The 'Cheap' Sprouts Sandwich That Boosted Overall Sales

For many years, the most popular place to get $5 sandwiches was none other than Subway. These days, however, the go-to spot is somewhere different — and it's not even a sandwich shop but rather supermarket chain Sprouts Farmers Market. In addition to ready-made sandwiches, the store's deli department offers a build-your-own option for $4.99. As demonstrated in a video posted by Sprouts on TikTok, you simply fill out a form by selecting your choice of bread, meat, cheese, and condiments, hand that form over to the employee at the counter, and wait as your sandwich is prepared.

Most people wouldn't think to head to their local grocery store to buy a freshly made sandwich, but one viral video has officially changed that. Back in 2021, user @rosetoasted shared her lunch order from Sprouts in a TikTok and has continued to post about the different sandwiches she gets for only $4.99 in the months since. A year later, the TikTokker's original video has begun to trend, inspiring others to try the cheap sandwich and post about their experience under the #sproutssandwich hashtag.

Head to the deli section of the Sprouts website and you'll see no mention of the famous sandwich. According to Jeff Nachreiner, Sprouts's director of deli sales and merchandising, the chain has done no marketing for the $4.99 sandwich. "It's been kind of a grassroots thing," he told Grocery Dive, "The videos got people talking and it has just grown like wildfire from there." Thanks to those videos, Sprouts experienced a boom in sales, primarily from mid July to early August, when the trend peaked. In fact, Nachreiner shared, the store's sandwich sales grew by double digits.

The popularity of the sandwich has given Sprouts the perfect opportunity to increase its price, but the stores have yet to do so — and they may never do so. This is likely due to the fact that the sandwiches were just increased to the $4.99 price in 2020 when Sprouts execs hoped to draw customers to their deli. If you look back to any store reviews dating before then, you'll see the same build-your-own sandwich was originally offered for $2.99. 

For anyone who ordered lunch from Sprouts back then, $4.99 probably seems expensive. But for everyone, else it seems those sandwiches are quite the bargain.