Subway Is Phasing Out Pre-Sliced Deli Meat

Antonia DeBianchi
·3 min read
Subway sandwich
Subway sandwich

Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty

Big plans are in store for Subway.

The sandwich company announced that they will be doing away with pre-sliced deli meat. They plan to slice fresh meat in stores for their popular sandwiches.

"As part of Subway's ongoing transformation journey, we are rolling out deli meat slicers to restaurants across the U.S., elevating the quality of our protein offerings even further," a Subway spokesperson said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.

The spokesperson continued: "Our goal is to have freshly sliced meats in all U.S. restaurants by summer 2023."

Restaurant Business Online first reported the news in August. Per the outlet, Trevor Haynes, president of Subway North America, said the slicers are automatic. "It's not like the old handheld deli slicer," Haynes said. "It's all automated."

Customers can see the brand's shift in production as the machines will be on display for customers to watch the slicing process, according to Restaurant Business Online.

The move towards freshly sliced protein comes after a controversy started in 2021 surrounding Subway's tuna sandwiches.

At the time, the New York Times commissioned to have "more than 60 inches worth of Subway tuna sandwiches" tested by a lab following a lawsuit in January 2021, which claimed there's no real tuna in the chain's ingredients. The Washington Post was the first to report the allegations made by two California residents — Karen Dhanowa and Nilima Amin — who filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

RELATED: Subway Calls Lawsuit Claiming There's No Real Tuna in Their Tuna Sandwiches and Wraps 'Baseless'

subway tuna sandwich
subway tuna sandwich

Jörg Carstensen/picture alliance via Getty Images Subway tuna sandwich

In a statement given to PEOPLE at the time, a Subway spokesperson responded to the suit, saying: "There simply is no truth to the allegations in the complaint that was filed in California."

Samples of the tuna from Subway were picked up from three locations in Los Angeles and a lab conducted a PCR test to determine if the chain restaurant's tuna included one of five different tuna species, the New York Times revealed. As the outlet noted, the Seafood List compiled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines 15 species of fish that can be labeled as tuna.

Subway claims that they use skipjack and yellowfin tuna, species that the lab used by the New York Times would be able to detect. "No amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample and so we obtained no amplification products from the DNA," the lab study concluded. "Therefore, we cannot identify the species."

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When tuna is cooked, its DNA becomes denatured — meaning that test results could be inaccurate due to the change, the New York Times added. Inside Edition similarly commissioned a lab study in February 2021 using the tuna from three Subway locations in Queens, New York. Their results concluded that the chain does use real tuna.

Subway has said that anything that is not tuna in its tuna products are "most likely" because of "cross-contact" from an employee preparing a sandwich. On a page of Subway's website, the chain denies any claims that say their tuna is not 100 percent just that.

In July 2022, a judge in California ruled that Subway can be sued for claims that its sandwiches are "100% tuna."

According to U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar even if Subway's claim of cross contamination is true, the 100% tuna claim could still be false.

"Although it is possible that Subway's explanations are the correct ones, it is also possible that these allegations refer to ingredients that a reasonable consumer would not reasonably expect to find in a tuna product," Tigar said, according to NBC.