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Déjà Vu: Subway Called Out Anew For Meat Cheat

“Where have all the cold-cuts gone?” One might well paraphrase the legendary Pete Seeger’s 1960 anti-war classic… Because it’s déjà vu all over again at Subway, where yet another new lawsuit has erupted over ‘cheaping out’ on the meat…

Steak & Cheese Sub - © 2024 SubwayThe ‘official portrait’ of the Subway Steak & Cheese Sub (shown in 6 in. size).
I can personally attest, you don’t get that much meat in the real thing…

Remember the infamous lawsuit against Subway back in the 20-teens? For slicing their meats so thin you could literally read a newspaper through them? And reducing the amount of meat on their sand-wiches to record lows to save money and boost profits?

It’s baaaaack!

It was an early – and particularly egregious – act of shrinkflation, when Subway started cutting back on the meat in their famous sandwiches, thinking nobody would notice. The greedy and profit-hungry original owners of the chain systematically sliced away at the meat in their sandwiches until fans got mad as hell and declared they simply weren’t going to stand for it anymore.

But what the chain was taken to court for was a class action claim that its ‘Footlong’ sandwiches were not a full foot long. Consumers filed suit claiming Subway’s advertising was false and misleading; that the claims in their ads were deceptive. Subway fought that one for 4 years before it was dismissed in 2017.

Now, Subway is in the hands of new owners – The Atlanta-based private equity firm Roark Capital, which bought the chain back in April of this year. And the same law firm that filed the original ‘Foot-long’ lawsuit us contesting current Subway advertising claims on the meat content of its subs.

Leveraging experience

This time, the named plaintiff is Anna Tollison of the New York City borough of Queens. She claims she paid $7.61 for a Steak & Cheese sandwich at a local Subway, not realizing Subway’s ads showed a sandwich containing at least 200 percent more meat than she and other consumers actually received.

According to Reuters, her lawsuit is being handled by the same firm that has helmed previous such claims against McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Taco Bell. Those claims were dismissed last year.

Tollison is seeking unspecified damages for New Yorkers who bought the sandwiches in the last three years. She contends Subway’s alleged violations of the state’s consumer protection laws. And that could result in fines as well as compensation for affected consumers if the suit is successful.

Her lawyer Anthony Russo told Reuters, the new Subway case is nothing less than, “an egregious example of the type of advertising we’re trying to stop.”

‘Ads vs. Reality’

The new Subway lawsuit is fundamentally different from the older one. This time, the claim closely parallels a series of suits against Burger King over the past decade claiming false and misleading advertising concerning the amount of meat on some of its burgers.

As far as we can tell, some of the claims in the BK lawsuit have been dismissed. But others are still working their way through the courts…

My take

Whatever the outcome of the current BK and Subway lawsuits, it warms my heart that someone out there is continuing to persue the big Fast Food chains for their underhanded tactics. What amazes me is, the new Subway ownership apparently completely missed the previous rebellion by Subway customers over the chain ‘cheaping out on the meat’.

~ Maggie J.

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