Kentucky Ford employee buys a $1.95 cookie. Then Ford accused him of stealing it and fired him

A Kentucky Ford employee says a $1.95 chocolate chip cookie ended his 11-year career at the automaker after the company accused him of theft. Weeks later, he says his own bank records proved he had paid for the snack all along.

The case involves Kurt Kromm, a 60-year-old electrician who worked at Ford‘s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville. The incident first came to light through original reporting by automotive journalist Phoebe Wall Howard in her Shifting Gears Substack. Local news outlet WKRC also reported the story. According to Howard, Ford later verified Kromm’s payment, offered to reinstate him with back pay, and reviewed how it handles similar cases.

Kromm told Shifting Gears the incident began during an overnight shift on May 9. He said he is diabetic and felt his blood sugar dropping around 3:30 a.m., so he went to a break room kiosk to buy a Grandma’s Chocolate Chip Cookie. He said the first payment kiosk displayed a failed transaction, so he completed the purchase at a second kiosk before returning to work.

Kromm says his supervisor met with him a week later

About a week later, Kromm said a supervisor called him into an office meeting. According to Kromm’s interview with Shifting Gears, a union representative told him Ford planned to terminate his employment because the company believed surveillance footage showed him taking the cookie without paying.

Kromm disputed the accusation from the beginning. “I earned over $200,000 last year. Why would I steal? I spent $1,200 last year in the canteen mainly on Diet Cokes,” he told Shifting Gears.

He also described the emotional impact of the firing. “I’m thinking, this is the way my career at Ford Motor is going to end? There’s no way I’m coming back. First you tell me I’m a thief and then you tell me I’m a liar for saying I didn’t steal,” Kromm told Shifting Gears.

Kromm added that he later reviewed his checking account and discovered the $1.95 charge had, in fact, posted successfully. “They were so confident I’d stolen. And then I look in my checking account statement and the $1.95 is frickin’ there.”

According to Howard’s reporting, Kromm submitted screenshots of the transaction to Ford and his union representative. Ford later requested notarized bank records before confirming the payment with Aramark, the company that operates the plant’s food kiosks. The company then informed Kromm that he could return to work and later agreed to provide back pay for the time he missed.

Ford declined to discuss the specific case publicly. However, company spokesperson Jessica Enoch told Shifting Gears, “We don’t talk about individual cases, but there are times when we look into things and realize it could have been handled differently.” She added, “We value our employees and want to be as fair as possible.”

Despite the offer to return, Kromm chose not to go back. According to Shifting Gears, he had already accepted a higher-paying position closer to his home in Wisconsin before Ford completed its review. Howard also reported that Ford planned to suspend, rather than immediately terminate, employees involved in future payment kiosk disputes while investigations take place.