Ikea is to serve its famous budget meatballs as a submarine sandwich for the first time from today, March 9, or “National Meatball Day”, which may or may not actually exist.
The meatball subs will sell from just 95p for “Ikea family members” — a la Tesco clubcard and similar — or £1.95 for regular customers.
The pricing makes it likely the cheapest sandwich in Britain, undercutting the McDonald’s cheeseburger by 24p and Greggs’ bacon bap by more than £1.
The sub-style soft buns will be filled with four of Ikea’s famous meatballs, which are labelled as containing a mixture of beef and pork, together with lingonberry jam and gherkins.
They’ll be available at all Ikea branches, including the modern city sites in Hammersmith and on Oxford Street which operate as much as fast food restaurants as furniture stores.
Ikea’s meatballs are actually the Swedish conglomerate’s best-selling item, well exceeding other popular products such as the Tillslag trestle and the Billy Bookcase.
The flatpack furniture giant sells more than 1.4 billion meatballs every year, more than double the number of Greggs sausage rolls (around 520 million) over the same timeframe and about a billion less than the total number of McDonald’s burgers sold in the UK annually.
Karen Hughes, food manager for Ikea UK and Ireland, said: “We know how much our customers love our meatballs and after celebrating their 40th birthday in December we could think of no better way to reinvent them for the modern palette this National Meatball Day.
“By bringing together bold Swedish flavours — savoury meatballs, lingonberry and gherkins — in a sub, we’re making it even easier to enjoy a taste of Sweden on the go, at a price tag that stays true to Ikea.”
The meatballs subs will be available until April 30, though could continue if popular.
