Grace Dean/Insider
- Subway has launched the website subwaytunafacts.com to defend its tuna.
- The website says Subway's tuna is "high-quality, premium, and 100% real."
- Subway has vigorously denied claims made in a lawsuit that its tuna isn't real tuna.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Subway has once again hit back at claims that its tuna isn't real tuna by launching a website called subwaytunafacts.com.
Subway CEO John Chidsey referred to the website during an interview with CNN Tuesday where he defended the chain's tuna and said he "absolutely" eats Subway's tuna sandwiches.
"[The website] will take you through all the science," he said. "You can see every bit of the story there, and I think that will obviously put the facts out there and clarify all these misconceptions."
A January class-action lawsuit claimed that Subway made false claims about its tuna meat. The class-action complaint said that the company made its tuna products using "a mixture of various concoctions" rather than actual tuna – though the plaintiffs amended their claims in June to focus on the type of tuna that Subway serves.
The chain said that the new claims "are untrue and have absolutely no merit."
"Subway tuna is real tuna," the new website reads. "That's right. The truth is, Subway uses wild-caught skipjack tuna regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A favorite among sub lovers, our tuna is and has always been high-quality, premium, and 100% real."
On the website, Subway says it regularly tests its tuna. It said its two tuna suppliers for its US stores require fishing boat captains to provide statements on the species, catch method, and traceability information for each delivery of fish.
The website also says it's a "myth" that a June report by The New York Times showed that Subway's tuna wasn't actually tuna.
The publication had sent some of Subway's tuna to be analyzed at a commercial lab, which said that "no amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample," leaving it unable to identify the species.
"What actually happened is that the New York Times commissioned a test that couldn't detect tuna DNA in their sample," Subway says on its new website.
"According to scientific experts, this is not unusual when testing cooked tuna and it absolutely doesn't mean the sample that was tested contained zero tuna."