The Campbell’s Company fired a top executive after he went on an hour-long rant about the company’s products and called its customers “poor.”
The maker of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup said Wednesday it had fired a vice president and chief information security officer, Martin Bally, after investigating an offensive tirade recorded and released by a former Campbell’s cybersecurity analyst, Robert Garza.
“We have s—for f— poor people, right?” Bally said in an expletive-laced recording. “Who buys our s—? I don’t buy…Campbell’s products barely anymore.”
According to Garza’s recording, Bally later went on to attack the company’s products and their ingredients and allegedly made racist remarks about his Indian coworkers.
“It’s not healthy. Now that I know what’s…in it. Even in a can of soup I look at it, look at it. Bioengineered meat. I don’t want to eat….a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer. Do you?”
Campbell’s said in a statement that it was only made aware of Garza’s litigation and the audio he captured on Nov. 20. After confirming the voice on the recording is Bally, the company terminated his employment.
“The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused,” the company said in a statement to Fortune. “This behavior does not reflect our values and the culture of our company, and we will not tolerate that kind of language under any circumstances.”
As for Bally’s comments about the quality of Campbell’s products, the company said they were “patently absurd.”
“The chicken meat in our soups comes from long-trusted, USDA-approved U.S. suppliers and meets our high-quality standards. All our soups are made with No Antibiotics Ever chicken meat,” Campbell’s said in a statement.
Campbell’s, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker CPB has seen its stock fall about 1.43% over the past five days. The stock was trading down less than 1% as of Wednesday afternoon. The company, which ranks 425 on the Fortune 500 list, is known for its red-and-white soup cans, but it also owns Pepperidge Farms, maker of Goldfish, as well as pasta sauce producer Prego.
Campbell’s is now dealing with the fallout from the recording, including a threat by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who said in a post on X that he would look into the company because “Florida law bans lab-grown meat.”
The company is also facing Garza’s lawsuit. He claims he was fired unjustly, less than a month after complaining to a supervisor about Bally. He is seeking attorney’s fees and unspecified damages, according to the suit.
Garza claims nothing happened after he reported his concerns to a supervisor in January, and “he thought Campbell’s would be thankful that he reported Martin’s behavior, but instead he was abruptly fired,” according to a joint statement he made with attorney Zachary Runyan.
Garza said in the suit that he worked remotely for Campbell’s, but he met Bally at a restaurant in November 2024 to discuss his salary. Instead, he claims Bally went on the now public rant, which Garza recorded because he had an “instinct that something wasn’t right with Martin,” he told WDIV Local 4 News. It is legal to record someone in a conversation they’re participating in without their explicit permission in Michigan, where the meeting occurred.
“He has no filter,” Garza said of Bally in an interview with WDIV Local 4 News. “He thinks he’s a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company and he can do whatever he wants because he’s an executive.”
