No. 7: Bob Unanue and Peter Unanue

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Goya sales surged this year amid the pandemic as people traded taco Tuesday at their local bar for a similar festivity in isolation. In March alone, sales for Goya products quadrupled, and Goya distributed over 23 million cans of beans to retailers. The company was in the news time and time again for donating products and cash, including 18,000 meals in March, 20,000 masks in April, 180,000 pounds of food to Venezuela in September, and 300,000 pounds of food to Guatemala in October. Now, Goya is offering $80,000 in culinary arts and food science scholarships nationwide.

According to CEO Bob Unanue, sales shot up again (this time, 1,000%) when a political disagreement prompted New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tweet her own recipe for adobo, a popular seasoning also produced by Goya. Unanue shared the information during a radio interview with The Michael Berry Show.

Goya is no stranger to popularity, but how Bob and Peter reacted to the surges (hint: they didn’t skip a beat. While grocers were running out of products left and right earlier in the pandemic, Goya shelves stayed stocked, and not for lack of sales) would no doubt make late grandfather Prudencio Unanue Ortiz proud.

Ortiz started Goya in 1936; and since then, the company has become the biggest Hispanic owned food company in the country.