diff --git a/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup b/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup
index eda93fc1f..9036d83bb 100755
--- a/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup
+++ b/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup
@@ -655,7 +655,7 @@ if [[ "." =~ .*"$SALTVERSIONPOSTUPGRADE".* ]]; then
 else
   SALTVERSIONPOSTUPGRADE="${SALTVERSIONPOSTUPGRADE}.1"
 fi
-if [[ $(salt --versions-report | grep Salt: | awk {'print $2'}) != "$NEWSALTVERSION" ]]; then
+if [[ "$SALTVERSIONPOSTUPGRADE" != "$NEWSALTVERSION" ]]; then
   echo "Salt upgrade failed. Check of indicators of failure in $SOUP_LOG."
   echo "Once the issue is resolved, run soup again."
   echo "Exiting."