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No. 3: Bob Unanue and Peter Unanue

Manufacturing Power 50

NJBIZ STAFF//December 16, 2019//

No. 3: Bob Unanue and Peter Unanue

Manufacturing Power 50

NJBIZ STAFF//December 16, 2019//

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From left, Bob Unanue, president, and Peter Unanue, executive VP, Goya. The two are pictured at Goya's headquarters in Jersey City.
From left, Bob Unanue and Peter Unanue. – AARON HOUSTON/NJBIZ

Their family business is the biggest Hispanic-owned food company in the country. Brothers Bob and Peter Unanue run Goya, a company started by their grandfather Prudencio Unanue Ortiz, out of the Jersey City headquarters it settled into in 2015.

Goya started in Brooklyn in 1936, but might as well be native New Jerseyan—before the current headquarters opened, it had been in Secaucus since 1974.

The company donates 100,000 pounds of food each month to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey and racks up $1.5 billion in annual sales, employing 4,000 people at 26 facilities worldwide.

As their commitment to New Jersey stayed strong with the transition from Secaucus to Jersey City, so too does the brothers’ commitment to the company: Despite recent reports that Goya was in talks with private equity firm Carlyle Group on a deal that would have been valued at $3 billion to $4 billion, chief executive Bob Unanue said the company is not for sale.

“Goya is and will always be committed to building on our legacy of supporting our communities, established by our founding grandparents 83 years ago,” he told the New York Post in November. “We will never betray that mission.”


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