London July 27 2023: Subway is awarding one lucky superfan with free sandwiches for life – if they agree to making a major lifetime commitment.
Enthusiasts can enter a contest in August where they will be awarded with free subs – but they will have to change their first name to ‘Subway’ first.
Between August 1 and August 4, hardcore fans can visit SubwayNameChange.com and enter the competition if they commit to legally changing their name.
The chain will then select one winner and reimburse them for the legal fees and processing costs needed for the name change so they can ‘assume an iconic new identity,’ Subway said in a statement.
This will make it ‘easy and effortless’ for the winner to ‘become Subway and enjoy a lifetime of delicious subs’, the company added.
It is not the first time the company has tested the dedication of it fans – especially when free sandwiches are up for grabs.
Last year, one superfan camped out for two days to get a footlong tattoo of the Subway Series logo in exchange for free Subway for life.
It comes after the chain, which has around 37,000 franchise-run locations in more than 100 countries, said earlier this year that it was exploring a sale as it faced surging costs and mounting competition from deeper-pocketed rivals.
A potential sale was predicted to value the company at more than $10 billion.
The firm started falling behind its competitors around 2015, after years of controversies regarding its ingredients, including its tuna and bread.
‘As a privately held company, we don’t comment on ownership structure and business plans,’ Subway said in a statement in January.
‘We continue to be focused on moving the brand forward with our transformational journey to help our franchisees be successful and profitable.’
While Subway has been owned by its two founding families for more than five decades, John Chidsey became the first outsider CEO in 2019.
Chidsey, the former CEO of Burger King, elected to close down locations and restructure the company to focus on its menu and food quality.
In the last three years, the company has shut down more than 2,600 franchises as part of the overhaul.
One of the latest changes was freshly sliced meats at Subway, showcased on its new Deli Hero subs.
In a statement Subway said it had invested more than $80 million to bring deli meat slicers to more than 20,000 US restaurants.
And according to the company, the changes are working.
In the first quarter of this year, same-store sales globally jumped 12.1 percent compared to a year earlier, and the company recorded an 11.4 percent increase in digital sales.
