Jose Antonio Ortega Bonet

Who was Jose Antonio Ortega Bonet?

Jose Antonio Ortega Bonet was a Cuban-born entrepreneur and businessman who founded the Sazón Goya Food Company. Ortega, who was nicknamed "Pepe", was known as "El Gallego" to his friends.

Jose Antonio Ortega Bonet was born in Havana, Cuba, on October 27, 1929. He attended the Belen Jesuit School, which had been founded by the Jesuits in Havana in 1854. Ortega graduated from the University of Havana with a business science degree. When he was still relatively young, Bonet began working at a food distribution company called F. Bonet y Cía after the death of his father. He soon launched his own business. Ortega founded the first automobile air-conditioning business in Cuba.

Ortega married his wife, Lucila Galvis Gómez-Plata, a Colombian student studying in Havana, in April 1954. The couple had two children during their marriage, María Elena and José Antonio Ortega Jr. The family left Cuba in 1960 following the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro. They briefly moved to Lucila's native Colombia before settling in Puerto Rico in 1963.

Ortega launched a new food business in Puerto Rico.