WHETHER it's plain cheese and tomato, an old-fashioned jam or an exotic chicken tikka masala, most working folk munch on a sandwich at lunchtime.

And whether you make up your own sarnies every morning or nip out to your local bakery during your lunch break, the humble butty is without a doubt the most popular hunger buster.

Competition for the lunchtime sandwich trade is fierce, with large superstores and smaller bakeries all jostling for their slice of the action.

The Blackburn branch of Marks and Spencer alone sells a staggering 2,500 sandwiches every week, with prawn and mayonnaise, bacon lettuce and tomato and smoked ham and cheese the most popular.

Asda, Tesco and BHS all sell their fair share of sandwiches.

Varieties are getting more and more exotic all the time, with ethnic flavours and herbs and spices making their mark.

But a peep in most people's butty boxes will reveal that old favourites like cheese and tomato, ham salad and ploughman's lunch are still the most popular. According to East Lancashire bakers Oddies, the good old ham salad variety is still number one with many shoppers. The former Champion British Bakers sell a whopping 13,000 butties from their 13 stores across East Lancashire.

Although they are all made using Oddies' own bread baked at the company's Nelson bakery, staff at each store have the mammoth task of making up the individual sandwiches.

Company owner Bill Oddie said his staff had their work cut out satisfying hungry customers' lunchtime appetites.

"It is a mammoth task," he said. "All the bread goes out from our distribution centre in Nelson but the staff at each store make up the sandwiches themselves.

"There is a lot of buttering and chopping to be done.

"At the moment customers seem to like the tuna specials but we also do a special sandwich every week to give people a bit of variety.

"We try to be inventive. For example, this week's special is Hawaiian cheese with pineapple, but the old favourites are always popular."

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