For more than 14 years, Deane has partnered with Subway across Australia and New Zealand, supporting one of the world’s most recognisable brands with uniforms that work just as hard as their teams do.

When Subway set out to refresh its brand presence, the uniform programme became a key lever — an opportunity to modernise the look, elevate performance, and support a seamless rollout across hundreds of sites.

The challenge

Subway wanted to move away from its traditional green uniforms and introduce a more contemporary, sporty, activewear inspired look, aligned with a wellness focused brand direction.

At the same time, their supply chain partner, IPCI, needed:

• Cost certainty
• Minimal residual stock
• A smooth transition across Australia and New Zealand
• Confidence in quality, fit and durability

The complexity?

IPCI manages logistics and procurement — not apparel design. Subway owned the brand vision. Deane sat in the middle, guiding both.

Our role

Deane acted as apparel experts, strategic advisors and supply chain managers throughout the programme.

Our involvement included:

• Guiding fabric selection, fits and performance considerations
• Supporting and refining uniform designs alongside Subway’s concepts
• Developing full technical specifications for tender
• Conducting early testing and quality control advocacy
• Managing forecasting, warehousing and distribution across ANZ

While Deane was not guaranteed manufacturing from the outset, IPCI ultimately awarded us the warehousing and distribution tender, recognising the value of our end to end expertise and long standing relationship.

The solution

The final uniform range featured:

• A black, versatile colour palette — practical, modern and staff approved
• Sporty, activewear influenced silhouettes inspired by performance apparel
• Fabrics selected for comfort, durability and day to day wear in fast paced environments

To manage supply constraints and avoid excess stock, Deane implemented:

• Careful demand forecasting and staged ordering
• A staggered, state by state rollout across Australia, followed by New Zealand
• Ongoing quality control, holding suppliers to Deane’s standards — even when it wasn’t the easiest path

Ordering was managed through Deane’s Silk Portal, enabling stores to transition at pace while maintaining control over inventory.

The outcome

Despite early production delays outside Deane’s control, the programme successfully transitioned into business as usual operations.

Results included:

• Strong staff feedback, particularly on the black colourway and fabric comfort
• A modernised, brand aligned uniform range now live across ANZ
• Stable ongoing distribution and stock management
• A refreshed uniform that supports Subway’s evolving brand — without compromising cost control

Why Deane

This project reinforced what long term partners already know:

Deane doesn’t just supply uniforms — we bring apparel expertise, commercial insight and operational discipline to complex, large scale programmes.

When multiple stakeholders, tight margins and brand expectations collide, we help make it work.