Subway describes its tuna sandwich as “freshly baked bread” layered with “flaked tuna blended with creamy mayo then topped with your choice of crisp, fresh veggies.” It’s a description designed to activate the saliva glands — and separate you from your money.

It’s also fiction, at least partially, according to a recent lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint alleges the ingredient billed as “tuna” for the chain’s sandwiches and wraps contains absolutely no tuna.

A representative of Subway said the claims are without merit. Not only is its tuna the real deal, the company says, but it’s wild-caught, too.

The star ingredient, according to the lawsuit, is “made from anything but tuna.” Based on independent lab tests of “multiple samples” taken from Subway locations in California, the “tuna” is “a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna, yet have been blended together by defendants to imitate the appearance of tuna,” according to the complaint. Shalini Dogra, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, declined to say exactly what ingredients the lab tests revealed.

“We found that the ingredients were not tuna and not fish,” the attorney said in an email to The Washington Post.

Two plaintiffs are identified in the complaint: Karen Dhanowa and Nilima Amin, both residents of Alameda County in the Bay Area. But attorneys for Dhanowa and Amin hope to get their claim certified as a class action, which could open the case up to thousands of Subway customers in California who purchased tuna sandwiches and wraps after Jan. 21, 2017.

Dhanowa and Amin are suing Subway for fraud, intentional misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and other claims under federal and state laws. Among other accusations, the plaintiffs argue they “were tricked into buying food items that wholly lacked the ingredients they reasonably thought they were purchasing” based on Subway’s labeling, packaging and advertising.

What’s more, the plaintiffs argue, Subway is “saving substantial sums of money in manufacturing the products because the fabricated ingredient they use in the place of tuna costs less money.” They argue they paid premium prices for an ingredient that they prize for its health benefits (although the government suggests certain people limit their intake of tuna because of mercury contamination). In suburban Washington, for example, the price of a foot-long tuna sandwich at a Subway outlet costs $7.39. The same size cold-cut combo sandwich, by contrast, runs $6.19.

“Consumers are consistently misled into purchasing the products for the commonly known and/or advertised benefits and characteristics of tuna when in fact no such benefits could be had, given that the products are in fact devoid of tuna,” the lawsuit claims.

According to Subway’s nutritional information page on its website, the tuna salad for its sandwiches contains flaked tuna in brine, mayonnaise and an additive to “protect flavor.” A spokeswoman for Subway said the nutritional information is up to date.

“Tuna is one of our most popular sandwiches. Our restaurants receive pure tuna, mix it with mayonnaise and serve on a freshly made sandwich to our guests,” said Katia Noll, senior director for global food safety and quality at Subway, in a statement to The Post.

Over the years, Subway, the chain with the largest number of locations in America, has been a frequent target for lawsuits, some more serious than others.

In 2013, plaintiffs in a class-action complaint accused the chain of selling $5 foot-long sandwiches that were only 11 to 11½ inches long. (The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago eventually threw out a settlement in the case, calling it “utterly worthless.”) The sandwich chain recently had to defend its bread, too, after Ireland’s Supreme Court ruled that, as part of a protracted legal and tax battle, Subway’s hoagie-style rolls did not meet the country’s definition of a staple bread.

Over the years, franchisees have sued the company, too, claiming Subway’s regional structure and arbitrary inspection process unfairly pushed some owners out of business. In 2017, Subway filed a lawsuit of its own against the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., arguing that the public broadcaster defamed the chain in a report that claimed the company’s poultry products contained only 50 percent chicken DNA. The Ontario Superior Court dismissed Subway’s lawsuit, saying the CBC’s investigation met the “public interest test.” But the Ontario Court of Appeal recently reversed that decision and said Subway’s $210 million defamation case should get a thorough hearing.

The plaintiffs in the current case are seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorneys’ fees. They also want Subway to end its alleged practice of mislabeling its tuna sandwiches and surrender profits it earned from the practice. The plaintiffs have retained the services of the Lanier Law Firm, a firm with offices in several cities, including Los Angeles. Lanier has been involved in several high-profile lawsuits, including a case in which 22 women claimed Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer. A jury awarded the plaintiffs $4.69 billion in damages in 2018.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/01/27/subway-tuna-lawsuit/


UPDATE!!!!

https://youtu.be/ETqb9Umlo8A

Inside Edition has run tests and says at least a percentage of the sandwich does indeed contain tuna

All tuna is wild-caught because farmed tuna is biologically impossible(for now). So "wild-caught" is marketing bullshit.

Lawyer fail.  He should have gotten more to the point: Subway sandwiches aren't sandwiches.

I heard all of Subway’s meats are turkey based products.

Next they'll be telling us theres no beef in a Big Mac.

Anyone who voluntarily eats at Subway gets what they deserve

damn, it keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Subway has never and will never look appetizing.

Dolphin, hopefully.

So it's... wild caught?

Someone has a hardon against Subway based on the headlines for the last year or so.

Marine One is a helicopter.

It wouldn't surprise me

Fancy feast is literally higher quality beef than Taco Bell meat

I think the lawsuit said 35% of it was actually meat

They're probably buying fake tuna from China.  

Whenever i have ate subway "chicken" i take a violent shit the next morning. No thanks to any of their meats.

Well, at least Taco Bell still has meat in their ground cardboard... right?

I bet it is some liberal wacky cunt that filed the lawsuit.

Attached File

Subway sucks harder than kamala.

Sounds like you aren't learning a lesson.

Sorta seems like it. They didn't say what they thought it was instead.  Not even "soy product" which is the usual additive for that stuff.

Subway is fast food, and therefore sucks. Nobody who goes there thinks otherwise.

Stupid lawsuit, but I really don't like Subway.  They don't know how to make any of their menu items.  It's so annoying!  They always ask me how to do it.  Dumbasses.

Then why they charge more for turkey subs

I would never eat tuna from subway.

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guess i always assumed the penned tuna were considered farmed since they are kept for a while and fattened up in a farm, while tuna netted and brought to market are wild, once again im wrong lol but apparently they can farm them now.

[URL]https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Fully-farmed-bluefin-tuna-ready-for-wider-sales-beyond-Japan#:~:text=Fully%20farmed%20tuna%20are%20tuna,by%20tuna%20themselves%20artificially%20hatched.&text=Most%20farmed%20tuna%20is%20produced,the%20best%20of%20the%20tunas.{/URL]

Did I make it in before the GD Tender Tummies?

Karen, from the Bay Area? Instant case dismissal.

Subway near where I used to work gave me food poisoning and was closed by the local health department. I hope the plantiffs win.

So what have I been eating?

Since Jan 2017 I've probably eaten 400 of those "tuna" sandwiches.

I normally wouldn't defend subway but...

I actually was a "sandwich artist" in the early 90's as my first job and the tuna I made was in fact tuna. It was nothing but canned tuna and mayo.

does this mean it is now... No. But, I can't imagine it would be that much cheaper for an imitation to be designed and produced that contains no tuna over just using real canned tuna.

Yet another reason to NEVER EAT AT SUBWAY AGAIN.

When I worked there in high school, the tuna came in big ass starkist cans and you mixed it with your hands with bags of Mayo.

Now the “seafood” special, no idea what that shit was. It was vac packed in big bags and you mixed it with Mayo the same way.

A big ass tub squishing it together with your hands.

Blech.  I haven't eaten at Subway in probably 5 years.  I used to eat there several times a week.

Subway is gross anyways

Their tuna tastes like shit anyway

iirc their chicken is mixed with soy and their bread has some added chemicals too

Man, I can still remember the smell of my clothes after working a shift there.  Esp cutting those big bags of onions.

Several times the evening crew forgot to take out bread from the freezer, which meant we had no bread for the first half of the following day. Man, we would get abused by customers for subway running out of bread.

Soylent Green!

They're close if not there

Yep. Permanently off the menu for me. As one of the other posters already mentioned, it’s up there with Taco Bell and barely recognizable as “food”

Suckway is nasty no matter what is in the tuna.

They have been pen raising Tuna off the coast of Baja MX for a long time. You can see the pens from the toll road.

Now Taco Bell is some fine dining.

Just make sure a toilet is within a short jog the next day.

You guys crack me up.

So none of the meats they have are real? All the veggies are fake?

What is “food” to you?

Sidney Powell

This. I never understood how lunch meat sandwiches & a bag of chips was a successful marketing strategy.

I had a friend who worked there in HS (early 90s). I could swear the tuna came in institutional sized cans and was mixed with mayo on site. Stuff looked and tasted like tuna to me.

Then again who knows, maybe they now source the stuff from Wish by the container-load and it is made out of compressed melamine that they force unwashed, bottomless Uiger slave girls to sit on for a few weeks to give it tuna smell/flavor.

Maybe I'm wearing rose colored glasses but I miss the days when you could ACTUALLY smell the bread in their places and you had to sit on a 70's mustard colored bench seat to eat.  When I was 10 I could tell you all the New York Subway stops that don't exist anymore just by looking at the wallpaper.  For the same price now I can go to grocery stores and get a better sandwich and not get food poisoning.  Or distemper considering the sandwich artists I see nowadays.

Blimpie failed me too because they had a big corporate fall back.  I guess I'm making my own goddamn sammiches from now on.

Derp!

Is Kraken meat?