“I was just eating my soup as usual when suddenly this word appeared on my spoon: HELP”, reports Janine Wilson (28), whose story sparked the investigation. “I knew then that it must have been some helpless Chinese woman or so in some kind of crumbling facility. I read somewhere that things like this actually happen sometimes and I didn’t just want to stand by and watch, so I took action.” Wilson alerted the police, who quickly established that the soup manufacturer was based in Shepperton. Consequently, they were able to begin their raid a mere 40 minutes later. Yet the initial suspicion of exploitation or false imprisonment was not confirmed. “Each employee assured us that they were working in the factory voluntarily and were paid for their work”, a police spokesperson explained.
General Manager of the Campbell Soup factory, Lee Collard, confirmed that nothing untoward was taking place in his facility. “It is possible that one of our trainees just made a bad joke without thinking about the consequences. We are now working to determine who had access to the letters H, E, L and P in recent weeks.”
Nevertheless, the incident casts a shadow over the whole alphabet soup sector whose products frequently manage to unsettle customers with their cryptic messages.
At present, Janine Wilson’s soup is being searched for further messages. The words “QUFASG”, “PUURZTF” and “OKWDAEHT” have also been discovered and are suspected of being coded clues. However, this theory has yet to be substantiated.
up; picture: dan; first published 2017-11-14
Read the German version HERE.
