London, Nov. 22: It survived the birth of the industrial revolution, prospered through the height of the British Empire and emerged unscathed from two world wars.

But now, more than two centuries after it was invented by an earl too busy to leave his card table, Britain may be falling out of love with the sandwich.

Statistics released by Tesco show that the egg and cress sandwich ? for years the supermarket?s most popular lunchtime snack ? has been knocked off the No. 1 spot by a foreign interloper.

Last month, the best-seller was the American-style chicken caesar salad wrap. A wrap is a Mexican tortilla made from flour and water.

?This is a sad day for the sandwich as it?s held its own against all manner of foreign invaders for so long now,? said James Cornish, the sandwich buyer for Tesco.

?Whether the wrap will hold on to its new-found status as the champion of all lunchtime snacks remains to be seen.?

Although a staple of packed lunches and picnics for generations, shop-bought sandwiches started to become big business only in the 1980s when many employers shut down canteens.

Sales shot up again in the 1990s with the proliferation of coffee shops such as Pret a Manger and Starbucks, which introduced Britain to exotic fillings.

Tesco, Britain?s biggest seller of sandwiches, said wraps emerged in the late-1990s as a healthier alternative. Over the past five years other snacks ? such as the American ?sub?, the croissant, pitta bread and bagels ? have moved in for a slice of the ?3.3 billion-a-year market.

According to the British Sandwich Association, around 2,432 million sandwiches are sold each year. Tesco alone sells 2.2 million a week.

But Cornish said: ?Over the last two to three years we?ve seen demand growing for sandwich alternatives, especially wraps and bagels.?

The sandwich was created in 1762 when John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, asked for bread, cheese and meat to be brought to his table in a London gambling club so that he could continue his hand while eating.