Unanue family

The Unanue family of New York City is a wealthy American family of Spanish, and ultimately of Basque, origin. They were the 170th richest family in the United States in 2014 according to Forbes, having a net worth of US$1.1 billion.^[1]

The patriarch, Prudencio Unanue Ortiz, migrated from Spain in the 20th century and established Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States.^[2] The family's members include Joseph A. Unanue and Andy Unanue. Goya Foods is the 377th largest private American company.^[3]

First generation

Prudencio Unanue Ortiz (1886–1976),^[5] was the founder of Goya Foods. He was born in Villasana de Mena,^[5] in the province of Burgos, in northern Spain. In 1903, at the age of seventeen, Unanue migrated to San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, in search of employment opportunities and established a small food distribution business. In 1918 he moved on to New York City, to enroll in the Albany Business School, and in 1921 returned to San Lorenzo to marry Carolina Casal de Valdés (1890–1984), from Pontevedra, Galicia, whom he had met there and whose parents had also emigrated from Spain.^[6]

The year after their marriage, the Unanues moved to New Jersey, where Don Prudencio, as he was always known in his firm, became a broker for Spanish foods. The company was originally known as Unanue & Sons and in 1961 it changed to Goya Foods.^[7] The couple had four sons, Joseph A., Charles, Francisco and Anthony.^[8]

Second generation

• Charles Unanue (1923–????) Charles was born in Puerto Rico. In 1969, he was Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer of all of the companies, including Goya. However, he was later dismissed.^[9]

• Bronze star for bravery. He married Carmen Ana Casal (b. Puerto Rico) and had six children: Andy, Mimi, Maribel, Joey, mary anne and Mari. He died in June 2013 in Alpine, New Jersey.^[8][10]
• Anthony Unanue (1927–1976) Engineer, while in Maryland worked briefly for the federal government. Died in 1976 aged 48. Had six children, the eldest Robert, Tom, Peter and three others.[11]
• Francisco Unanue (1931–2002) He founded Goya de Puerto Rico in the 1960s becoming president of that division.
  Santurce. He was buried at the Cementerio Porta Coeli in Bayamón.^[12] He married Diana Margarita Lopez and had four children,^[12]
  Frankie, Carlos, Anne-Marie, and Jorge.

• Chief Operating Officer
  of Goya Foods since 1999.
• Joseph F. Unanue (1957-1998) vice president of operations for Goya Foods since 1995. He previously was general manager of Goya de Puerto Rico. He was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and had married Isabel Banuchi having three daughters, Isabel, Sofia and Juliana.[13]
• Carlos Unanue, as of 2013 is president of Goya de Puerto Rico.^[14]
• Frank Unanue, as of 2013 is president of Goya operations in Florida.^[14]
• Jorge Unanue
• Robert “Bob” Unanue (1954-),
  CEO of Goya Foods since 2004. Robert Unanue was born in Wyckoff, New Jersey, and the eldest of six children to Anthony Unanue.^[11] In 1973 the family moved to Spain for a few years where he assisted his father with an olive oil production business. During this period, he enrolled at the University of Seville. He is married to Muriel Fitzpatrick. Unanue ran operations in Puerto Rico for seven years during the 1980s.^[14]
• Tom Unanue as of 2008 ran the Florida operations for Goya.[11]
• Peter Unanue, Executive Vice President of Goya Foods.^[15]

Politics

The family supported Michelle Obama in 2012 with MyPlate, an initiative to encourage Hispanics and African Americans to eat balanced meals.^[16]

In July 2020, Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue visited the White House and pledged one million cans of Goya

On 7 December 2020, CEO Robert Unanue stated that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was named "employee of the month" after her boycott call led to a tenfold sales spike.^[21]

On January 20, 2021, Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue claimed on Fox Business that the novel coronavirus was used by the Democratic party, media, and technology elites to control the American public and steal the 2020 US presidential election: “I think this is mission accomplished — mission accomplished by the union, the partnership, the conglomerate of social media, Big Tech, big media, and government, big government — for ushering in the dawn of a new world order, this Great Reset, with an unverified election.”^[22] In the same interview, Unanue also claimed that the coronavirus would disappear soon after the inauguration of Joe Biden: “There is a war coming, now that the president is leaving today, there's still coming after the United States, the working class. They've decimated the working class this year by shutting down the economy.”^[22]

On January 25, 2021, Robert Unanue was censured by Goya's board of directors after he made unfounded public claims about

In February 2021, in a speech given at CPAC, Robert Unanue continued to deny the results of the 2020 election, falsely stating that Trump was "the real, the legitimate, and still the actual president of the United States”. Unanue also stated "We still have faith that the majority of the people in the United States voted for the president," despite Biden defeating Trump by more than 7 million votes.^[25][26]

See also

• List of Spanish Americans

References