Why this Hispanic-owned food manufacturer is warning about a food crisis
Goya Foods President and CEO Bob Unanue last week issued a dire warning, saying the world is about to face a catastrophic food shortage.
“We are on the precipice of a global food crisis,” Unanue told Maria Bartiromo Tuesday on Mornings with Maria. “G-d created humanity; humanity has created every way to destroy itself from nuclear biological chemical. But now we’ve waged a war, we’ve weaponized food.”
Unanue went on to say that food supplies are being great impacted by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“In the Ukraine, between the Ukraine and Russia, they represent 50% of the world’s production of fertilizer, 30% wheat, 20% corn, 2.5 million acres of sunflowers, other food and minerals. They also have sand for fracking, sand for glass… Russia, they’re also cutting off Ukraine to the sea. … If they cut off Odessa, then they basically landlock the Ukraine and they can’t export–they can’t even plant.”
The Goya Foods CEO then lamented how the U.S. has become dependent on other countries for basic commodities.
"We’re going to have to tighten our belt...We’ve given up our oil independence to oil dependence. We’re dependent now on everybody else. We’re the greatest nation on Earth, we’ve been dependent on nobody. We’ve given that up. We’ve given that up...Our yields are going to be less, our costs are going to go up.”
Bob Unanue is the grandson of Don Prudencio Unanue, who together with his wife Carolina immigrated to the United States in 1921 and found a niche selling imported food from Spain.
Don Prudencio then opened a small Lower Manhattan storefront in 1936, but the Spanish Civil War cut off his supply lines and he had to rebuild his business from scratch. So, he purchased a shipment of Moroccan sardines and began selling them to local food stores. Eventually, Don Prudencio was able to add olives and olive oil to his inventory, and the business grew.
The business continued expanding until Don Prudencio and Carolina were doing their own food processing, canning and packaging. In 1958, they opened their first factory.
Today, Goya Foods is the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States, with over $1 billion in annual revenue. It is also America’s 23rd largest privately-owned company and a cultural icon. In 1999, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History opened a Goya exhibit, showcasing the history of the company and the Unanue family.
In recent years, Goya Foods has also become a paragon of philanthropy, donating millions of pounds of food to shelters and food banks, in addition to 1.5 million pounds of food to needy American families. The company supports over 300 charities and has supplied food to victims of natural disasters such as Hurricanes Maria, Harvey and Irene.
In 2011, Goya Foods was honored by then-President Barack Obama for its commitment to the Hispanic community. Bob Unanue presented Obama with a copy of the book If It’s Goya, It Has To Be Good – 75 Years of History.
But all that was not enough to protect Goya Foods from being boycotted after Unanue praised President Donald Trump at a 2020 event geared to help Hispanic communities.
“We're all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder, and that's what my grandfather did,” said Unanue. “We pray for our leadership, our president, and we pray for our country that we will continue to prosper and to grow.”
Those remarks generated a massive backlash on social media, with calls to boycott the company using the hashtag #Goyaway led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
But the boycott did not have the intended effect. Instead of hurting the company, the boycott actually led to a spike in sales, prompting Unanue to name Ocasio-Cortez “Employee of the Month.”
"She was actually our employee of the month ... when she boycotted us, our sales actually increased 1,000 percent," Unanue said. "We never were able to hand it to her, but she got employee of the month for bringing attention to GOYA and our adobo. Actually, our sales of adobo did very well after she said, 'make your own adobo' ... she's our hero, she helped boost sales tremendously."
