It’s not too late to get into the foot-shooting contest for 2025.
A Campbell’s Soup Company executive has been put on temporary leave after he allegedly referred to the firm’s offerings as “shit for fucking poor people” – a remark purportedly caught on an audio recording and attributed to him in a former employee’s wrongful termination lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed last Thursday in Wayne county circuit court in Michigan by Robert Garza, who had joined Campbell’s New Jersey headquarters remotely in September 2024 as a security analyst. Garza alleges he was fired in January after he raised concerns about comments made by Martin Bally, Campbell’s vice-president of information technology – including referring to one of the company’s ingredients as “bioengineered meat” while going off on a racist tirade.
The lawsuit recounts that Garza met with Bally in November 2024 to discuss his salary. However, Garza alleges, the meeting turned into an hour-long rant by Bally during which he disparaged the quality of Campbell’s products and customers, made racist comments about Indian employees and admitted to coming to work while high on marijuana edibles.
Uh, oh, regrettios.
Isn’t a product priced for “poor people”, crude (and inaccurate) wording aside, just a product that’s cheap? It seems horribly out of touch to treat that like a bad thing. To begin with, people on all sides of the economic clusterfuck get canned soups and other foods out of convenience and in case of emergencies. Canned soup being affordable means more people have that as an option.
I can’t think of a single person I’ve met who considers or expects Campbell’s soups to be high quality, gourmet cuisine. It’s food you buy for its price, nutritional value, and/or longevity.
Anyway, great job alienating your customers. I haven’t eaten Campbell’s in a while. Guess I won’t for a lot longer now. Hopefully that executive gets sued to oblivion.
Great time to start buying Kroger brands (I seem to recall you being in the PNW, so QFC or Freddy’s).
QFC is great. It’s amazing how my student Kroger card still works there too.
Personally, we make homemade chicken noodle soup rather than buy cans. It made me actually like chicken noodle soup rather than just tolerate it. Plus, one batch can last several days.