July 18, 2022 – The sandwich chain Subway isn’t any stranger to scandals. In 2013, Subway settled a claim that alleged its footlong subs had been shorter than marketed. Then, in 2014, it endured a scandal over a “yoga mat” chemical present in its bread. Now, the world’s largest sandwich chain is going through one other controversy: whether or not the tuna fish it makes use of is really 100% tuna.
This month, U.S. District Decide Jon Tigar rejected Subway’s request to dismiss a lawsuit over the franchise chain’s tuna merchandise, ruling Nilima Amin of Alameda County, CA, might proceed the swimsuit she filed in January 2021.
The original complaint stated Subway tuna merchandise had been misbranded beneath federal and California legal guidelines, main prospects to pay extra for “premium priced meals dishes” and to imagine they’re consuming “solely tuna and no different fish species, animal merchandise, or miscellaneous merchandise.”
“Subway misrepresents its merchandise as ‘100% tuna,’” the renewed 2022 case reads. “[Consumers] had been tricked into shopping for meals gadgets that wholly lacked the ingredient they moderately thought they had been buying.”
Subway: ‘We Are Disillusioned’
The court docket dismissed components of the plaintiff’s declare, together with the allegation that Subway deceived prospects by promoting sandwiches that weren’t 100% tuna.
“Shoppers perceive that tuna salad is normally combined with mayonnaise, and {that a} tuna sandwich will comprise bread,” the choose’s ruling argued.
However he didn’t dismiss the overstated tuna claims.
Subway pushed again, insisting that any non-tuna DNA discovered is the results of contact between different components used to make tuna sandwiches and wraps.
“Subway serves 100% tuna,” a Subway spokesperson told Today. “We’re upset the Court docket felt it couldn’t dismiss the plaintiffs’ reckless and improper lawsuit at this stage. Nonetheless, we’re assured that Subway will prevail when the Court docket has a possibility to think about all of the proof.”
A Fishy Investigation
Beforehand, the plaintiff introduced a marine biologist’s evaluation of 20 tuna samples from 20 Subway places that discovered “no detectable tuna DNA sequences in anyway” in all however one. What’s extra, an investigation by The New York Occasions concluded “no amplifiable tuna DNA” was current in its lab-tested samples.
The lab commissioned by the Occasions provided two options for the damaging outcomes.
“One, it’s so closely processed that no matter we might pull out, we couldn’t make an identification. Or we obtained some and there’s simply nothing there that’s tuna,” a lab spokesperson instructed the newspaper.
However whenInside Edition despatched samples to a lab, the outcomes had been within the sandwich chain’s favor: The Subway tuna was, in reality, tuna. Subway cites Inside Version’s “extra correct” lab testing course of by way of Utilized Meals Applied sciences in protection of one in all its hottest choices.
“Utilized Meals Applied sciences is without doubt one of the solely labs within the nation with the flexibility to check broken-down fish DNA, which makes it extra correct in testing processed tuna,” Subway defined on its website. “AFT performed greater than 50 particular person checks on 150 kilos of Subway’s tuna for Inside Version and confirmed yellowfin and/or skipjack tuna in each pattern.”
Because the case continues, Subway has launched an promoting campaign defending its tuna subs as “100% actual.”
