alt Hacker NewsA sandwich shop can’t be a bakery but a bakery can make sandwiches it’s the other way around. A bakery needs scale, subway can reheat ok bread but they will never have scale to make their own or make great bread. Bread needs to be fresh for best results. Sandwich ingredients are stable and easily procured. A sandwich shop Benifits from a good layout but can do without. A bakery needs heavy production equipment that is not easily replaced.
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> but they will never have scale to make their own or make great bread
Every time someone figures out how to do something that's subjectively graded at scale the definition of "great" changes because a large part of it is partly based on exclusivity and a smaller part is based on frequency/familiarity (i.e. people get sick of or discount the subjective quality of things they encounter with frequency).
>subway can reheat ok bread but they will never have scale to make their own or make great bread
They uh, literally did, 25 years ago. Breadmaking at Subway scale requires a single large mixer, some countertop space, some proofing racks, an oven, and a few hours at certain times.
Like, lmao bakeries are tiny! They have been premier examples of small business for basically all of human history! It's something you can just drop into the morning setup if your food business has any interest at all in "fresh" ingredients or higher quality like the vast majority of small businesses try to focus on. It scales down extremely well, which is why Kitchenaide does great business in their "Pro" series of mixers.
In fact, 25 years ago, the New England grocery store chain Hannaford also had a fully functional and running in house bakery, including in their small stores. Fresh baked bread and pastries and cakes and baked goods every single day.
Both companies have switched out the process without actually switching out or removing the required hardware (they both still have the racks and ovens and still install them in new locations!) to one where the bread is made in a distribution hub and sent out frozen.
It was an easy service to offer when Americans could afford to pay for that kind of thing because most Americans had fine jobs. But Subway can't afford the labor rates for someone who genuinely knows how to make fresh bread, because they have to/want to pay absolute bargain basement labor rates. Their business cannot survive if they priced their sandwiches in line with how much they were 25 years ago, with the same quality of ingredients they had 25 years ago.
Americans can't afford to pay american labor, which means fewer americans end up getting paid good labor rates, which means those americans can afford less, which means etc etc etc.
Meanwhile executive compensation has only ballooned. Gee whiz.
I think Jimmy John's does a good job making excellent bread. I'm not sure that it is bakery quality, but it is definitely noticeable. I've bought their day-old bread instead of grocery store baked bread. I think Subway's bread is pretty good, too, except they skimp on the flour.