Subway's Sales Growth Has Been Sluggish Post-Jared Fogle Scandal

The company added stores, but not revenue

In the last year, as the country's largest restaurant chain pushed on with efforts to rid its food of antibiotics alongside dealing with a legal settlement and a disgraced former spokesperson, its sales numbers dipped, according to BuzzFeed News, which cited data from the consultancy firm Technomic.

Subway added new locations in the last year, bringing its total in the U.S. up to 27,103, but the company's sales reportedly declined by 3.4 percent to $11.5 billion in 2015. Its 2014 sales were $11.9 billion, which marks a 3 percent decline from the previous year.

While Subway is in the midst of making its restaurants more environmentally and socially responsible using a number of initiatives, the sandwich chain has faced some challenges in its evolving business strategy. Subway recently upped the price of its famous $5 footlongs to $6 to balance costs, and was forced to pay upwards of $520,000 in a legal settlement with customers who claimed those subs were not actually a foot long.

This shift from $5 to $6 footlongs, along with competition from other sandwich chains, could be to blame for the decline in sales, as Techmonic's president told BuzzFeed. Meanwhile, Subway will press on with its switch to cage-free eggs and its grand plan to stop serving foods containing antibiotics.

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