Hallelujah: Subway foot-longs are ACTUALLY going to be 12 inches now

Sure, Subway’s “$5 foot-long” jingle has been stuck in our heads for years and years (and it probably just got stuck in your head just now, sorry about that), but there’s one problem: Subway foot-longs aren’t always a foot long. This was brought to light in 2013 after an Australian teen posted a pic of the sandwich being only 11 inches long, leading the image to be spread throughout media outlets all over the world. A class-action lawsuit was filed against the company by 10 individuals, and it was all quite dramatic, guys.

Now, this week, Subway is promising that the sandwiches will be at least 12 inches long for the next four years as part of the settlement granted on February 25th. No monetary claims were awarded to the individuals who brought the class action. . . for a pretty good reason. “It was difficult to prove monetary damages, because everybody ate the evidence,” Thomas Zimmerman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told The Guardian.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers also realized that their clients’ claims “were quite weak,” and instead decided to concentrate on ensuring that Subways’ sandwiches would be a full foot-long instead of getting money out of the deal.

In a statement, Subway explained that it’s pleased with the results:

So why were the sandwiches too short in the first place? According to judge for the US District Court Eastern District of Wisconsin Lynn Adelman, the lawyers learned that Subway makes its bread with frozen “dough sticks,” and during the thawing process, it can slightly change the size and shape of the bread. However, it still has the same amount of ingredients, although a shorter bread loaf may end up having slightly less toppings. But, as Adelman noted, customers can simply ask for more ingredients while their sandwich is being made.

“Thus, the plaintiffs learned that, as a practical matter, the length of the bread does not affect the quantity of food the customer receives,” Adelman wrote, according to The Guardian.

But either way, Subway is ensuring that our foot-longs will actually be a foot long, so that jingle can be *truly* accurate.