Subway Has Been Lying to You, According to a New Lawsuit

Grabbing a sandwich from Subway is always quick, convenient, and delicious. With its various customizable options, the sky is the limit with your sandwich combo. However, according to a new lawsuit, Subway might not be as willing to comply with your customizations as you think. 

Lawsuit Alleges Subway’s Meats Aren’t Actually “Piled High”

This past summer, a woman named Anna Tollison ordered a Steak & Cheese sandwich from Subway through its app and picked it up at a branch in Queens. After paying $7.61 for the sandwich, she took a bite of it, only to be baffled by what she was served: Tollison’s sandwich looked nothing like the advertisement she saw on the app.

Tollison took a photo of her sandwich, which appeared to be mostly bread with very few meat toppings inside. According to the lawsuit, the photo of the sandwich on Subway’s app “contained well over 200% more meat than what was in the actual sandwich that Plaintiff [Tollison] received,” alleging that the chain’s ads are “grossly misleading.”

I decided to do some of my research with the help of my brother, Antonio (Tony) Soliz, a former Subway sandwich aficionado. Is Subway purposely skimping on the meat? According to my brother, it’s a little more complicated than that. “There is a limit [to adding meat] and it’s portioned out based on the size of the sandwich,” he said. “So, for instance, six-inch sandwiches are usually six to nine slices of meat and two slices of cheese. Twelve-inch sandwiches get twelve slices of meat and four slices of cheese.”

He also explained that for sandwiches with steak and chicken, six-inch sandwiches typically get one scoop and twelve-inch sandwiches get two scoops. “We can add a few more but we usually have to charge extra for it, unless you have a chill manager but they’re pretty strict normally.” He told me that the sandwiches should be able to fold over so that “nothing will fall out.”

If Subway is strict about how much product is used, it makes sense that some customers might feel deceived. In fact, this isn’t the first time Subway has been called out for misleading customers. In 2020, Ireland’s Supreme Court ruled that Subway’s bread couldn’t legally be classified as bread due to its high sugar content. Then in 2021, Subway was under fire for its tuna products, which allegedly contain ingredients that are not tuna.

It’s unclear what will happen as a result of this new lawsuit but maybe it will raise awareness of some of the sandwich chain’s less favorable practices.