I always appreciate truth in advertising. Other bigwigs at Campbell’s might not agree.
As part of a wrongful termination suit, a former employee has produced recordings of his boss, a VP of information technology, sharing this wisdom along with statements like "it’s not healthy now that I know what the fuck’s in it … bioengineered meat. I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer.”
And for good measure, he threw in some racism about “fucking Indians” too. He sounds like a peach.
The good news is that he’s just the IT executive and his (mis)inderstanding of his company’s product, while unusual and concerning, is not especially damaging to has ability to function within the company. An IT specialist can IT anything. (Like a manager can manage anything.)
The bad news is that he’s still a racist CT loser.
Yeah but when you tank the company stock because of something you said you are not likely to endear yourself to your bosses. I would expect that person to be fired unless they are somehow the only person who can do that job (not likely).
What some IT guy says shouldn’t matter, but it still does. Headlines don’t say IT, they just say Campbell’s executive. And Florida’s attorney general yesterday announced an investigation of Campbell’s to determine if they are using illegal “lab grown meat.”
It’s all BS and grandstanding of course, but it’s not exactly great press.
The executive who made the rant was wrong, of course, but Googling, Michigan is a two-party consent state, so could the employee get into trouble for record it?
But not everyone is a fan of UPSIDE’s innovative product. On May 1, 2024, Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis signed SB 1084, the first law in the country to ban the manufacture, distribution, or sale of cultivated meat.
IANAL, but it’s hard to imagine an argument against it that would stand up. State laws can do almost anything, so long as it doesn’t conflict with the state or federal constitution, or a federal law on something where the feds have jurisdiction, and I can’t imagine that there’s anything in the Florida constitution protecting the production or distribution of lab-grown meat.
(Aside: I’m currently eating a bowl of Campbell’s soup)
True, but you’ve got to pick your battles. Campbell’s VP of IT criticizing the healthiness and the ingredients in Campbell’s soups is as silly as Campbell’s head chef criticizing the coding used in Campbell’s IT software.
He might have criticized something he actually knew about, in other words; rather than something he likely does not.
I made French Onion Soup a few weeks ago and bought fancy-shmancy low sodium organic beef stock. I ended up adding a bunch of Better Than Bouillon because the stock had no flavour or mouth feel.
My opinion of Campbell’s soups is that it depends on the particular product. Those soups that try to be “fancy” like the "chunky’ line that are practically a stew, loaded with meats and vegetables, are generally of very low quality. Fresh store-made soups at a quality supermarket, the kind sold at hot soup bars or cold in refrigerated containers, are so vastly superior that there’s really no comparison. But simple Campbell’s soups like their basic classic tomato soup are perfectly adequate as an accompaniment to a grilled cheese or tuna salad sandwich.
I dunno, but back in the 00’s just before the Great Recession, back when I worked at a Very Large Corporation, I saw a manager go on a tirade against an employee leaving early because her child was in the ER with a life-threatening asthma attack, among the gems were, “whore”, “single mother”, “welfare queen” (for a woman making north of $40k and a Navy submariner ex-husband faithfully making child support payments - no, it doesn’t make sense), and capped off with “you people” and some racist slurs.
She should have been fired. She was merely publicly demoted and humiliated. Although maybe she was fired - she was eventually out the door. After the company shelled out for an out-of-court settlement to keep things quiet with the insulted/threatened employee who, apparently, no longer needs to work outside the home any more.
Bottom line - there are some stupid people out there, and some of them are in management.
Probably not really relevant here as salt is a major ingredient in any kind of bullion. To put some numbers on it, 1/4 cup of the concentrated type of Campbell’s chicken broth when reconstituted contains 300 mg of sodium, or 1200 mg per cup. Admittedly the ready-to-use kind has more sodium.
For comparison, Knorr-Swiss Chicken Bullion cubes contain 720 mg of sodium per 1/3 cube, which is 2160 mg per cube. Their recipe for making bullion is to use one cube per cup of water, which is 2160 mg per cup. Not to defend Campbell’s, but that’s nearly twice as much sodium.
Whether either of these is excessive depends of course on serving size. Knorr’s recipe for chicken ramen noodles calls for 1 1/2 bullion cubes but 8 cups of water. If one assumes that a typical serving of ramen will contain one cup of broth, that’s 405 mg per serving, which isn’t particularly high for a healthy adult.
Hm, I have the opposite experience. I like their chunky soups, at least the low-sodium varieties, just fine, but Campbell’s tomato soup has no flavor besides salty, and their low-sodium tomato soup has no flavor at all. Oddly, my grandmother’s tomato soup recipe, that cans great, is bursting with flavor, and has even less salt than Campbell’s low-sodium, so it is possible to do canned tomato soup right.