Ex-Goya COO on the $1.4 Trillion Family Business Opportunity in Three Consumer Sectors | Andy Unanue

Andy Unanue is the former COO of Goya Foods and founder of AUA Private Equity Partners, which began as a family office in 2004 before being institutionalized. His operating background at Goya directly shaped AUA's strategy of partnering with lower middle market family-run businesses across food, beverage, pet wellness, and co-manufacturing. The firm sizes its addressable market in those four sectors at $1.3 to $1.4 trillion, attributing the scale to family-run businesses generating over 70 percent of US GDP, though Unanue flagged uncertainty on that specific figure.

AUA targets businesses generating $10 million to $40 million in EBITDA and requires families to roll equity back into each transaction. AUA retains over 50 percent control while families typically retain 15 to 45 percent post-partnership. Average leverage runs approximately three turns, well below the five to eight times common among peers, and some transactions have closed with no leverage at all due to family aversion to debt. A typical value creation outcome moves a business from roughly $20 million to $55 million in EBITDA, with Unanue citing 15 to 30 percent operational efficiencies found in every business the firm has partnered with. Those gains come primarily from identifying bottlenecks and staggering shifts rather than significant capital expenditure, and from culture changes that reduce safety incidents and turnover enough to lower total labor costs despite paying higher wages.

AUA buys in the $10 to $50 million EBITDA range and sells to buyers targeting $30 to $200 million EBITDA businesses. All exits except one have gone to larger private equity sponsors or strategic buyers. Unanue described building a meat snack co-manufacturing business from $18 million to over $50 million in EBITDA and providing the next buyer a roadmap to $75 million, but exiting before executing that phase due to fund life and obligations to investors. He called this bittersweet given his family business background and said he is actively exploring continuation vehicles and longer hold structures, including moving one healthy snacking company held for roughly two and a half years into a fresh five-year structure with new capital.

In pet wellness, AUA research showed that during the 2008 market dislocation consumers cut spending on children before cutting spending on pets. Unanue identified two demographic forces sustaining that trend: younger generations delaying children and older baby boomers replacing grown children with pets. He also noted that proximity of a pet to the owner's bed correlates with higher spending on that pet.

In Hispanic and ethnic foods, Unanue argued that cross-pollination of food cultures is expanding the addressable market well beyond immigrant populations. He said cost per viewer impression on Spanish-language television is significantly cheaper than on general market English-language television despite reaching comparable audience sizes. AUA's current portfolio includes Tropical Cheese, which Unanue described as the number one Hispanic cheese business east of the Mississippi, positioned specifically for Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican consumers. Rather than developing Mexican cheese products internally, AUA's stated strategy is to acquire an existing Mexican cheese company to enter that regionally distinct segment.

On co-manufacturing, Unanue argued that buying a company with existing manufacturing capability is faster and cheaper than building new, because the acquired business comes with customers and operational know-how already in place. AUA has applied this approach in protein bars, meat snacks, and other categories, investing in manufacturers serving upstart brands rather than taking direct branded risk. He described beverage brands as carrying asymmetric binary risk, noting that for every success like Olipop or Poppi there are over 100 failures, and said AUA intends to approach beverages through co-manufacturing rather than branded exposure for that reason.

Unanue views high protein, high fiber, and cleaner label products as permanent long-term trends. He cited GLP-1, GLP-2, and GLP-3 drug adoption as reducing caloric volume consumption while increasing demand for protein and fiber, and predicted continued growth in smaller pack sizes and healthier snack formats. He also predicted that smaller authentic brands will continue to grow until they reach a scale requiring acquisition by large CPG companies, sustaining that ecosystem for the foreseeable future, and noted that some large CPG companies quietly acquire smaller brands and allow them to continue appearing family-run in order to preserve authenticity.

AUA has transacted with 29 families, and in every case those families became investors in the subsequent fund. Unanue attributes this to respectful treatment of family and employees and to framing acquisitions as partnerships rather than catalogues of what the family did wrong. He also pointed to the baby boomer wealth transfer as a structural tailwind, noting that families can be extremely wealthy through a private business yet have no liquidity, a situation he said persisted in his own family for at least a decade.