Campbell’s said on Wednesday that it no longer employed an executive who was accused in a lawsuit of making offensive comments and disparaging the company’s food products.
An audiotape that was released this month reportedly featured the voice of Martin Bally, a vice president of information technology, saying Campbell’s made processed food for “poor people” and making racist remarks.
“After a review, we believe the voice on the recording is in fact Martin Bally,” Campbell’s said in a statement on Wednesday. “The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused.” Mr. Bally left the company on Tuesday, the statement said.
A former employee who leaked the tape to the news media, Robert Garza, did so in conjunction with a lawsuit he filed last week in Michigan against Mr. Bally and Campbell’s. The person on the audio also refers to Campbell’s canned soup containing a “piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer.”
The lawsuit said that during a meeting last year to discuss Mr. Garza’s salary, Mr. Bally made racist comments to Mr. Garza about Indian workers at the company and about the quality of the company’s products.
The suit claimed that after the meeting, Mr. Garza, a cybersecurity analyst, reported the comments to his manager. Shortly afterward, when Mr. Garza said he intended to tell human resources, he was “abruptly terminated,” the suit said.
Mr. Garza’s lawyer and Mr. Bally did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The suit claimed that Mr. Garza suffered as a result of the defendants’ actions.
Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, responding to a report about Mr. Garza’s lawsuit, said in a social media post on Monday that the state’s consumer protection division had begun an investigation into whether Campbell’s used “lab-grown meat” in its products.
On Tuesday, Campbell’s released a fact sheet about its food products, stating that the company “does not use 3-D-printed chicken, lab-grown chicken or any form of artificial or bioengineered meat in our soups.”
Campbell’s said the company learned about the audio when the lawsuit was filed last week. The statement added that neither Mr. Garza nor his lawyer had notified Campbell’s of the tape’s existence before then.
The company, based in Camden, N.J., and founded in 1869, focuses on meals, beverages and snacks. In addition to canned soups, Campbell’s produces Rao’s and Prego tomato sauces, Goldfish crackers and Cape Cod chips. Its subsidiaries include Pepperidge Farm and Snyder’s.
“We are proud of the food we make, the people who make it and the high-quality ingredients we use to provide consumers with good food at a good value,” the statement said. “The comments heard on the recording about our food are not only inaccurate — they are patently absurd.”
Emmett Lindner is a business reporter for The Times.
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