Food Urban Eats is one of those sandwich brands which I've encountered a lot over the years in railways stations, convenience stores, libraries and universities without actually knowing much about them. The packaging offers the address for Samworth Brothers Group in Melton Mowbray who's website shows that sandwiches are just part of a portfolio which includes Ginsters, West Cornwall Pasty Co., Soreen and Saladworks to the name the ones I've heard of. They also produce own brand meals for high street supermarkets (although they neglect to say which). As with many legacy brands, their origins are somewhat complicated and include starting then selling Walkers crisps and you read a synopsis on their Wikipedia page.
Except Urban Eats as a brand was only a recent acquisition, bought last year from the sandwich maker Adelie after they went into administration at the loss of over 2000 jobs. Most of the news stories I've seen put this down to COVID-19 restrictions presumably because many of the places their products were available, in railways stations, convenience stores, libraries and universities were closed for just that little bit too long and so orders dropped. That will also account for the redesign of the packaging with its neon colours and bold lettering, in contrast with the slightly more reserved previous packaging livery brought in when Adelie ploughed £5m into their own rebrand about a year before they closed.
There was no reason for me to know any of this before writing the previous two paragraphs but I wonder about the extent to which the sandwiches themselves have changed between the two companies. When they were Adelie, Urban Eats sandwiches were never very nice. Some of the cheese and pickle varieties perhaps but anything with meat was always dry, the bread a bit stale around the edges and it was the sandwich you bought when absolutely nothing else was available and even then, what with the price, you might consider going hungry. Somewhere I used to work would have so much stock left at the end of the day they would simply give them away so they didn't go to waste.
Well, imagine my surprise when I bit into this and the flavours burst into my mouth. One of the rare occasions that the bread makes an impressed, the malted elements breaking through. But its the combination of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mayo fillings which made me say "yum" and "wow" out loud for the first time in a few days, so moist and just so, well, "yum". I'm a relatively quick eater but this is an occasion when I let the food hang about in my mouth for a while lubricating my taste buds. By losing the bacon or sausage or any of the additions elsewhere, Urban Eats and whoever owns them now have found a sweet spot and I look forward to trying the rest of the range again.
