I enjoy a good soup, and if I’m buying canned soups, it’s always going to be Campbell’s or Progresso. Especially around the holidays, people are buying soups for their casseroles or side-dishes (Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom is a “hero product” for dozens of dishes), or they’re buying soup because it’s affordable in a bad economy. Well, Campbell’s is now facing a civil lawsuit from a former employee. The former employee was terminated after he reported some absolutely WILD comments from Campbell’s Vice President Martin Bally. Bally said, in a secret recording, that Campbell’s is for poor people, that they use bioengineered meat and that Campbell’s Indian employees are idiots. My god.
A fired Campbell Soup Company employee is suing their former employer alleging wrongful termination.
Robert Garza has claimed he was wrongfully fired after making a complaint about Martin Bally, the company’s Vice President and chief information security officer, who allegedly went on a tirade against the company and its customers, WDIV reported. Bally, Garza’s supervisor J.D. Aupperle and Campbell Soup Company are all named defendants in the case.
Garza alleges that in November 2024, he met with Bally to discuss his salary. During the meeting, Bally allegedly went on an hour-and-15-minute long rant about Campbell Soup Company and its customers. Garza, who recorded the expletive-laden rant, also claims that Bally made racist comments and allegedly admitted to using drugs at work. (It is legal in Michigan for one person who is party to a conversation to record another person without their consent, per Detroit Free Press, citing attorney Symantha Heath.)
Garza alleged in the suit that Bally said the company makes “highly processed food” for “poor people,” according to WDIV.
“We have s— for f—— poor people. Who buys our s—? I don’t buy Campbell’s products barely anymore. It’s not healthy now that I know what the f—‘s in it,” Bally allegedly said, per the local news outlet. “Bioengineered meat — I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer.”
Bally also allegedly admitted to Garza that he went to work high on marijuana edibles. During their sit-down, Bally also allegedly made derogatory comments about Indian employees. “F—ing Indians don’t know a f—— thing,” he said, according to WDIV. “Like they couldn’t think for their f—— selves,” Bally allegedly said, also calling them “idiots.”
In the suit, Garza says that he reported Bally’s comments to his direct supervisor, J.D. Aupperle, in January 2025. Garza claimed he was fired weeks later on Jan. 30, 2025. It took Garza another 10 months to find another job.
Garza’s attorney, Zachary Runyan, told WDIV, “He was really sticking up for other people. He went to his boss and said, ‘Martin is saying this about Indian coworkers we have, he’s saying this about people who buy our food — who keep our company open, and I don’t think that should be allowed.’ ”
Runyan added that the company’s alleged “ridiculous” response to Garza “sticking up for other people” is that he was fired. He noted that Garza, who had never been written up before, was never given any disciplinary action. Garza also claimed that neither Campbell nor their human resources department followed up with him, and called their reaction to the incident “simply terrible.”
Campbell Soup Company issued a statement, per WDIV. “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.”
Campbell’s is dumb as hell for firing Garza in general, especially if they knew that he had this recording. This is clearly an example of an employee being fired for reporting racism and reporting inappropriate behavior of a superior. This is insane across the board. Bioengineered meat? A white guy who hates Indians? Soup is only for poor people? Jeez.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Oh my another thing to boycott for more than racism. Will make my own soup that is healthier and fits my economic station in life. Bye Campbells!
My husband makes great soup. I buy parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, carrots and those other dirt vegetables, and he throws it together with what we have on hand. Last night it was beans and tomatoes with the vegetables. It was one of his best efforts!
I like pureed soup so curried squash is on the menu list!
I just bought two cans of Campbell’s cream of chicken soup to make green bean casserole for Thanksgiving. Yes, I know it should be cream of mushroom but a family member hates mushrooms. So, I make mine with cream of chicken.
After this, they won’t get any more of my money. I hope this guy gets paid, big time.
On ur family w just call for Cream of Goop soup, it doesn’t matter if its chicken or mushroom.
Just bought cream of mushroom myself for a couple holiday dishes, and the chicken noodle is my go-to soup for sick kids. This is deplorable and the company has handled it horribly. What is wrong with all these heads of companies (looking at you, Target) that they don’t see how this looks to their customers- they certainly get paid enough that they should be able to understand business 101!
One of my mom’s go-to dinners was pork chops & rice made with Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. This guy is an a**hole & so are the HR bosses who fired the guy who reported it! What kind of upside down world do we live in right now?! And where’s the door, ’cause I want out!
This story is absolutely wild. Boycott Campbell’s. Assh#le executives were really empowered by mango’s garbage and didn’t expect consequences ever, ever again. I can’t believe this nutter was recorded speaking like this about the company (let alone the blatant racism) and kept his job. But. Mango is a treasonous felon and ra#ist and has never experienced one reasonable consequence for his terrible behavior. He has emboldened his fellow pigs.
This has nothing to do with Trump. The guy was so high he didn’t notice someone was recording him while he was running his mouth.
No, I think @TN Democrat is right. trump has made it OK to be racist & sexist & bigoted out in the open again. he decried ‘dei’–making diversity a bad thing–and this is the result.
I agree TN Democrat he has most assuredly emboldened his fellow pigs!
I too agree, Tn Democrat
This dude carried on for more than an hour with his racist rant? And it’s all recorded? I hope Mr. Garza gets PAID for his wrongful termination. Firing the guy who reported it is a huge red flag to what else is going on over there at Campbell’s.
Haven’t we all worked with someone who teetered on the line of saying these things? Knowing when not to cross the line, confident that ultimately HR will protect them over the trouble maker who reports it? And they’re more empowered than ever now.
Kudos to Garza for recording it.
I want the recording to be made public! pleazzz And then see this asshole exec hunting for a new job in this economy
I want the racist asshole VP fired, but I’d also like to know the truth about his statements regarding bioengineered meat. Does their soup really contain meat from 3-D printers? If that’s true that would certainly add to the reasons to never buy Campbell’s soup again.
I doubt it’s true. Lab-grown meat isn’t currently produced on a large scale and is thus still very expensive, so they couldn’t sell the soup for $1.50 or whatever if they were using it. I don’t buy Campbell’s, so I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that they may use soy “meat” in some products, which is common in processed foods, and this guy is just an idiot who doesn’t understand that fake meat and lab-grown meat aren’t the same thing.
Apparently Campbell’s owns a lot of companies. Apparently one of them is my beloved Rao’s. It sucks but I will stop buying. (Which is easy to do in this economy.) If you’re interested, here is the list:
Campbell’s
Prego
Swanson
V8
Rao’s
Michael Angelo’s.
Pepperidge Farm
Goldfish
Snyder’s of Hanover
Cape Cod
Kettle Brand
Lance
Late July
Done! easy for me bc i can’t afford most of that shit anyway
Thank you for the list! I only bought campbells and the goldfish. Will now buy Aldi’s knockoffs for those two things.
Aldi knock-offs are pretty good! My family and I started boycotting Campbells earlier this year when it was revealed they had been dumping their waste into a river in Ohio (I think it was Ohio). They freely admitted to doing it for years. A**holes in more ways than one apparently.
Dammit! I love V-8 and Pepperidge Farm! Jerks gotta ruin everything!
This is the problem with these fucking corporate monopolies. It’s almost impossible to boycott them because it’s a handful of corps that own literally EVERYTHING. I miss Lina Khan. Sigh.
This ^ since the 2008 financial collapse, banks and corporations have bought out so many brands with merger and acquisitions it’s insane. It only worsened under the first trump administration when they loosened so many regulations and now it’s a free for all. The paramount skydance merger was bad enough, my heart can’t take it if the Ellison’s acquire Warner Bros Discovery as they’ll become the largest international multimedia conglomerate. They’ll own a majority of the news with CBS, CNN, etc, as well as movie studios and tv programmes. It makes me physically ill how much control corporations have over all of our lives.
I like Rao’s too. That’s the only one on that list I will miss.
Drat! I don’t buy anything on that list except for Rao’s “sensitive” marinara. It’s a great option to have on hand for people with certain gastro issues. Oh well, no more Rao!
I’m good, whew! I don’t buy any of these brands any way. And for canned soups, I prefer Amy’s.
I used to love some of the Amy’s soups but I finally realized why I would get so bloated after having them…. they were crazy high in sodium! Even their low sodium options now have too much sodium in them for me.
They also own Pacific Foods
sounds like us fucking poor ppl won’t be buying your terrible racist bioengineered soup, dude. may your company go down in flames
Wegmans cream of mushroom for the casseroles this holiday season it is.
yeah, I usually buy the store brand. I don’t have wegman’s, but never noticed a difference between giant or safeway brand
On the one hand, the employee was technically engaging in insubordination, which is a legitimate cause for dismissal. On the other hand, he can argue for an exception because he was reporting discrimination. On the third hand, having negative opinions about Indian employees per se isn’t discrimination; there would arguably have to be some action taken to cause harm to those employees on account of them being Indian. So, overall, the VP is clearly a POS, but I’m not sure that this is a winning case for the former employee. Campbell’s will probably throw some money at him to stop the bad PR. Gross, and not just the 3D printed chicken.
well I would say point two handily [haha pun intended] obliterates point one.
And I am POSITIVE with garbage leadership like that, racist actions were taken to harm minority employees – proving it, otoh, may be harder. But we all know it happens
How is it insubordination? He filed a complaint with his manager about offensive comments made to him by a senior employee. How is that insubordination? Should he have just smiled and nodded? That’s how shit never gets addressed. Plus the VP admitted he was high during his rant. The employee wasn’t fired for his job performance. And a decent company should want to know if they have a POS amongst its senior staff. Now they have a truck load of bad publicity to deal with when they could have just terminated the VP.
All of that ^
Yeah, reporting is not insubordination. Recording a conversation without the other person’s consent is, however, problematic. It was a conference call, I think I read–so if it was a Teams meeting, everybody would have been aware that it was being recorded…. Then again, you’re supposed to announce at the beginning of a Teams meeting if you’re recording & my guess is this employee hit record on his phone instead.
As for openly disparaging Indian employees–that absolutely falls into the harassment category which is against the law (federal law, at least). It also creates a hostile work environment, something else that’s against the law.
And the employee was NOT fired for anything having to do with his performance, he merely reported some appalling behavior to HR which is his right & quite frankly his obligation. I’m disappointed that the other people in that meeting stayed quiet.
It’s WILD that these companies can see what’s going with with Target and think “Yeah! Let’s lean into THAT!”
The FoodNetwork really needs to stop with the game shows and bring back the how-to cooking shows because we’re all going to be cooking and baking from scratch!
Progresso says thank you.
Exactly. Campbell’s is trash now anyway. I use their Golden Mushroom soup for cooking but if I want a bowl of soup to eat, its Progresso all day long.
I have thoughts.
– How high WAS this guy? The company’s Vice President and chief information security officer doesn’t understand that 3D printing is done with plastic filament and is thus 1) inedible and 2) hella expensive?
– Yes Garza was probably basically fired for recording – can’t have accountability – but I wonder if there’s a line in the company handbook about that specifically.
– Store brands packaged goods (like soup) are produced by big manufacturers. Stores with delis may make their own soup but that’s far different than a soup factory and canning operation. (So your store brand soup could have been made by Campbell’s, but I don’t know the soup world.)
I swear to God, do companies prescreen exec level employees and only hire a$$holes? I’m assuming this guy made good money, had great benefits and just had to be not outwardly problematic. Is it really that hard to do? I do it every day for much less money, maybe that makes me the idiot I guess.
It’s also loaded with MSG and isn’t good for you in the least.
Wasn’t this a plot on the Cosby show? And Theo went to some company mixer just to eat and essentially said soup is “just good food” ?