Two California consumers sued Subway in January for selling tuna sandwiches and wraps that allegedly had no tuna in them.
*MOUSE PRINT:
According to the complaint…
Defendants consistently advertise the Products as “tuna.†However, Defendants’ labeling and marketing scheme for the Products is blatantly false. As independent testing has repeatedly affirmed, the Products are made from anything but tuna. On the contrary, the Products are made from a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna, yet have been blended together by Defendants to imitate the appearance of tuna. Defendants identified, labeled and advertised the Products as “tuna†to consumers, when in fact they were not tuna.
The lawsuit provided no other specifics as to the actual content of the sandwiches, but repeatedly asserts that “the Products entirely lack any trace of tuna as a component…”
A check of the ingredients statement on the Subway website, however, lists the ingredients of their tuna salad as having tuna as its primary ingredient.
*MOUSE PRINT:
To try to figure out what was really going on here, we asked one of the consumers’ two law firms for a copy of the full complaint twice, but they would not provide it. Then we asked the other law firm representing the consumers for more specifics including what the tests they conducted revealed, and whether the complaint is based on a technical violation of the federal definition of what constitutes tuna fish. They responded saying they were not answering media questions at this stage of the case.
However, we did get a response from Subway with their comments.
“Our restaurants receive pure tuna, mix it with mayonnaise and serve [it] on a freshly made sandwich to our guests.” –Subway spokesperson
Digging around a little more, we found a video shot last summer by a Subway employee who was mixing up a batch of tuna for their sandwiches which shows the actual source of the tuna.
*MOUSE PRINT:
The package is clearly labeled as “tuna” and the only other ingredients in that package are water and salt. And as noted by the Subway spokesperson, and confirmed by the video, mayonnaise is the only other thing added.
As it comes out of the package, the tuna somewhat resembles “pink slime” — the pink mash from beef bone scrapings that McDonald’s was accused of using in hamburgers years ago. The tuna version of this is called “tuna scrape” — back meat scraped off tuna bones. We asked Subway twice if they use “tuna scrape” but they did not respond.
However, over this past weekend, the company did start a national advertising campaign addressing the tuna issue head-on:
Clearly, there is something fishy going on… but we just don’t know what. Stay tuned.
We invite you to offer your opinion in the comments section below about this case. Is Subway actually trying to pull a fast one on customers as the law firms allege, or could the lawyers be mistaken? And what is the actual proof underlying the claims that the lawyers won’t reveal?
