Starbucks Free-Range Egg, Cress & Mayo Sandwich

The Starbucks Free Range Egg, Cress and Mayo Sandwich costs £4.40 and carries 436 calories with 17g of protein and 4.7g of fibre. Free range egg with Dijon mustard mayonnaise and cress on malted bread.

At £4.40 it is the joint cheapest sandwich on the menu alongside the ham and Cheddar, and the two are worth comparing directly. This one carries more fibre at 4.7g against 3.9g and less saturated fat at 2.9g against 4.8g; the ham version is 55 calories lighter with 3g more protein. Neither is clearly better and the choice comes down to which figure you are watching.

19g of total fat is high for a cold sandwich and it is almost entirely the mayonnaise. Egg itself carries about 5g per egg, so the rest arrives with the binding, which is what makes egg mayonnaise the fattiest simple filling in any sandwich case. It is also what makes it taste of anything at all, since egg alone is bland.

Malted bread does most of the work on fibre, and it is the reason this sits well above the wraps. Malted grain bread carries considerably more than a white tortilla, and at 4.7g one sandwich covers around a sixth of a daily target.

Cress is not a garnish in a sandwich like this. It brings a peppery bitterness that cuts the mayonnaise, and an egg sandwich without it tastes noticeably flatter, which is why the pairing has survived unchanged for decades.

Free range on an egg sandwich is a claim with a legal definition behind it rather than a marketing phrase. It requires continuous daytime access to open air runs for the hens, which is a meaningfully different standard from barn or caged production, and it is the sort of thing a chain states because it costs more to source. The label is on the menu because it had to be paid for.

Allergens are egg, barley, wheat and mustard, the mustard being the Dijon in the mayonnaise. It carries no dietary labels and so is not marked vegetarian, which is worth a question at the counter if that matters to you. Prices reach £5.10 on delivery.