Subway is suing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for a report which said the chain’s brand chicken was only 53.6 percent meat.
CBC aired a report a few weeks ago in which Trent University, Ontario, conducted a DNA test of Subway’s chicken product. It was found that the oven-roasted chicken contained 53.6 percent chicken and chicken strips had around 42.8 percent poultry.
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The rest of the product was alleged to be made up of soybean.
Subway has said the tests were flawed, false and misleading and is suing CBC for defamation. It is asking for $210m in damages over the allegations.
In a statement issued to Business Insider, Subway said:
Our chicken is 100 percenr white meat with seasonings, marinated and delivered to our stores as a finished, cooked product. We have advised them of our strong objections. We do not know how they produced such unreliable and factually incorrect data, but we are insisting on a full retraction. Producing high-quality food for our customers is our highest priority. This report is wrong and it must be corrected.”
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By GlobalData
Subway isn’t the only fast food service that has had its fair share of lawsuits.
From chickens with eight legs to coffee burns, here are some of the cases that have brought by and against food outlets over the years.
1. Burger King
Burger King lawsuits throw up some funny numbers. There was the employee who took 50 cents worth of food and then was dismissed, who won $46k in an unfair dismissal lawsuit. And, there was also the couple who sued the company for $17 after they were double charged for a meal.
But finally, there was the time in 2009 when Burger King franchisees sued the company over a $1 promotion,
The National Franchise Association, which represented more than 80 percent of BK’s US franchise owners, said they were being made to sell the double cheeseburgers for $1, when the product cost $1.10 to make.
The lawsuit was eventually dropped and Burger King agreed to give franchise owners more power to set prices.
2. KFC
All fast-food lawsuits seem to be pretty strange but KFC has had one of the weirdest. A few years ago it filed a lawsuit against three Chinese companies whose social media accounts were spreading false claims about the brand. One of the claims was that KFC’s chickens are genetically modified to have six wings and eight legs.
KFC demanded $242,000 and an apology from each of the companies. It is laughable but KFC has 4,600 restaurants in China alone and those kinds of messages could be fairly damaging to its reputation.
3. McDonald’s
Where to start.
As the biggest fast food chain in the world, McDonald’s has had some fun in the courts over the years.
One of the biggest was Stella Liebeck who sued the company after her McDonald’s hot coffee spilt on her legs and caused 16 percent of her body to be covered in burns. She was awarded $2.9m in damages and the chain was forced to lower the temperature of its coffee.
The US company has been on the other side of a case too. In November last year, it launched action against the city of Florence, Italy, for $20m after authorities stopped it opening a new restaurant near the cathedral.
A recent class action lawsuit claims that the brand’s extra value meals are not extra value at all. James Gertie, who lives in the US, launched the consumer fraud suit against a McDonald’s franchise owner, Karis Management Company, because he said an extra-value meal of two cheeseburgers, fries and a drink is 41 cents more expensive than if the items were bought separately.
Gertie wants punitive damages as well as for the lawsuit to cause McDonald‘s to refund overcharged money to customers who purchased the deals in restaurants owned by Karis.
4. Pizza Hut
This is a lawsuit that will make your grit your teeth.
A man from Tennessee sued Pizza Hut successfully for $2,400 after he broke his tooth on a rock-hard crouton in one of the company’s restaurants.
