In an exercise in judicial theater, James Uthmeier, Attorney General of the State of Florida announced an investigation into the source of chicken in Campbell’s Company products. The Consumer Protection Division of the Florida agency will spearhead the unnecessary effort.
The Florida action arises from revelations in a lawsuit initiated by Plaintiff. Robert Garza, who is suing Campbell for employment discrimination. In a clandestine recording entered into evidence, the discredited and since terminated Vice President Martin Bally the former Chief Information Security Officer, deprecated both Campbell’s products and consumers and claimed that the company was incorporating “bio-engineered meat” in soups.
This statement should have been dismissed as simple puffery and uninformed hyperbole. In the first instance, bio-engineered chicken is not available in commercial quantities. The second indication of improbability, is that the cost of any bio-engineered meat would far exceed the natural product, obviously disfavoring use.
It would appear that the Office of the Attorney General is pursuing an obvious slander to generate partisan publicity and to create the illusion of enforcing state legislation banning production and sale of non-available laboratory-produced meat. Surely there are more substantive issues to consider in the State. In a legal environment dominated by ideology, logic is the evident loser.