How the sandwich went from humble to haute

When Max Halley opened north London favorite Max’s Sandwich Store in 2014, the largest query on his thoughts was how one can get folks to take the sandwich extra significantly. Having watched burgers and fried hen evolve from one thing you’ll purchase at a quick meals store or in a soccer stadium into “one thing a bit extra gastronomic”, he figured the sandwich was up subsequent for a revamp.

The sandwich as a staple meal was nothing new, however, as British Sandwich Affiliation founder and director Jim Winship says, the previous few a long time have seen the £7bn-a-year trade “develop up”. The boundaries have broadened on what’s thought-about a sandwich – it’s not unusual to have our favorite plated meals packaged right into a carbohydrate provider for our consumption. A latest merchandise on Dalston bakery The Dusty Knuckle’s menu was a katsu aubergine sandwich, whereas Tesco has the “Sausage, Bacon and Egg Triple”; a full English breakfast tucked into slices of malted bread.

Innovation, spurred on by world influences and a widening within the availability of components, is simpler within the sandwich bars, versus the manufactured grab-and-go sandwiches discovered within the likes of Pret. “They’re a way more troublesome product to provide, in a method,” Winship, in his early 70s, explains. “It’s a must to discover combos of components that can keep recent and survive being moved round. There’s loads of expertise that’s going into that space usually, to verify the product is in excellent order once you get it.”

The primary of Britain’s modern-day commercialised sandwiches is usually thought to have been Marks and Spencer’s salmon and tomato sarnie, the primary of which offered again in 1980. The pre-packed sandwiches, trialled in 5 shops, proved an enormous success and by 1982, M&S had expanded the vary into 140 shops. The success of the packaged sandwich enterprise mannequin proved irresistible to others within the takeaway meals enterprise and Pret A Manger, the primary of which opened as a delicatessen in Westminster, launched in 1986.

At the moment, the title Pret is nearly synonymous with sandwiches. The chain has 419 shops throughout the UK and 76 types of sliced bread sandwiches, baguettes and rolls throughout the Pret and Veggie Pret menus. Katherine Bagshawe, Pret’s UK meals and low director, says menu gadgets are sorted into 4 classes: Basic, Indulgence, Quirky and Perceived Well being.

“I believe you need to have these buckets,” Bagshawe says. “There’ll at all times be a buyer who will desire a tuna and mayonnaise baguette, or a cheese and ham sandwich. That can at all times be what it will likely be, and I believe you simply should guarantee that that’s improbable. However I believe as a result of folks’s tastes are altering and expectations are altering, you do additionally must have these actually worldwide flavours coming in as properly.”

Clients’ loyalty to previous favourites is obvious from the info; Pret’s hen caesar and bacon baguette has been their best-selling product to date this yr, adopted by the pole and line caught tuna and the luxurious cheddar and pickle baguettes. Nonetheless, the chain is large on innovation and brings out a raft of recent menu gadgets each season. Pret’s product growth course of works in phases, Bagshawe explains. The workforce comes collectively to debate flavour profiles, traits and product concepts, alongside inner and exterior insights. Builders armed with new concepts head off to create kitchen samples; home-style variations of the proposed product, which the product growth and meals technician groups take a look at earlier than choosing the cream of the crop.

Because the quantity and complexity of sandwich fillings develop, customers appear extra keen to splash the money. An unpacking of knowledge from MealTrak, the market dataset for the Out of Residence Meals & Drink Trade, exhibits that whereas the common price per merchandise for meals to go has remained just about the identical during the last 5 years at round £3.50, the common individual’s spend on sandwiches has elevated. Shoppers panelled in 2022 reported a willingness to spend 15 per cent extra on a sandwich, a class inclusive of wraps, rolls, baguettes and flatbreads, than these surveyed in 2018. The common spend on sizzling sandwiches particularly has solid forward by greater than 50 per cent, from £3.60 to £5.60.

Menus on the likes of Pret and Waitrose have grown to undertake the kind of sandwich inspiring an even bigger spend, however others, comparable to The Dusty Knuckle, have this as their bread and butter. A bakery, cafe and baking faculty with outposts in Dalston and Haringey, The Dusty Knuckle is beloved for take-home bread in addition to its large, salty slabs of focaccia filled with a altering menu of sandwich fillings.

Rebecca Oliver, Max Tobias and Daisy Terry launched The Dusty Knuckle in 2014 as a bakery and social enterprise. Max had been working in gang prevention for a while and needed to carry a component of this into the enterprise, which prompted a partnership with Switchback, a jail rehabilitation charity that supplied younger males leaving jail mentoring and the chance to work.

It was round six to eight months after they began making bread, that they offered their first sandwich – a sourdough quantity with charred pink onions and bacon. Rebecca, who was senior chef at Moro earlier than The Dusty Knuckle was born, describes these first creations as “regular sandwiches, made a bit posher”.

These early sandwiches largely had an Italian flavour, as that’s what Rebecca knew and cherished cooking. However totally different cooks got here and threw totally different flavours within the combine because the enterprise grew, and once they switched up their sourdough for focaccia, the queues down an not easily seen Dalston alley to their container grew to become even longer.

Rebecca says there may be loads of room for his or her sandwiches in prospects’ lives, alongside the essential from a grocery store or chain food-to-go retailer – a few of which she additionally frequents. “However it’s not the identical as spending £10 on a sandwich at The Dusty Knuckle,” she says. “Since you’re getting an enormous fats meal at The Dusty Knuckle and also you’re getting flavours, I believe, which can be made by individuals who actually care about cooking.”

When Dusty Knuckle’s sandwiches are inevitably offered out by mid-afternoon, the workforce at Max’s Sandwich store are simply getting began.  “Simply earlier than I opened the sandwich store, my pals within the restaurant enterprise had been like, ‘properly how are you going to influence folks {that a} sandwich generally is a meal, that they will have it for dinner?’” Max recollects. “And I mentioned, properly I’ll simply solely open at night time, so if they need one, it should be their dinner,” he says with amusing.

The Stroud Inexperienced restaurant’s opening hours are actually as a lot part of its identification as its Ham, Egg’n’Chip sarnie; a jazzed-up model of the basic pub meal that includes ham hock, piccalilli, fried eggs, shoestring fries and malt vinegar mayo. Whereas it opens for a weekend lunch service, from Wednesday to Friday the doorways keep shut till 6pm. When requested if he has thought-about opening for a weekday lunch service to capitalise on the shop’s reputation, Max says “completely not”.

“Within the politest method attainable, I can’t be assed,” he says. “We’re one of many few sandwich outlets that make their very own bread, and the turnaround time on a loaf of bread is at the least three hours. So, whereas we might do lunch, it will imply everybody must come into work at about 8’o’clock. Staying as we’re, we don’t have to begin till three.”

Whatever the time of day it’s eaten, Jim Winship believes innovation within the sandwich trade will proceed and extra importantly, that the beloved carb-wrapped meal is right here to remain. Whereas the trade had taken successful over the pandemic and is coming into one other troublesome interval with inflation in addition to meals and employees shortages, Jim believed it will get well.

“I believe sandwiches are fairly distinctive, in that you would be able to create so many alternative flavours and sizes and shapes and all the pieces else,” he says. “It’s the proper moveable meal that has all the pieces in it; salad and protein and carbohydrates etcetera, all packaged collectively in a kind that’s very easy to devour. There’s nothing that competes with that.”