Manuel Miranda Named Hispanic Businessman of the Year 2019

Since its establishment in 1967, the weekly Impacto has recorded the history of the Hispanic community in New York City and one of the traditions it maintains is the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, annually selecting Hispanics whose work, talent and contributions have impacted the New York community in a positive way.

Among Hispanics of the year work is rescued promoting diversity, volunteering, business and professional excellence, social responsibility, solidarity and promotion of values, defense of immigrants and
human rights, political representation, education and the sport, as well as the presence in the artistic world and of the spectacle.

Manuel Miranda

President of Delicias Andinas Food Corp., he was born in Bogotá Colombia, from where he emigrated in 1983 with his parents, when he was six years old.

His family opened a restaurant in Woodside and when it closed, his parents continued the artisanal production of arepas from the apartment where they lived in Flushing.

Manuel started working helping his parents since he was twelve years old. When he finished high school and at the request of his parents, he studied Engineering and began to work in a company, but in 1997 he decided to return to support the family, which in 1993 founded the company that Manuel currently runs.

The Miranda were pioneers in New York offering fresh arepas, when they only arrived packed from Colombia and it was their invention to prepare them square and sell them very fresh, so they don't focus on doing much, if not on making them well.

The first factory of the Miranda family to produce Colombian arepas operated in Corona, until they expanded to Maspeth.

Under the direction of Manuel, the Colombian arepa has been located in various markets in the United States, from New York to Boston and Florida.

In addition to promoting the creation of sources of employment, it is an example of the empowerment of Latinos through small businesses.

Manuel has achieved the growth of the company as the main manufacturer of artisan arepas in New York, a product with cultural content throughout the Andean region and has managed to obtain and maintain a stellar reputation for the company, for its work culture and business ethics.

Its philosophy is “to make decisions and do the right things at the business level and especially in the treatment of employees, which are not a tool, the company has been very careful to offer a workplace that helps them grow, that pays them well, that they have a development opportunity, with all the benefits of the law and more than that, because it even offers them a retirement plan.

Manuel says “we are like strangers in a certain way, but it is a formula that keeps us disciplined in making decisions about money, which not only belongs to the company, but also to the people who work there.

"Making homeland and representing it means doing things well, that people are surprised when they know where we are from, that the quality of the work makes an impact and our people feel proud."