Another corporate overlord was caught saying the quiet part out loud after a whistleblower employee leaked an audio recording that criticized Campbell’s products and disparaged the customers who buy them.
The incident came to light after former cybersecurity analyst Robert Garza filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired for reporting a secretly recorded rant from a top executive who allegedly described the brand’s beloved pantry staples as something far less than "m’m! m’m! good."
Garza began working remotely for the company in September 2024. According to the lawsuit, trouble started when his Spidey senses kicked in around Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer Martin Bally. Something in the conversation felt wrong, the kind of wrong that makes a cybersecurity analyst think, “Better start recording before the villain monologue begins.”
So, under Michigan’s one-party consent laws, Garza pressed record.
What he captured had almost nothing to do with cybersecurity. Instead, he recorded a long tirade in which Bally mocked Campbell’s products, Campbell’s customers, and several coworkers. And all of this happened during a salary discussion. Nothing says professional growth like an executive insulting half the items in your clientele's pantry.
Garza later told Local 4 News:
“He has no filter. 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.”
Once the recording started, Bally went straight into a not-so-family-friendly soup-scented rant.
At one point, he can reportedly be heard saying:
“We have sh*t for f*cking poor people. Who buys our sh*t? I don’t buy Campbell’s products barely anymore. It’s not healthy now that I know what the f*ck‘s in it.”
For a company that has sold soups since 1869 and often advertises its simple ingredients and “No Antibiotics Ever” chicken, hearing a senior executive talk like this lands about as well as cold tomato soup. Campbell’s has spent more than a century marketing comfort and reliability. Bally’s comments sounded more like a frustrated Yelp review than a leadership statement.
He also allegedly added a complaint about that “No Antibiotics Ever” chicken:
“Bioengineered meat… I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer.”
The recording, which lasted more than 75 minutes, also included remarks Garza described as racist and abusive.
Among them, Bally is alleged to have said:
“F*cking Indians don’t know a f*cking thing. Like they couldn’t think for their f*cking selves.”
Garza said he felt “pure disgust” after the meeting and was even more unsettled when he listened back to the audio. The lawsuit also claims Bally admitted to arriving at work under the influence of weed edibles, because the situation apparently needed one more chaotic ingredient.
You can watch Garza’s interview with Local 4 News here:
- YouTube Click on Detroit Local 4 WDIV
Garza kept the recording for several months but finally reported it in January 2025 to his supervisor, J. D. Aupperle. According to Garza and his attorney, Zachary Runyan, the response was anything but supportive. They say the fallout was quick and as comforting as condensed soup right from the can.
Runyan said:
“He had never had any disciplinary action; they had never written him up for work performance.”
Garza was fired 20 days later. He says this happened shortly after Bally had praised his performance, which makes the sudden termination feel even more surreal.
Runyan also outlined the convenient sequence of events:
“He reached out to his supervisor and told the supervisor what Martin was saying, and then out of nowhere, my client was fired.”
The lawsuit, filed in Wayne County Circuit Court, accuses Campbell Soup Company, Bally, and Aupperle of workplace retaliation and of creating a racially hostile environment. Garza also claimed that he never heard back from Human Resources. After the termination, Garza says it took him ten months to find another job.
The period brought financial strain, anxiety, and all the stress you might expect from an unexpected job loss. He described the experience as the emotional equivalent of a can exploding in the pantry and taking a few shelves with it.
Garza stated:
“They have a motto: ‘We treat you like family here at Campbell’s—come work for us.’ We treat our employees like family.’ That’s not the case.”
Plenty of people online seemed to agree; the motto and recorded rant didn’t exactly match the flavor of Campbell’s family-friendly image:
Campbell Soup Company told ABC News that it is investigating the allegations. Bally has been placed on temporary leave. The company strongly denied the idea that its food is unhealthy or designed for “poor people,” and said the comments in the recording misrepresent its products and values.
In a cleaned-up statement to The Daily Dot, a Campbell’s spokesperson said:
“If the comments were in fact made, they are unacceptable. They do not reflect our values and the culture of our company. Mr. Bally is temporarily on leave while we conduct an investigation. 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.”
They also emphasized that Bally’s job title—IT, not Campbell culinary overlord—meant he had “nothing to do with how we make our food.” Which, to be fair, may be the first time in history a major corporation has reminded the public that their executive ranting about their own product has zero relevant expertise.
You can watch additional Local 4’s news coverage of the Campbell's scandal below:
- YouTube Click on Detroit Local 4 WDIV
If nothing else, the whole situation is also a reminder that in the modern workplace, someone is always recording. And if you’re going to rant about your employer’s entire product line, maybe don’t do it in front of the cybersecurity guy. He is the last employee you want for a monologue, because he can find it, save it, and make sure it never disappears.
@EdwardLawrence/X
