Meet Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue, who sparked a protest of his Latino foods company after saying the US was 'truly blessed' to have Trump as president

Goya Foods began as a grocery store that specialized in imported olive oil and sardines in Manhattan and sold rare Spanish food products, Hispanic Executive reported in 2017. It has since grown into the self-described largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States. Prudencio Unanue bought the rights to the company's name, Goya, from a Moroccan sardine importer he worked with for $1 after seeing it on a sardine can, according to Newsweek.

The company produces pantry staples that are popular in Latin America and Spain but difficult to find in the United States, including dozens of varieties of beans, rices, spices, and juices, according to the brand's website. Goya Foods is based in Jersey City, New Jersey, and generated $1.5 billion in sales in 2015, per Forbes.

Goya is known for its Latino food products that are used in "virtually every Latino household across the country," attorney Raul A. Reyes wrote in an opinion piece for CNN Business.

Bob Unanue was one of six siblings born in New Jersey to a first-generation Spanish immigrant father (who later died of leukemia) and an Irish American mother, per USA Today.

Unanue started packing olives on Goya's production floor when he was 10 years old, Hispanic Executive reported in 2017. "Our parents were bringing us into the business as we grew," Unanue told USA Today in 2008. "We really did grow up around the business. It was part of our everyday life."

Unanue studied accounting at Merrimack College outside Boston, per USA Today. He took a year off to run a restaurant in New Jersey but rejoined Goya Foods to run its Florida division in 1999.

The Unanue family publicly fought for years over Goya's direction, and their issues had to be resolved in court even before the corporate leadership shakeup, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2004.

Unanue and his cousin Francisco disagreed with the expansion deal their uncle and longtime Goya CEO Joseph Unanue made with Wal-Mart and obtained board approval to remove him, per the Journal.

"There were differences of opinion as to the direction of the company," Unanue told ABC News in 2008. "Now, we're all on the same page."

Unanue took over as CEO after the coup, making him the third successive generation to run Goya Foods, according to NBC News. Unanue has six children of his own and plans for one of them to take over the family business, he told Crain's New York Business.

Unanue diversified Goya's product lines, catering to the taste of Latinos from different backgrounds as the United States' Latino population diversified and expanding the brand's availability into regions with growing Latino populations like central and south Florida, USA Today reported. Goya Foods produced a "dizzying" 2,500 different products to meet all of their needs in 2016, per USA Today.

"We say [about Hispanics] that we are united by language and separated by the bean," Unanue told Crain's New York Business. As a result, Goya manufactures 28 different types of beans and studies various Latino populations to anticipate the types of products that will sell best, per USA Today.

"We're nimble because we're family operated and we can make decisions quickly," Unanue told Hispanic Executive in 2017. "We know who is coming, where they are coming from, and what products will allow us to make a connection with them. It works because we have the infrastructure, quality, and authenticity."

The Goya Foods fortune is split between several family members including Bob Unanue, Joseph A. Unanue, and Andy Unanue, per Newsweek.

The Unanue's held the No. 170 spot on Forbes' Richest Families in America list in 2014, but dropped off the list the next year, their profile shows.

"People think because we make $1 billion in sales that it's the same as net worth," Unanue told Crain's New York Business in 2013. "We are constantly pumping money back into the company. We don't make a lot of money. Goya has small margins."

In comments published alongside a 2017 profile of Unanue, Hispanic Executive guest editor Javier Palomarez called Unanue a "true servant-leader," saying that the CEO had a "thoughtful, modest style."

Goya Foods' longtime headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey, were relatively modest, too, according to Hispanic Executive.

USA Today's Barbara De Lollis described its "1970s-era wood-paneled lobby" in a 2008 profile of Unanue. "There's no sleek, modern office furniture, high-price artwork, flat-screen TV screens or uniformed security guards," De Lollis wrote. "In what could be a symbol for Goya's throwback culture, the lobby instead features portraits of Unanue family members, posters that depict Goya products and two friendly, bilingual receptionists." The company relocated to Jersey City in 2015, according to NJBiz.

De Lollis also reported that Unanue had a friendly relationship with the company's primarily Hispanic staff, noting that he "regularly [bought] Dunkin' Donuts coffee for executives and assistants" and "demonstrates uncanny familiarity with longtime employees' lives, often reciting their résumés with dates in detail."

Employee perks include "company barbeques, quaint holiday parties, and employee scholarships." Unanue and his wife Muriel Fitzpatrick regularly take the dance floor at the annual holiday party, De Lollis reported.

Unanue's wife's family lives in Cape Cod, so he often spends his summers there, USA Today reported. Unanue said he also enjoys sailing and owns a small sailboat and takes his children on ski trips in order "to be a cool dad," but otherwise doesn't travel much.

Unanue also donated $3,000 to the Republican National Committee in August 2019, according to federal campaign finance records.

The CEO has served on the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce since 2017, per Bloomberg.

Unanue also partnered with Michelle Obama during her time as first lady for an initiative aimed at reducing obesity in Latino communities, NBC News reported.

"We are all truly blessed, at the same time, to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder," Unanue said after watching Trump sign his White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative executive order in the Rose Garden on Thursday. The Goya CEO also said that the Latino unemployment rate was at an all-time low before the coronavirus pandemic and compared Trump to Unanue's grandfather, the Goya Foods founder.

Attorney Raul A. Reyes wrote in an opinion piece for CNN Business that Unanue's remarks "profoundly disrespected [Goya's] Latino customers," as President Trump has repeatedly made racist remarks targeting Latinos, including calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and using other anti-immigrant rhetoric that some Latino-Americans said made them feel unsafe.

A video of Unanue's remarks went viral, sparking public rebukes from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, Business Insider's Kate Taylor reported. Twitter users threatened to boycott the company under the hashtag #Goyaway.

"We learned to bake bread in this pandemic, we can learn to make our own adobo con pimienta," Miranda wrote on Twitter July 10. "Bye."

In response, Unanue called the boycott a "suppression of speech" during an interview with Fox News later that day. "I'm not apologizing," he said.