Best thing since sliced bread – getting serious about sandwiches

Recent research from Heinz [Seriously] Good Mayo revealed that the average Brit will eat a hunger-busting 18,300 sandwiches in their lifetime.

Is that all, we say??

We love a good sarnie. If lunchtime hits, nothing quite beats your favourite filling in between two doorsteps of fresh bread, a soft bun (or bap/barm/cake/roll/cob/stottie depending on where you live!), or a crunchy baguette.

(Although that said, we do love a good sausage roll or pie as well, and they make an excellent lunch…)

We sell at least 50,000 sandwiches every year (that’s enough to loop an Olympic-sized athletics’ track almost 19 times!) so we like to think we have a little insight into the world of sandwiches!

For most of us, the humble sandwich, is still our go-to lunch. It dates back to 1762 when John Montagu, the 4^th Earl of Sandwich, asked the cook to come up with a meal which wouldn’t interfere with his game at the gambling tables.

So we weren’t surprised the Heinz research showed 56 per cent of Brits eat at least one sandwich per day.

We also weren’t surprised that more than one in three have exactly the same filling every day. After all, if you find a combination that tickles your tastebuds, you’re going to want to keep recreating it. What was surprising to us, was what the favourite fillings were!

The poll found a BLT was the nation's top sandwich, with chicken mayo coming in as runner-up. Third in the list was bacon, followed by ham and cheese and then cheese and pickle.

Now, we’ve nothing against a BLT or chicken mayo, or ham or cheese or pickle or any of those combinations. All delicious in their own right WHEN DONE PROPERLY. (that last bit is important – there’s nothing worse than a soggy sandwich, or one that’s too dry, or one where you can barely find the filling.)

But, shock horror, roast beef and horseradish didn’t even make the top 10!! It was number 11, closely followed by chip butties! Now in our shop, roast beef is our number one top seller. So, we’re pretty sure that poll did not include a high percentage of Hunters’ customers!

Of course, our roast beef sandwich is no ordinary roast beef sandwich. We definitely wouldn’t want to be accused of scrimping on the filling, as the photo demonstrates. It’s not unusual for couples to share a Hunters’ sandwich, or for people to wrap up half to take home!

We roast the mouth-watering beef daily on our premises. Nothing beats the smell! Of course, it’s also important the bread is the best – and we use freshly baked white and wholemeal bread buns, which are beautifully soft, made nearby at the Devento Bakery in Malton.

Then whether you like to add salad, horseradish, tomato, butter, mustard – whatever your personal favourite, you can’t go wrong if you have the beef and the bread right.

We can usually make up any sandwich combination you have in mind, but the research did throw in a few unusual combinations that some Brits had named as their personal favourites. Leftover roast dinner we could perhaps understand but marmite and banana, onion rings and ketchup and lasagne – not so much…