It’s hard to drive past Goya’s new headquarters on County Road and not be struck by the vastness of the structure. That’s what inspired me to request a tour, which took place on a rainy Thursday morning in mid-July. The familiar blue Goya logo dominates the building. The sidewalk leading to the front entrance is also blue, as are many of the flowers in the beds on either side of the doorway.
Inside, everything is sleek and cool and modern. Grocery, advertising, and retail magazines are arranged on coffee tables. A crystal container bears a plaque reading “1999 Pro-Gro Award Ethnic Foods.”
A video loop on a wall-mounted flat screen TV is the most obvious sign that we are at ground zero for beans—and some 2,200 other Goya products. We see happy families and couples eating beans and delicious-looking Spanish dishes featuring coconut milk, fish, rice, and special Goya seasonings. Two running gags fantasize that if kids eat their beans they will become champion weightlifters and Nobel laureates.
Looking Around
Director of Public Relations Rafael Toro starts the tour at the business end of the building, which looks like a set for a movie about a major newspaper, like the New York Times or the Washington Post, with inner cubicles and large windowed offices on the outside. Through the windows, these employees enjoy a unique industrial landscape of marshland, towers, the latticework of distant bridges, and trucks moving slowly on the highways beyond. A big loop of the office floor takes us past marketing, public relations, finance, legal, national sales, and then on to HR, logistics, operations, traffic, IT, the nutritionist, test kitchen and lab, executive chef, and health and fitness room. At 10 a.m., there is no one in the exercise room.
From this floor you enter the warehouse. Nothing, I mean nothing, can prepare you for the magnitude of this facility. The space looks like it could fit dozens of airplane hangars. It also has an Andy Warhol vibe, as if his Brillo boxes and Campbell Soup cans had decided to breed and inhabit this vast world. The floors are so clean and shiny, you could eat a Goya meal off them. It’s surprisingly quiet. Forklifts hum around the place like little Zambonis, and the operators don’t seem to do much talking. Every single package is accounted for, so if you’re thinking of filching even one shaker of Adobo, forget it.
Fusion Culture
President Bob Unanue touts the company’s “door-to-store” delivery, meaning that the goods do not go to a warehouse first. That truck, delivering your Goya products to your local deli, starts at 350 County Road in Jersey City.
The company was founded in 1936 in Manhattan, later moved to Brooklyn, then Secaucus, and then Jersey City. A packaging facility is still in Secaucus.
The locale is ideal because it’s a major trucking hub, close to major markets. “The Northeast is a very big market for us,” Unanue says. He figures they won’t outgrow the facility for another two decades.
You can’t talk about Goya products without talking about the huge Latino population in the United States, at last count close to 60 million people. Unanue trumpets its diversity, citing immigrants from the Caribbean, Central America, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America, and Spain.
“With intermingling and intermarriage of diverse cultures,” he says, “comes a diverse and incredibly varied cuisine that’s found its way into the American culture and fabric. The three things that immigrants bring are their language, music—and food.”
Spilling the Beans
The company’s “biggest-moving” item is beans, particularly black beans, which Unanue says have more antioxidants than blueberries.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg contacted the company about adding low-sodium products, and First Lady Michelle Obama asked them to reach out to the Latin community because of its high rates of obesity and diabetes. The government’s “My Plate” program divides meals into four categories: fruits, vegetables, grains, and proteins, with some dairy. “Beans occupy two of the four categories: protein and vegetables,” Unanue says. “It’s a great opportunity for us to eat healthier and enjoy great cuisines.” Lentils, for example, which are very healthy, are favorites with Jersey City’s large Indian community. A popular indigenous product is quinoa seeds from the Andes in Peru.
Unanue observes that when Latin immigrants assimilate into U.S. culture they go from soaking their dried beans overnight to opening a can of beans and adding their own spices, to eventually buying frozen prepared foods. Goya supplies every iteration of the bean.
Garden State Goya
Unanue can sound like a nutritionist or a truck driver, depending on what department of the company he’s discussing. “I learned on the job,” he says. “I’ve worked in the company since I was 10 years old—it was required by my parents and grandparents. I worked on the production line. When we were in Brooklyn in 1964 I was making 50 cents an hour. I’ve done every job from production to loading trucks, the whole gamut. I also studied business and accounting.”
His work for Goya has brought him to California and Puerto Rico. He studied accounting at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., and also attended the University of Seville, in Spain.
But his Jersey roots run deep. He was born in Teaneck, studied at William Paterson University in Wayne, and sits on the board of directors of New Jersey City University.
He says, “New Jersey is critical for the distribution industry, so we want to stay where we are.”—JCM
Just the Stats
Distribution center is 600,000 square feet.
Corporate headquarters is 42,000 square feet.
Eleven acres of rooftop hold 12,000 solar panels.
Employs more than 4,000 people worldwide.
New facility ensured retention of 500 existing jobs and 100 new positions, with 150 construction jobs.
26 facilities are located throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Spain
Donates to local food pantries and has donated funds to The Golden Door Charter School in Jersey City and the Hudson County School of Technology-County Prep High School Culinary Program.