned. The corporation is benefiting from these new changes as they help the company to save hundreds of thousands of dollars from the amount of food that is saved and does not perish. Many ingredients and produce that are grown have a life of about 12-14 days from the time they are harvested, packaged, shipped, and served to a customer on a sandwich. There is a constant ticking clock so time is a very important factor in this process along with making sure all the food is the highest quality. The main goal of this new innovation is to use lean processes to reduce as much waste as possible, harvesting crops properly and keeping the fields in proper health and not damaging any fields or the environment.

The short term effects of this innovation required a lot of research and development while experimenting with various types of equipment. A lot of money went into this equipment that could possibly not work properly. An example is Taylor Farms, a family owned farm, that used various types of equipment that were experimented with such as a unique harvester using a color scanner that identifies any discoloration in the crops that are being harvested or other unwanted materials that will be ejected from the conveyer belt, while gaps mark the area where this was found.

The long term effects were that these new innovations were able to save millions of dollars while helping family owned farms improve and thrive. Subway is a huge corporation so their ability to incorporate these small business with new innovations and technology really helps society and the communities surrounding these farms. Taylor farms was able to save an estimated 2.5 million kilowatt hours annually through motion sensor lights and energy saving washers. These changes help the environment through proper harvesting of crops and proper care of the these fields so none are damaged or improperly worked. Subway also has hundreds of farms around the country so they are able to cut down on carbon emissions as the shipping trucks are traveling shorter distances while saving time and money. Taylor farms was able to save $400,000 from Pacific Gas and Electric through these new changes and the efficiency of their machines. Alex spoke on the matter as they are able to restock on fresh produce within a day of the order time, “Very rarely do we run out of a product because of the fast and constant restocks timed with the amount of sandwiches we sell.”

Business benefit

Sustainable sourcing provides few benefits to the business. SUBWAY restaurant’s mission statement is “Delight every customer so they want to tell their friends - with great value through fresh, delicious, made-to-order sandwiches, and an exceptional experience”. The sustainable sourcing practices helped the brand to create the images of providing fresh and healthy food, and they are now well known for their fresh, and good quality sandwiches. In addition, they also can reduce some of the business expenses. For example, they reduced their shipping fees since they receive produce from the local farms instead of receiving it from tons of miles away.

Social and environmental benefit

Subway’s sustainable sourcing provides a benefit to the environment as there is less food being wasted in the process of transferring the fresh produce from farm to the stores. With their new technology from the agricultural equipment to the processing facilities the company is able to bring the produce from the farm to the restaurants in a few hours. Subway is also looking to integrate more family owned farms into this new technology and processing to help cut the amount of food that is lost during this process.

Interview

Alexander Benjumea, Part Time Employee