From 1 January 2027, every new Subway restaurant and every remodel across Europe, the Middle East and Africa will follow a single new format called Blueprint, the company confirmed today. The standard arrives alongside a plan to nearly double Subway's footprint across EMEA within five years, following what the company describes as a year of positive sales performance and restaurant growth.

Blueprint, described as the centrepiece of Subway's multi-year business strategy for the region, covers three areas: the restaurant design, expanded dayparts, and a unified brand platform. The first Blueprint locations opened this summer in the Netherlands and the UK.

What does Blueprint change in the restaurant?

The format reworks the counter and front-of-house around Subway's 60-year-old customisation proposition, extending it from the sandwich to the whole visit. Salad ingredients, sauces and freshly baked bread move to the heart of the restaurant as visible freshness signals. Layouts and signage are designed to make service more intuitive for guests and easier for Sandwich Artists to run, freeing staff to focus on the customer in front of them.

Ordering splits across three channels, all built to preserve full menu customisation:

• Customisation counter — traditional ordering with a Sandwich Artist.
• Self-order kiosks — full-menu browsing and customisation at the guest's pace.
• App and delivery — remote ordering for home, work or travel.

An order-ready screen tracks each ticket as it completes, and a marked collection point handles pick-up. Cookies and coffee are positioned near the exit to capture add-on purchases.

What are the new dayparts and menus?

Blueprint stretches the restaurant across the whole trading day, a menu-engineering move aimed at lifting sales per unit beyond the core lunch occasion.

• Breakfast and coffee — a new morning range built around coffee made with 100% Arabica beans, served to guest specification, with a morning playlist.
• Grab & Go — a separate menu of meals made fresh in-restaurant and ready to take immediately, targeted at fast-moving sites such as transport hubs.
• Subway After Dark — an evening concept now piloting in the Netherlands. From 6 p.m., lighting warms, the playlist changes, Sandwich Artists switch to dedicated After Dark wardrobe, and digital menu boards switch to a more indulgent, customisable menu: Mac 'n' Cheese, footlong pizzas and loaded waffle fries, all made to order, plus drinks and desserts.

New occasions, including After Dark and Grab & Go, will roll out site by site based on local demand rather than as a blanket mandate.

Who pays, and what's the economics?

Subway restaurants in EMEA are franchised, and the company is framing Blueprint explicitly as a franchisee-economics play rather than a cosmetic refresh. President of Subway EMEA Tracy Gehlan said: "For our franchisees, it means stronger restaurant economics and a stronger brand built for the long term." She added: "Guests want to eat their way, on their own schedule, and Blueprint is how we deliver on that. For our franchisees, it means stronger restaurant economics and a stronger brand built for the long term."

The company did not disclose build or remodel costs per unit. The rollout timeline — all new builds and remodels conforming from 1 January 2027 — effectively makes the format mandatory for any franchisee investing in the estate, tying capital expenditure to the new design, the expanded dayparts and the digital ordering stack.

What is the brand campaign?

The guest-facing layer is "Get Your Own Way," a long-term brand platform for EMEA built on the line "life's too short to eat food made for someone else." The campaign is already live across the region and runs through advertising, social content, packaging, the app and the restaurants themselves, giving the brand what executives call one consistent voice.

The concept, the company says, began with listening to guests and franchisees rather than with a design brief. With the campaign live, pilots running in the Netherlands, the UK format already open, and the 2027 mandate set, the next measurable test will be whether the daypart expansion and remodeled units can carry the footprint toward that near-doubling target over five years.