The Irish Supreme Court has ruled that sandwich rolls from popular franchise chain Subway does not legally count as bread, said the Guardian. The court said that the rolls contain too much sugar and so is more accurately classified as a confection akin to a cupcake. Irish law says that for bread to count as bread no more than 2 percent of its flour weight can be sugar; Subway sandwich rolls use five times that amount.

The dispute over whether a Subway roll counts as bread arose due to a tax dispute. Bookfinders Ltd, Subway's Irish franchisee, said that because the rolls are bread, the sandwiches should count as a staple food like potatoes or eggs and therefore not be subject to sales tax.

Taxes are in fact how a lot of food classification cases come about. For example, a court in the UK in 2008 ruled that Pringles are not potato chips but more akin to a cake since they're made with a dough and potatoes make up fewer than 50 percent of its contents. Because of this, Pringles are not taxed as potato chips. Taxes also factored into the 19th century Supreme Court case Nix v. Hadden where Justices had to determine if a tomato was a vegetable, which was subject to a tariff, or a fruit, which was not. The court ruled that while a tomato is technically a fruit, most people interact with is as if it were a vegetable (how would you feel if there was tomato in your fruit salad?) and so should be taxed as one.

Taxes are also why, strangely enough, a burrito is considered a sandwich in the state of New York. This puts the Empire State at odds with Massachusetts, whose courts determined that a burrito is most definitely not a sandwich. In this case, a shopping center made a deal with Panera Bread to not put another sandwich shop in the complex. It put, instead, a Qdoba, which makes burritos. Panera sued, saying it was a violation of the agreement, but the court sided with the shopping center in saying that since a burrito is not a sandwich, the defendant is not in violation.