Campbell Soup Company put an executive on leave while investigating claims made in a lawsuit that he trashed the company behind closed doors, including mocking its “poor” customers and saying the company’s meat “came from a 3D printer.”
In a statement Tuesday, the company said the alleged comments by Martin Bally, Campbell’s vice president of information technology, were “unacceptable.”
“Such language does not reflect our values and the culture of our company,” the company said. “We do not tolerate that kind of language under any circumstances.”
The move follows a lawsuit filed Thursday in a Michigan court by Robert Garza, a former cybersecurity analyst at the company who said he was fired after complaining about Bally.
According to the lawsuit, Garza recorded a meeting with Bally where the executive insulted the intelligence of his Indian colleagues and said the company’s products were for “poor people.”
The law firm representing Garza provided Business Insider with an apparent recording of the meeting. The recording was not included as an exhibit in the lawsuit, and Business Insider hasn’t independently authenticated it.
The recording features a conversation where a person belittles Campbell and its products.
“If you look at our fucking pantry — we have shit for fucking poor people, right?” the person said.
“I don’t buy fucking Campbell’s products barely anymore,” the person continues in the tirade. “It’s unhealthy.”
At one point in the recording of the meeting, which appears to take place at a restaurant, the person refers to Campbell’s food as “bioengineered.”
“Even in a can of soup — I look at it, and look at bioengineered meat,” the person said. “I don’t want to eat a fucking piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer, do you?”
Elsewhere in the recorded conversation, the person recounts an instance where he tried to help a colleague with a tech issue. He blamed “Indians” for not resolving it without him.
“Fucking Indians, they don’t know a mother-fucking thing,” the person said. “They couldn’t think for their fucking selves.”
Bally didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
In its statement Tuesday, Campbell said the remarks about its food were “patently absurd” and that the chicken meat in its soups “comes from long-trusted, USDA approved U.S. suppliers.”
“Keep in mind, the alleged comments heard on the audio were made by a person in IT, who has nothing to do with how we make our food,” the company said.
The audio has become a public relations nightmare for the soup-maker. Despite Campbell’s denials, the remarks about bioengineered and 3D-printed chicken have bounced around social media and drawn the attention of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who said he would investigate the company.
“Florida law bans lab-grown meat,” Uthmeier posted on X. “Our Consumer Protection division is launching an investigation and will demand answers from Campbell’s.”
The person in the recorded meeting had other criticisms for Campbell.
He bemoaned the lack of innovation in the food industry and said the company overpaid for its 2023 acquisition of Sovos Brands, which makes Rao’s pasta sauce, for $2.7 billion.
“It’s a fucking recipe and a brand,” the person said. “We don’t own a plant. Somebody else manufactures it for us. We’re buying, we’re getting tomatoes from the fucking family that does the recipe out of Italy. It’s a fucking smoke and mirrors.”
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