\n<\/p>\n
A Campbell\u2019s Soup Company executive has been put on temporary leave after he allegedly referred to the firm\u2019s offerings as \u201cshit for fucking poor people\u201d \u2013 a remark purportedly caught on an audio recording and attributed to him in a former employee\u2019s wrongful termination lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit was filed last Thursday in Wayne county circuit court in Michigan by Robert Garza, who had joined Campbell\u2019s New Jersey headquarters remotely in September 2024 as a security analyst. Garza alleges he was fired in January after he raised concerns about comments made by Martin Bally, Campbell\u2019s vice-president of information technology \u2013 including referring to one of the company\u2019s ingredients as \u201cbioengineered meat\u201d while going off on a racist tirade.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit recounts that Garza met with Bally in November 2024 to discuss his salary. However, Garza alleges, the meeting turned into an hour-long rant by Bally during which he disparaged the quality of Campbell\u2019s products and customers, made racist comments about Indian employees and admitted to coming to work while high on marijuana edibles.<\/p>\n
In audio recordings captured by Garza after sensing that \u201csomething wasn\u2019t right,\u201d which were later reviewed by the Michigan news outlet WDIV, a voice can be heard saying: \u201cWe have shit for fucking poor people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The voice adds: \u201cWho buys our shit? I don\u2019t buy Campbell\u2019s products barely any more. It\u2019s not healthy now that I know what the fuck\u2019s in it \u2026 bioengineered meat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer\u201d<\/p>\n
Allegedly referring to Campbell\u2019s employees of Indian heritage, the voice continued: \u201cFucking Indians don\u2019t know a fucking thing \u2026 Like they couldn\u2019t think for their fucking selves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garza says he felt \u201cpure disgust\u201d after the meeting but kept the recording private until January, when he reported Bally\u2019s behaviour to supervisor JP Aupperle, according to WDIV. Garza said he was dismissed from Campbell\u2019s 20 days later and without any prior disciplinary action.<\/p>\n
According to Garza\u2019s lawyer Zachary Runyan, who spoke to WDIV, the plaintiff was \u201csticking up for other people\u201d before his firing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went to his boss and said: \u2018Martin is saying this about Indian co-workers we have, he\u2019s saying this about people who buy our food, who keep our company open, and I don\u2019t think that should be allowed,\u2019\u201d Runyan remarked to the news station. \u201cAnd the response to Robert sticking up for other people is he gets fired, which is ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garza\u2019s lawsuit alleges retaliatory dismissal and claims the company maintained a racially hostile work environment. He also says neither Campbell\u2019s nor its human resources department followed up on his report about Bally, leaving him unemployed for 10 months.<\/p>\n
Campbell\u2019s said in a statement that it was investigating the allegations and had placed Bally on leave for the time being, adding: \u201cIf accurate, the comments in the recording are unacceptable. They do not reflect our values and the culture of our company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in a separate statement to Newsweek, another Campbell\u2019s spokesperson denied claims that the meat being used was bioengineered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe use 100% real chicken in our soups,\u201d the company spokesperson reportedly said. \u201cThe chicken meat comes from long-trusted, [US Department of Agriculture] approved \u2026 suppliers and meets our high quality standards. All of our soups are made with No Antibiotics Ever chicken meat.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny claims to the contrary are completely false.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bally has not publicly commented on the lawsuit, which names him, Aupperle, and the company itself as defendants.<\/p>\n
Garza\u2019s lawsuit portrays Campbell\u2019s \u2013 whose distinctive red and white cans feature in one of Andy Warhol\u2019s most famous 1960s pop artworks \u2013 as joining other companies whose employees have verbally dumped on their own products.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei\u2019s deputy chair Eric Xu responded to a question about a new smartwatch by casting doubt on whether the product was even necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am always confused as to what smartwatches are for when we have smartphones,\u201d Xu was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
Infamously, in 1991, the former chair of the Ratner Group jewelry company, Gerald Ratner, publicly called its products \u201ctotal crap\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say: \u2018How can you sell this for such a low price?\u2019\u201d Ratner said at the time. \u201cI say, \u2018Because it\u2019s total crap.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He apologized and explained that he was joking, but business for the Ratner Group was substantially wounded, and 330 Ratner Group shops across the UK and US subsequently closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Campbell\u2019s Soup Company executive has been put on temporary leave after he allegedly referred to the firm\u2019s offerings as \u201cshit for fucking poor people\u201d \u2013 a remark purportedly caught on an audio recording and attributed to him in a former employee\u2019s wrongful termination lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed last Thursday in Wayne county circuit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[8488,2554,19903,3298,1725,3289,150,364,443,513,2533],"class_list":{"0":"post-35288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-alleges","9":"tag-called","10":"tag-campbells","11":"tag-executive","12":"tag-food","13":"tag-lawsuit","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-people","16":"tag-poor","17":"tag-products","18":"tag-soup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}