In January, a consumer in California filed a lawsuit against the sandwich giant Subway with a seemingly incredible claim: The tuna served in the chain’s tuna salad sandwiches is not, in fact, tuna, but “a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna.”
The lawsuit, which Subway described as frivolous and baseless, led to the expected rush of stories on the topic, including in this publication. A short time later, the television news program Inside Edition tested the tuna itself and found that it was in fact tuna.
Case closed? Hardly. Earlier this week, the New York Times also conducted tests and found no evidence of tuna. The story it published was long and provided some interesting information on processing and issues related to tuna as well as Subway itself.
Yet as other publications picked up the story, they focused on that test. It generated the flurry of negative attention that has been common around Subway these days.
“We still can’t confirm if Subway’s tuna is real.”
“The big tuna sandwich mystery at Subway.”
“Lab tests reportedly find no identifiable tuna DNA in Subway sandwich.”
I was hesitant to write about this again, mostly because situations like this can do some real damage to brands and the franchisees that operate the restaurants. Even stories like this furthers the narrative that somehow Subway serves nontuna tuna.
Subway, as readers here should know, does not need something like this. Its operators are closing locations by the hundreds, averaging about 1,000 per year. Its restaurants struggle to make a profit. Its brand has been damaged due to the Jared Fogle fiasco and its overexpansion and the company’s ongoing dispute with its franchisees.
To be sure, it’s important that the food restaurants serve is actually made from the ingredients they say it is. Subway has a responsibility to ensure that it is giving customers actual tuna, not some other fish. If it did somehow intentionally mislabel the product, the reaction would be fully justified. (And franchisees would rightfully be angry; they are probably angry, anyway.)
The problem is that Subway has clearly been a victim of a media narrative gone wrong. The tuna is cooked and processed, making tests difficult to prove conclusive. And don’t take my word for it. That comes from the actual New York Times story, which quoted a lab spokesman:
“There’s two conclusions. One, it’s so heavily processed that whatever we could pull out, we couldn’t make an identification. Or we got some and there’s just nothing there that’s tuna.” Others quoted in the story discussed the challenges of testing processed fish and expressed doubt that Subway would serve tuna that isn’t tuna.
We do not know the name of the lab that conducted the test that couldn’t find the tuna DNA. But we DO know the lab that conducted the test that said it was tuna, Applied Food Technologies, because it was identified by Inside Edition when it performed a test on the chain’s product.
Given the comment from the spokesman in the Times story, and the results from Applied Food Technologies, we could fairly conclude that Subway’s tuna is in fact tuna and the former lab simply couldn’t get an identification.
More to the point, it seems illogical for Subway to deliberately serve something that isn’t tuna. If it wasn’t tuna, then the company would have a real issue with its vendors and would be every bit the victim as the customers.
It's one thing to say that a sandwich doesn't have any tuna. It's another to say that the tuna is processed and therefore it's difficult to test to see if it is tuna. It appears the former narrative has won out. And now Subway has yet more pressure to improve its brand image.