After an Illinois man filed a lawsuit against Buffalo Wild Wings alleging the company misleads customers by advertising its "boneless" meat as "wings" when they are not actually wings, the chain delivered a response to the viral story on social media earlier this week.
"It's true," the chain tweeted Monday. "Our boneless wings are all white meat chicken. Our hamburgers contain no ham. Our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo."
The lawsuit, filed by Aimen Halim in the United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, accuses the popular restaurant chain of "false and deceptive marketing and advertising" due to the alleged mislabeling of its popular dish.
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"Specifically, the name and description of the products (i.e., as “Boneless Wings”) leads reasonable consumers to believe the products are actually chicken wings," the complaint states. "In other words, that the products are chicken wings that have simply been deboned, and as such, are comprised of entirely chicken wing meat."
Instead, however, the "wings" are actually made of chicken breast meat, which is then deep-fried like wings, making the products "more akin, in composition, to a chicken nugget rather than a chicken wing," according to the suit.
Halim said he purchased the boneless wings in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and "reasonably believed the products were actually wings that were deboned."
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"Had Mr. Halim known that the products are not chicken wings, he would not have purchased them, or would have paid significantly less for them," according to the suit.
The complaint notes that other chains like Domino's Pizza and Papa Johns each label their products as either "boneless chicken" or "chicken poppers."
"It should be noted that Domino’s Pizza and Papa Johns also sell actual chicken wings, and that, a restaurant named Buffalo Wild 'Wings' should be just as careful if not more in how it names its products," the complaint states.
The suit accuses Buffalo Wild Wings of violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, along with a breach of express warranty and common law fraud and seeks an undisclosed amount of "punitive damages."
In a similar case, a woman in Illinois filed a lawsuit against Fireball, claiming the company's mini "Fireball Cinnamon" bottles mislead customers who may think they contain whiskey.
