New York (AFP) – Food giant Campbell’s has dismissed as “absurd” claims allegedly made by a senior executive, who has since been placed on leave, that its soups are made with “3D-printed” chicken and consumed by “poor people.” The company said Martin Bally, a vice president and chief information security officer, had been put on temporary leave pending an investigation after an employee lawsuit accused him of making racist comments and denigrating Campbell’s products during an hour-long, expletive-laced rant.
The employee, Robert Garza, said the comments were made in a conversation he secretly recorded and later shared with a local media outlet in Michigan. In the audio, a voice — allegedly Bally’s — is deriding Campbell’s “highly processed foods” as “shit for …poor people.” “Bioengineered meat — I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer,” he reportedly says. Garza, who charges the company fired him for reporting the rant, said Bally also called Indian employees “idiots” and stressed how he disliked working with them.
The Campbell’s brand enjoys iconic status at home and abroad and is best known for its line of canned soups, which Andy Warhol made the subject of a series of paintings that became synonymous with the artist. While Campbell’s acknowledged using genetically modified crops such as corn and soybean, the chicken “comes from long-trusted” federally-approved suppliers “and meets our high quality standards,” it said in a statement.
“The comments heard on the recording about our food are not only inaccurate, they are absurd,” Campbell’s said. “We do not use lab-grown chicken or any form of artificial or bioengineered meat in our soups. We are proud of the food we make and the high-quality ingredients we use.”
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