New Delhi: US fast-food franchise Subway faces a lawsuit. It might also have to pay damages to a customer over alleged fraud concerning its tuna products. A federal judge has said that Subway can be sued for allegedly using other fish species, chicken, pork, and cattle instead of the advertised “100% tuna”.
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The class-action lawsuit was filed in January 2021. Amin stated that testing had “repeatedly” shown that Subway made its tuna product with no tuna fish. However, in June 2021, she changed her petition to focus instead on whether Subway served “100% sustainably caught skipjack and yellowfin tuna”, as it advertised.
She referred to tests at UCLA’s Barber Lab that revealed that 19 of 20 samples contained “no detectable tuna DNA sequences,” while all 20 had chicken DNA, 11 had pork DNA, and 7 had cattle DNA.
However, Subway repeatedly defended its tuna products on various online and offline platforms. According to Subway’s lawyers, traces (or DNA) of other ingredients found in its tuna products could have been due to “cross-contact when making sandwiches or from eggs in mayonnaise”.
Business Insider quoted a Subway spokesperson as saying: “We are disappointed the Court felt it couldn’t dismiss the plaintiffs’ reckless and improper lawsuit at this stage. However, we are confident that Subway will prevail when the Court has an opportunity to consider all the evidence.”
