Patricia Ortiz/Houston Public Media
Bob Unanue, the longtime president and CEO of Goya Meals who led the corporate’s growth to the Houston space, advised in a information launch and collection of social media posts this week that he’s not in command of the family-owned enterprise.
Unanue, who appeared in Houston final yr to endorse President Donald Trump, mentioned the board for the New Jersey-based firm had decided about his “employment.”
Goya Meals didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark about Unanue, however in response to a number of information studies, the corporate acknowledged a “change in management.”
“The uncertainty at Goya Meals won’t deter me from making the world conscious of the evils of kid trafficking, and I can’t relaxation till the over 325,000 youngsters misplaced over the past 2 years are recovered,” Unanue mentioned in his information launch. “As prior to now, I’ll work with the present administration in placing an finish to the extraordinarily profitable however purely evil business. I can’t be silenced. I can’t give in to those that need me to surrender the struggle. We can’t stay passive spectators whereas soulless, despicable animals deal with youngsters with callous indifference.”
Unanue was referring to Goya Cares, a world initiative he created in 2022 to assist defend youngsters from trafficking, abuse and exploitation via consciousness campaigns.
In keeping with the Sunday launch from Unanue, he mentioned he has “no actual solutions” concerning the cause behind the choice made by the Goya board. The corporate, in an announcement cited by a number of information shops, mentioned the “change in management has completely no connection to politics or media appearances.”
In 2020, the identical yr Goya introduced an $80 million growth to Brookshire, a small city west of Houston, Unanue attended a Rose Backyard occasion on the White Home to announce a “Hispanic Prosperity Initiative” throughout Trump’s first time period. As NBC Information reported, Unanue mentioned “we’re all really blessed” to have a frontrunner like Trump, and shortly confronted criticism from Latino leaders equivalent to Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican strategist Ana Navarro-Cardenas.
Hashtags like #BoycottGoya and #Goyaway circulated social media platforms like X, then referred to as Twitter. Regardless of the push for a boycott, a examine from Cornell College in 2022 discovered gross sales for Goya merchandise briefly spiked earlier than returning again to regular ranges.
Then in 2024, Unanue was in Houston to endorse Trump for a second presidential time period. On the time, he informed Houston Public Media he felt the backlash was a double normal, as a result of he had mentioned “good issues” about President Barack Obama prior to now as effectively.
“I’ll all the time put my religion first although I’m a businessman,” he mentioned on the time. “And so they known as for my apology, and I mentioned, ‘No, I’m not gonna apologize.’ You apologize and you then’re fired anyway generally.”
