{"id":51365,"date":"2025-11-25T06:18:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T06:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/51365\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T06:18:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T06:18:24","slug":"campbell-soup-exec-belittled-poor-customers-spewed-racist-hate-about-indian-employees-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/51365\/","title":{"rendered":"Campbell Soup exec belittled ‘poor’ customers, spewed racist hate about Indian employees: lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Campbell Soup Company vice president was secretly recorded ripping the food giant\u2019s products<\/a>, mocking \u201cpoor people\u201d who buy them, blasting Indian coworkers as \u201cidiots\u201d and admitting he sometimes showed up to work high \u2014 and the employee who reported it says he was the one to get fired.<\/p>\n

Robert Garza, a former cybersecurity analyst from Monroe, Mich., says he hit record on instinct when he sat down with Campbell\u2019s Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer Martin Bally for what was supposed to be a routine salary<\/a> meeting late last year.<\/p>\n

Instead, he captured what he describes as an explosive, hour-long tirade that left him feeling \u201cpure disgust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Garza, a former cybersecurity analyst from Monroe, Mich., has filed suit against Campbell\u2019s Soup Company. Local News 4<\/p>\n

Garza began working at the company\u2019s Camden, NJ, headquarters in September 2024.<\/p>\n

He said he trusted a gut feeling that \u201csomething wasn\u2019t right with Martin\u201d before the meeting in November of last year \u2014 and within minutes, Bally allegedly started unloading.<\/p>\n

According to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Wayne County Circuit Court, Bally railed against the very products he oversaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have s\u2013t for f\u2013king poor people. Who buys our s\u2013t? I don\u2019t buy Campbell\u2019s products barely anymore,\u201d Bally said, according to the over 75-minute recording.<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer Martin Bally is pictured. Linkedin\/Martin Bally<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not healthy now that I know what the f\u2013k\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

At another point, Bally dissed the ingredients in Campbell\u2019s soups: \u201cBioengineered meat \u2014 I don\u2019t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suit alleges he then tore into Indian colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cF\u2013king Indians don\u2019t know a f\u2013king thing,\u201d the person on the recording raved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey couldn\u2019t think for their f\u2013king selves.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Campbell\u2019s spokesperson told The Post that Bally is \u201ctemporarily on leave while we conduct an investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the comments were in fact made, they are unacceptable. They do not reflect our values and the culture of our company. We were not aware of the recording,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement. \u201cWe 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 \u2014 they are patently absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza told Local 4 News he was stunned.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has no filter,\u201d he said. \u201cHe thinks he\u2019s a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company and he can do whatever he wants because he\u2019s an executive.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the filing, Bally also disclosed he often came to work high from marijuana edibles \u2014 an admission Garza said he also captured on the recording.<\/p>\n

Bally allegedly mocked \u201cpoor people\u201d who buy Campbell\u2019s products, blasted Indian coworkers as \u201cidiots\u201d and admitting he sometimes showed up to work high. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Garza said he at first kept the audio to himself because he needed time to process what he heard. But weeks later, he decided he had to speak up.<\/p>\n

He recounted that in January, he went to his manager JD Aupperle to report Bally\u2019s behavior. Garza claims Bally praised his work during the very same meeting in which the rant occurred and that he had no performance issues on his record.<\/p>\n

Attorney Zachary Runyan told Local 4 the fallout was swift.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c[Garza] reached out to his supervisor and told the supervisor what Martin was saying, and then out of nowhere, my client was fired,\u201d Runyan <\/a>said.<\/p>\n

The lawyer added: \u201cHe was really sticking up for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza said he was terminated 20 days after speaking up \u2014 blindsided by an action he believes was meant to silence him.<\/p>\n

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The lawsuit alleges he was fired on Jan. 30 in retaliation for reporting discriminatory and harassing conduct.<\/p>\n

The suit claims the company maintained a racially hostile work environment and acted with intentional disregard for Garza\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

The fired worker said he received no follow-up from human resources after raising the concerns. He told Local 4 it took 10 months to find another job, calling the company\u2019s handling of the situation \u201csimply terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a motto: \u2018We treat you like family here at Campbell\u2019s \u2014 come work for us,\u2019\u201d Garza said. \u201cThat\u2019s not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation has been very hard on Robert. He thought Campbell\u2019s would be thankful that he reported Martin\u2019s behavior, but instead he was abruptly fired. We look forward to obtaining Robert the justice he deserves,\u201d Runyan, the attorney for the plaintiff, said in a statement to The Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Campbell Soup Company vice president was secretly recorded ripping the food giant\u2019s products, mocking \u201cpoor people\u201d who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[288,28603,3100,2850,9730,9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-51365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-campbells-soups","10":"tag-lawsuit","11":"tag-lawsuits","12":"tag-michigan","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}