MONROE, Mich. – The vice president of Campbell Soup Company has been placed on leave amid an investigation after he was secretly recorded and caught slamming the company’s product and customers.
Local 4 spoke to a former employee at Campbell’s, Robert Garza, of Monroe. Garza said he was fired after he complained about Vice President Martin Bally.
“We have s--t for f**king poor people,” part of the recording said. “Who buys our s--t? I don’t buy Campbell’s products barely anymore. It’s not healthy now that I know what the f---‘s in it. Bioengineered meat -- I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer.”
On Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, the company confirmed that Bally has been placed on leave amid an internal investigation into his alleged comments.
The company also released the following statement to Local 4:
“We 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 -- they are patently absurd.
We use 100% real chicken in our soups. The chicken meat comes from long-trusted, USDA-approved U.S. suppliers and meets our high quality standards. All of our soups are made with No Antibiotics Ever chicken meat. Any claims to the contrary are completely false."
Campbell Soup Company
Garza said he recorded an hour-long rant by the top Campbell Soup Company executive because he said he trusted his “instinct that something wasn’t right with Martin,” when he went to meet with him to discuss his salary. Instead, he said he sat at a restaurant and listened to an explosive, hour-long tirade, and recorded all of it.
Now, Garza is suing the company.
Garza is now suing the company -- alleging racist remarks, admissions of drug use at work and retaliation after he tried to report it.
The lawsuit was filed on Thursday, Nov. 21, in Wayne County Circuit Court and names Campbell Soup Company, vice president and chief information security officer Martin Bally, and supervisor J.D. Aupperle as defendants.
Garza told Local 4 he began working remotely as a security analyst in September 2024 for the company’s Camden, New Jersey headquarters.
In the lawsuit, Garza alleges Bally said Campbell’s makes “highly processed food” for “poor people” and made several derogatory comments about Indian employees, calling them “idiots.”
The recording lasted longer than an hour and 15 minutes and included what Garza said was a “disgusting” rant about his coworkers.
“F---ing Indians don’t know a f---ing thing,” the recording said. “Like they couldn’t think for their f---ing selves,” it said in part.
Garza said he felt sick, “pure disgust,” after the meeting, and again after hearing the rant.
After keeping the recordings to himself at first, Garza reported what he heard to his direct supervisor, Aupperle, in January 2025.
Garza’s attorney, Zachary Runyan, said Garza was blindsided 20 days later.
“He reached out to his supervisor and told the supervisor what Martin was saying, and then out of nowhere, my client was fired,” Runyan said. “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.’ And the response to Robert sticking up for other people is he gets fired, which is ridiculous.”
Garza said the termination was shocking to understand -- especially because he said Bally had praised his performance during that same meeting.
“He had never had any disciplinary action, they had never written him up for work performance,” Runyan said.
The lawsuit claims Garza was fired Jan. 30, 2025, in retaliation for raising concerns about Bally’s behavior, and accuses the company of maintaining a racially hostile work environment.
Garza said he received no follow-up from Human Resources or Campbell’s. He said it took him 10 months to find another job -- and he calls the way the company handled everything “simply terrible.”
“They have a motto: ‘We treat you like family here at Campbell‘s -- come work for us,’” Garza said. “‘We treat our employees like family.’ That’s not the case.”