[South + October 9] According to Australia's "Sydney Morning Herald", U.S. consumers sued that Subway's tuna sandwich did not contain tuna meat was rejected, but the controversy still exists.
Plaintiffs Karen Dhanowa and Nilima Amin, residents of Alameda County, California's San Francisco Bay Area, claimed Subway's tuna sandwiches were "not made from tuna" and sued the world's largest sandwich chain for fraud, wilful misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and other claims under federal and state law.
The plaintiffs said that according to independent laboratory tests of "multiple samples" purchased from Subway stores in California, the tuna sandwich in question was "a mixture of tuna that did not contain tuna and was mixed together by the defendant to mimic tuna meat."
Soon after, a U.S. federal judge dismissed the lawsuit. The judge's grounds of dismissal were not based on any findings about the ingredients of the tuna sandwich, but rather his finding that the plaintiffs did not meet the legal criteria for suing that they had purchased the products on the basis of a false statement by Subway.
The lawsuit was later amended to narrow the claim. In a new filing in June, the plaintiffs' lawsuit went from focusing on whether Subway's tuna was tuna to whether it was "100% sustainably caught bonito and yellowfin tuna." The lawsuit then sparked a wide debate about the composition of Subway's tuna meat: whether it was Subway's claim of 100 percent wild-caught tuna, or some other species of fish, or not even fish meat. In the face of public skepticism, Subway stood up for its products, claiming that the tuna meat in the tuna sandwich was "high-quality, premium, and 100 percent authentic."
The indictment prompted at least two media outlets to test the tuna. Inside Edition tested samples from Subway's three location stores and determined that tuna sandwiches at each store contained tuna meat. But The Times also tested a sample and found that "no tuna DNA was present," though this may be because the sample was highly processed and the testing equipment could not detect the species.
Coincidentally, mexico's federal consumer protection agency conducted a quality survey of 33 kinds of instant noodles on October 4, local time, and decided to remove 12 products from 9 manufacturers. The agency believes there are problems with the ingredient labeling of these instant noodles. Mexico's federal consumer protection agency said: "Cheese turkey noodles are labeled 'spicy cheese flavored chicken instant noodles', but the actual ingredients only contain 'processed chicken flavor powder' and 'processed chicken flavor'." In addition, Korean 'tumbler' instant noodles are marked with a carrot pattern on the packaging, but they actually do not contain carrots, which also violates the ingredient labeling regulations. The agency's head called packaging with problematic labeling of these ingredients "deceptive advertising."
Proofreader: Hu Rouqun