During the Trump administration, I became aware that the president or owner of Goya products was a big Trump supporter and contributor, so I decided not to purchase any more Goya products. I was probably one or two Goya products, dried beans and the like, every time I shopped and since about 2019, I’ve bought other brands exclusively. Have I brought them to their knees yet?
No, seriously, has Goya suffered any financial consequences from their association with Trump? I ask because boycotts seem pretty futile–I imagine that for every anti-Trump boycotter, there may be three pro-Trumpers who go out and increase their support for Goya products. Which, I guess, means that I am accomplishing something by buying other brands if I’m keeping them from increasing their overall market share with Trump-supporting bean buyers.
There are a number of brands which don’t get my money because they’ve made disagreeable politics a part of their brand. I don’t think of it as a boycott. It’s just making informed choices as a consumer.
I found out that the guy who owns Nathan’s hotdogs is/was a big Trumper. They are my favorite hotdogs, and my last dog, a dachshund, I even named Nathan. So I switched to Hebrew National, my second favorite.
No, I didn’t. Nathan was already gone when I found out. I miss that dog. I had him buried in the pet section of the same cemetery where I have quite a number of relatives.
I think boycotting a company over the antics of the owners is pointless. Ditto entertainers, restaurants, and all commerce as far as I can tell.
I don’t like Trump any more than y’all, but I pulled in here to eat lunch last month. I was hungry, it was there – I couldn’t care less how the owner votes.
I’ve done my part for the Goya boycott-- I used to occasionally buy Goya canned Pigeon Peas to make peas and rice for a side whenever I’d grill jerk chicken. Goya was the only brand of canned pigeon peas I could find at my grocery. Have not bought since the reveal that the owner was a trump supporter.
I doubt the loss of my 3 or 4 purchased cans a year has single-handedly brought the company to its knees. But as slicedalone says,
The problem with boycotts is that it’s highly unlikely - except in the most extreme circumstances - that the company being boycotted will draw the connection between their political stance and their financial bottom line. This is especially so if the company isn’t going down, but up.
Say that Goya’s revenue increased by 2.00% (for non-political reasons, just natural business growth) after it endorsed Trump, but it didn’t realize that, if it weren’t for customers boycotting it, it would have increased by 2.09%. It’s extremely improbable that Goya accountants or CEOs would think, “Hey, we missed out on 0.09% by endorsing Trump.” It won’t occur to them.
Or, even if their revenue goes down by 1% or 3%, they may just chalk it up to normal business fluctuations.
But it still feels good. And it hurts me surprisingly little: there are other brands of dried beans that are just as tasty, and a little bit cheaper than Goya.
I’ve still got some pre-pandemic Garbanzos, a big can of them, sitting in my cupboard, waiting to be used. Maybe I’ll cook something with them (already purchased, right?) or donate them to a soup kitchen or something of the sort. Either way, win-win-win.
My brother works for a beverage distributor that distributes almost everything that’s not Annheiser-Busch (so, Miller and all their beers. A-B does their own distribution.) He reports that while he doesn’t know if Budwieser sales dropped after the “Dylan Mulvaney Incident”, Miller/Coors sales did go up significantly for them. Their volume is typically pretty low in March & April but it shot up to May/Memorial Day levels at that time and has stayed that way, so far.
FWIW, Goya is the only brand I actively avoid – I’ll buy La Preferida instead, which has a very similar line of products and is also local to me. I somehow doubt it is having much of an effect on Goya, as I live in a very pro-Biden area (80-85% voted for him in 2016), yet the Goya products still seem to sell well at the local supermarket, so I doubt very many are even paying attention or paid attention to the Goya kerfuffle, or at least not enough to boycott them.
