Campbell’s Soup Company said it fired the executive allegedly caught on tape delivering a controversial rant about the company’s products and making racist remarks.
On Wednesday, the company released a statement saying it believes the voice on the recording, leaked by former Campbell’s employee Robert Garza, was that of Campbell’s vice president of information technology, Martin Bally.
“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,” the statement said, adding that Bally was fired on Tuesday over his comments.
The Daily Beast has contacted Martin Bally for comment on the firing, but received no immediate response.
In the statement, the company also noted that the recording of Bally was a year old and was released in connection with a lawsuit Garza filed against Campbell’s, alleging the company fired him in retaliation for raising complaints about Bally.
According to the lawsuit, Bally allegedly went on an over-hour-long rant, saying the company sells “s–t for f—ing poor people,” and suggesting that the chicken in its soups is “bioengineered meat” that comes from “a 3-D printer.”
Campbell’s is best known for its iconic canned soups—made even more famous by Andy Warhol’s pop-art renderings of the label. Today, a single can typically sells for between $1.92 and $3.79.
“We use 100% real chicken in our soups,” the company said in a statement to the Daily Beast, adding that the meat comes from “USDA approved U.S. suppliers.”
In its Wednesday statement, Campbell’s further emphasized that the “comments heard on the recording about our food are not only inaccurate—they are patently absurd. ”
Aside from the comments about the quality of Campbell’s products, the vice president also allegedly made racist remarks about employees of Indian origin.
“He has no filter,” Garza told Local 4 about Bally, adding, “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.”
Garza claims that he was fired 20 days after reporting Bally’s behavior.
“The comments were vulgar, offensive, and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused,” the company said in its statement on Wednesday.
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