Subway is not ready to go quietly while someone is questioning the content of their chicken. A CBC investigation by the Marketplace program examined the DNA of several fast food chicken sandwiches, finding that all were below the “100% chicken” mark. But where McDonald’s and Wendy’s reported back with numbers close to 80% chicken content, Subway was hit with some drastic results for their chicken:
Subway’s results were such an outlier that the team decided to test them again, biopsying five new oven roasted chicken pieces, and five new orders of chicken strips.
Those results were averaged: the oven roasted chicken scored 53.6 per cent chicken DNA, and the chicken strips were found to have just 42.8 per cent chicken DNA. The majority of the remaining DNA? Soy.
Subway Canada almost immediately denied the “alleged results” of the test and offered a defense for their chicken products, questioning how it achieved its conclusions and calling the them “absolutely false and misleading” according to the CBC. Marketplace has stood by its story and now Subway is filing suit in Canadian courts, seeking $210 million in damages according to Eater:
“We have issued a Notice of Action in Canada against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that asks for $210 million in damages over allegations made by its program, Marketplace, that are defamatory and absolutely false. Despite our efforts to share the facts with the CBC about the high quality of our chicken and to express our strong objections to their inaccurate claims, they have not issued a retraction, as we requested. Serving high-quality food to our customers is our top priority, and we are committed to seeing that this factually incorrect report is corrected.”
The CBC has not yet received a copy of the suit from Subway according to the New York Post, but did offer this quick statement supporting their work on the initial piece:
“We believe our journalism to be sound and there is no evidence that we’ve seen that would lead us to change our position”
As Eater points out, plaintiffs in Canada “don’t have to prove malice or inaccuracy” in defamation suits. This is far different than laws in the United States, but allows the CBC some protection if they can show they acted in a “responsible manner” while gathering information for their story. Where it goes from here will take some serious court time, but it’s clear that Subway truly is serious about their chicken.
(Via Eater / CBC / New York Post)
