Subway Tuna May Or May Not Contain Tuna

Subway is going to court and it’s not a food court.

The popular sandwich chain is being sued by plaintiff Nilima Amin of Alameda County, California who claims the franchise is lying to their customers about the true ingredients in their tuna salad. Though Subway advertises the protein option as “100 percent tuna,” Amin believes that is fabricated.

Amin’s lawsuit comes after a marine biologist at UCLA tested 20 samples of tuna from 20 different Subway locations only to find “no detectable tuna DNA sequences whatsoever.” That isn’t even a little bit close to 100 percent.

Although Amin filed the lawsuit in January of 2021, a judge has just ruled the proceedings to move forward last week. After several months of review, U.S. District Court Judge Jon S. Tigar has determined the case is reasonable and should be taken to court.

Tigar ruled that there is a possibility that Subway is misrepresenting how much real tuna is in their tuna salad and that the chain may be secretly adding in other ingredients that customers would not approve of. “It is possible that these allegations refer to ingredients that a reasonable consumer would not reasonably expect to find in a tuna product,” Tigar wrote in his formal ruling to proceed with the case.

Subway has denied Amin’s claims, protesting that they are false and insinuating they will win the case with ease. Head lawyer for the sandwich shop Mark C. Goodman has been especially outspoken on the suit. “While we obviously understand the Court is required to accept the plaintiff’s claims as true at the pleadings stage of the case, the fact is the plaintiff’s claims are not true. Subway tuna is tuna,” Goodman said.

As someone who has Subway’s tuna salad, I like it and honestly don’t care whether or not it truly is tuna. I’d assume there’s some tuna in there, but 100 percent I don’t know. Seems fishy.