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SANDWICHES

A sandwich can apparently be consumed in just 3.5 minutes, so it fits ideally into our modern lifestyle. We now appear to have little time for ‘sit down’ lunches or even breakfasts, preferring  to ‘graze’ in the street or ‘munch’ while we work. In the UK we eat nearly 4 billion sandwiches every year

Research, however, shows that we eat more if we are ‘on the hoof’ and our digestive system is disrupted by other activity. Blood flow is redirected away from our stomachs where it is needed to digest food. This can lead to stomach problems such as painful reflux, indigestion and weight gain.

HISTORY

Marks and Spenser created the first modern “Chilled Packaged” sandwich in 1981 and stimulated a new audience for what had become a tired food option. Since then the market for sandwiches has grown both in sophistication and in value. It is currently worth some £8bn per annum in the UK. If we add burger sales to this [they are, after all, merely “hot sandwiches”] the value rises to £11.5 bn. This represents some 3.800,000,000 cold and 1,000,000,000 hot sandwiches eaten each year in the UK.

The sandwich story probably starts with the medieval trencher, which was a plate of thick bread on which the meal was served. This was eaten as part of it and saved washing up ! Flatbreads from southern Europe and the middle east could also be seen as direct ancestors. However, the Duke of Sandwich doesn’t mention them in his journal made while traveling in the region.  He is, however, credited with the invention of the modern sandwich. Folklore has it that his concoctions were to allow him to eat whist playing cards. However it is more likely that he had his meat between two pieces of toast in his office at the admiralty at 4.00pm when he would have had his main meal of the day.

The first mention of the term ‘sandwich’ comes in Edward Gibbon’s diary in 1762 when he records clients at the Cocoa Tree Club eating cold meat in a ‘sandwich’. Tiny crustless fingers were eaten at tea time in well todo households throughout Regency and Victorian Britain. Everyday sandwiches were more robust but when offered for public sale they soon dried out and became sad, curled up creations often found in British Rail buffets.

MANUFACTURE

M&S’s new sandwiches stayed fresh in the chiller cabinet and the five shops that had been set up to make and sell them were soon overwhelmed.  The first sandwich factory was then set up in 1982 in the Telfers Pie Factory in Northampton. Since then the production process has remained labour intensive  with some 20,000 workers who. in groups of 10-15, can make some 30 sandwiches every minute.

Some 80% of sales apparently are from the top 20% of the fillings and each retailer has their own favoured ones. M&S is Prawn Mayo, which has remained their ‘best seller’ for 36 years. Sainsbury’s most popular is Ham and Cheese and Pret et Manger’s three favourite crusty bagettes are Chicken Caesar and Bacon, Tuna and Cucumber and Cheddar and Pickle