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A senior Campbell Soup Company executive is under scrutiny after a former employee filed a lawsuit that includes a secret recording containing crude and offensive remarks allegedly made during a work meeting.
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The audio, released as part of the complaint, purports to capture Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer Martin Bally criticizing Campbell’s products and disparaging the customers who buy them.
Campbell’s says it is investigating and has placed Bally on temporary leave, adding that the alleged comments do not reflect the company’s values.
What the lawsuit against Campbell’s Soup alleges was said
Former Campbell’s security analyst Robert Garza worked remotely for the company beginning in September 2024. He said he recorded the meeting because his “instinct that something wasn’t right with Martin” pushed him to document what he heard. Garza said the session ran for more than an hour and left him sickened.
Garza told Local 4 in Michigan that Bally insulted the company’s products and mocked the people who buy them. According to the filing, Bally claimed Campbell’s makes “highly processed food” for “poor people.”
The voice on the recording added, “We have sh*t for f*cking poor people. Who buys our sh*t? I don’t buy Campbell’s products barely anymore. It’s not healthy now that I know what the f*ck‘s in it.”
He also rejected the idea of “bioengineered meat,” saying, “I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer.”
The recording also captured racist comments targeted at Indian coworkers. Bally allegedly said in one section of the audio, “F*cking Indians don’t know a f*cking thing. Like they couldn’t think for their f*cking selves.”
Additionally, Garza alleged that Bally admitted to arriving at work high from weed edibles, which he included in the lawsuit.
In a statement to the Daily Dot, a Campbell’s spokesperson wrote:
“If the comments were in fact made, they are unacceptable. They do not reflect our values and the culture of our company. Mr. Bally is temporarily on leave while we conduct an investigation.”
“We are proud of the food we make, the people who make it and the high-quality ingredients we use. The comments heard on the recording about our food are not only inaccurate—they are patently absurd.”
“Keep in mind, the person alleged to be speaking on the recording works in IT and has no nothing to do with how we make our food.”
As for the chicken, the spokesperson added, “The chicken meat used in our soups comes from long-trusted, USDA approved U.S. suppliers and meets our high quality standards. All of our soups are made with No Antibiotics Ever chicken meat, meaning we don’t allow antibiotics to be added to the feed, water, or any commercial vaccines used by our chicken suppliers.”
Retaliation claims followed the complaint
Garza held onto the audio for months without reporting it, but in January 2025, he approached his supervisor, J.D. Aupperle, to report the comments. According to Garza and his attorney, Zachary Runyan, the situation escalated quickly.
Runyan said Garza was terminated 20 days after reporting the behavior.
“He reached out to his supervisor and told the supervisor what Martin was saying, and then out of nowhere, my client was fired,” the attorney said, raising potential retaliation concerns.
Reactions to the lawsuit
Folks online were not particularly surprised by the news. One person on Instagram said, “I’m sorry, but this soup is gross and you shouldn’t need a Campbell’s employee to tell you that.”
“YO! I’m not shocked but it’s crazy to hear it out loud,” another person added.
@Sanatozaki1111 tweeted, “At this point I feel like the US is just one big experiment and the people are literally seen as purely products. Like why is the only western country that likes to knowingly feed its people the most chemically transformed and processed poison just to make money and profit.”
According to Local 4, Campbell Soup Company issued a statement about the lawsuit, saying, “If accurate, the comments in the recording are unacceptable. They do not reflect our values and the culture of our company. We are actively investigating this matter.”
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