Campbell’s Soup executive called its products food for ‘poor people’, lawsuit alleges | US news

A Campbell’s Soup Company executive has been placed on temporary leave after allegedly calling the company’s offerings “poor fucking people’s crap” — a remark allegedly captured in an audio recording and attributed to him in a former employee’s wrongful termination lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed last Thursday in Wayne County, Michigan, Circuit Court by Robert Garza, who had joined Campbell’s New Jersey headquarters remotely in September 2024 as a security analyst. Garza alleges he was fired in January after raising concerns about comments made by Martin Bally, Campbell’s vice president of information technology — including referring to one of the company’s ingredients as “bioengineered meat” while launching into a racist tirade.

The lawsuit says Garza met with Bally in November 2024 to discuss his salary. However, Garza claims, the meeting turned into an hour-long rant by Bally during which he disparaged the quality of Campbell’s products and customers, made racist comments about Indian employees and admitted to coming to work while high on edible marijuana.

In audio recordings Gaza captured after feeling “something was wrong,” which were later reviewed by Michigan news outlet WDIV, a voice can be heard saying, “We got shit for the fucking poor people.” »

The voice adds, “Who buys our shit? I hardly buy Campbell’s products anymore. It’s not healthy now that I know what’s in it… bioengineered meat.”

“I don’t want to eat a piece of chicken that came out of a 3D printer”

Purportedly referring to Campbell’s employees of Indian descent, the voice continues: “Them fucking Indians don’t know anything… Like they can’t think for themselves.” »

Garza says he felt “pure disgust” after the meeting, but kept the recording private until January, when he reported Bally’s behavior to supervisor JP Aupperle, according to WDIV. Garza said he was fired from Campbell’s 20 days later and without any prior disciplinary action.

According to Garza’s attorney, Zachary Runyan, who spoke to WDIV, the plaintiff was “advocating for other people’s interests” before his firing.

“He went to his boss and said, ‘Martin is saying this about our Indian colleagues, he’s saying this about the people who buy our food, who keep our business open, and I don’t think that should be allowed,'” Runyan remarked to the news station. “And the response to Robert defending others is that he gets fired, which is ridiculous.”

Garza’s lawsuit alleges retaliatory termination and claims the company maintained a racist and hostile work environment. He also claims that neither Campbell’s nor its human resources department acted on his report on Bally, leaving him unemployed for 10 months.

Campbell’s said in a statement that it was investigating the allegations and had placed Bally on leave for the time being, adding: “If accurate, the comments contained in the recording are unacceptable. They do not reflect our values ​​and our company culture.”

Meanwhile, in a separate statement to Newsweek, another Campbell spokesperson denied claims that the meat used was bioengineered.

“We use 100% real chicken in our soups,” the company spokesperson was quoted as saying. “Chicken meat comes from long-trusted sources, [US Department of Agriculture] approved suppliers and meets our high quality standards. All our soups are prepared with antibiotic-free chicken meat.

“Any assertion to the contrary is completely false.”

Bally has not commented publicly on the lawsuit, which names it, Aupperle and the company itself as defendants.

Garza’s lawsuit casts Campbell’s — whose distinctive red and white cans are featured in one of Andy Warhol’s most famous pop art works of the 1960s — as joining other companies whose employees have verbally dumped their own products on each other.

In 2017, Eric Xu, vice president of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, responded to a question about a new smartwatch by questioning the necessity of the product.

“I still don’t know what the purpose of smartwatches is when we have smartphones,” Xu was quoted as saying.

Infamously, in 1991, the former president of the Ratner Group jewelry company, Gerald Ratner, publicly called its products “total crap.”

“People say, ‘How can you sell this so cheaply?'” Ratner said at the time. “I say, ‘Because it’s total crap.'”

He apologized and explained that he was joking, but that the Ratner Group’s business was significantly affected and 330 Ratner Group stores in the UK and US subsequently closed.